GENERAL ANATOMY. 



SECTION III. 



ON THE GANGLIONS AND SYMPATHETIC NERVE. 



791. The. nervous ganglions are round or obround bodies, 

 formed of medullary nervous filaments and of a peculiar sub- 

 stance, placed upon the course of the nerv.es, and especially 

 the nerves of vegetative functions. 



792. The name of ganglions, yayysuoy, was employed by 

 Hippocrates, to designate tumours of the sheaths of the ten- 

 dons. Galen first applied it to the nodosities of the nerves, 

 from comparison with morbid ganglions. J. Riolen, jr. and 

 Vieussens have made use of the same name; others have em- 

 ployed that of gangliform plexus: that of ganglion is gene- 

 rally used now. 



Gall, Reil, Walter, Blainville, &c., have extended the mean- 

 ing of the word ganglion, and have applied it to the gray sub- 

 stance which exists in the interior of the spinal marrow, to the 

 masses of gray substance which are found in the medulla ob- 

 longata and in the crura cerebri and cerebelli, as the corpora 

 olivaria, the corpus rhomboideum of the cerebellum, the optic 

 thalami and the corpora striata; it has been exte.nded even to 

 the olfactory lobes, to the hemispheres of the brain, to the tu- 

 bercula and to the cerebellum; finally, the ganglions have been 

 confounded with the' plexus and with sensorial nervous expan- 

 sions. These are forced relations, which have already been 

 controverted by Walther the elder, Reimer, and Soemmering. 

 It is not in this sense that the word ganglion is employed here. 



793. The ganglions have been described and studied par- 

 ticularly by Meckel,* Jonstone,t Haase,J Scarpa, Bichat,|| 

 Weber, IF and especially Watzer. ** The opinion of anato- 



* Histoire de 1'acad. de Berlin, ann. 1749 & 1753. 



f Essays on the use of the gang-lions, etc. 1771. Medical essays, etc. 

 1795. 



% De gangliis nervnrum,- Lipsias, 1762. 

 ' De nervnrum Gangliis et plexubus,- Afutfme, 1779. 



Jl Aruitornit Generate. 



^ De systemate nerveo organ.,- Lipslsp^ 1817. 



** De corporis humani Gangliorumfabricd atqueusu; Bt.rolini, 1817. 



