NEURO-PARALYTICAL INFLAMMATION. 353 



We can therefore now say, there is no form of dis- 

 turbance of this kind known which can be traced to the 

 abolition of the action of a nerve. A part may be para- 

 lyzed without becoming inflamed it may be anaesthetic 

 without becoming exposed to this danger. There is 

 always required in addition some special irritation, either 

 of a mechanical or chemical nature, and proceeding 

 either from without or from the blood, in order to pro- 

 duce the peculiar liability. 



In this manner therefore we have, as you see, a series 

 of connecting links between facts eminently pathological 

 and the most common processes of physiological life, 

 facts of which the special import can, however, only be 

 understood and defined, when the distinctions are made 

 to which I called your attention at the commencement 

 of the lecture, that is, when the different kinds of irrita- 

 tion are separated according to their functional, nutritive 



sufficient minuteness. According to the author's views, of which a more detailed 

 account may be found in his Handbuch der spec. Pathologic und Ther. Erlangen, 

 1854 (Vol. I., pp. 81, 50, 80, 276, 314, 319), the section and paralysis of nerves 

 certainly exercise some influence upon the nutrition of the tissues, although per- 

 haps only an indirect -one. The states arising from such causes he has classed 

 together under the name of Neurotic Atrophy. Parts which have in this way 

 suffered derangement in their nutrition, and as a consequence have become weak- 

 ened, are less capable of controlling the disorders by which they are attacked, and 

 accordingly simple irritation in them readily becomes aggravated into inflammation 

 (asthenic inflammation). But in these cases the inflammation is always the conse- 

 quence of some special irritation, never the direct result of the section of the 

 nerves. Still, as in the case of the fifth pair and the pneumogastric, such section 

 may be the cause of irritants' (foreign bodies and other agents) more readily acting 

 upon the anaesthetic or paralyzed parts. Cl. Bernard has recently declared that the 

 section or irritation of nerves in weakened parts produces effects which cannot be 

 elicited in healthy ones. We have therefore here to deal with a very complicated 

 state of things. The change in the nerve is generally succeeded by a disturbance 

 in the function or circulation of the part, or in both, and when the part is already 

 weakened (i. e., altered in its nutrition) this disturbance may prove a source of 

 irritation to it, and thus the effects be produced which Bernard ascribes to other 

 causes. In quite a similar manner we see that, even when the nervous supply is in 

 its normal state, purely mechanical disturbances in the circulation act upon weak- 

 ened parts as morbid irritants. From a MS. Note by the Author. 



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