THE CORRELATION OF STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION 

 IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



By STEWART PATON, M.D. 

 (Read April i8, 191 3.) 



Catch phrases sometimes creep into scientific literature where 

 their presence may be as insidiously suggestive of the possession of 

 imaginary stores of knowledge as they are when employed in the 

 description of current events. We have for example become so 

 accustomed to affirming the history of the individual reproduces in 

 miniature the history of the race that we are often in danger of 

 assuming a greater degree of familiarity with the details of onto- 

 genesis than is warranted by a careful survey of the facts. Our 

 knowledge of the primitive reactions of the higher organisms in 

 relation to synchronous structural conditions is still so meagre that 

 it has scarcely risen above the stage of conjecture and cannot be 

 presented in the form of organized experience. Although it is not 

 necessary to actually question the validity of a very useful hypothesis, 

 based upon the similarity of the more striking features in ontogeny 

 that are paralleled by the chief events of phylogenetic development, 

 there is nevertheless adequate reason for emphasizing the necessity 

 not only for more careful study of the correlation of events in the 

 structural and functional growth of the higher organisms, as funda- 

 mental to a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of 

 nervous reactions, but also as a method of determining the factors 

 of individual behavior. 



Efforts have already been made by a few investigators to try and 

 study the relationships existing between the structural conditions 

 existing at certain epochs, and the character of the synchronous 

 responses of the embryo. The observations of Wintrebert, prob- 

 ably among the first to be recorded in the discussion of these special 

 problems, were not by any means as extensive or as carefully planned 



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