Efvects of Nervous Currents in Skin Wounds 37 
of the intercellular bridges which this explanation pre- 
supposes would require to be explained themselves. It 
is to be remembered further that Roux in his studies 
upon the struggle of the parts of the organism has 
shown that the great affluence of necessary nutritive fluids 
is always the consequence rather than the cause of the 
growth of the organic substance. 
This experiment of Siegfried Garten argues strongly 
in favor then of the hypothesis that a continuous nervous 
flux traverses the intercellular bridges. The nuclei, as 
foci of nervous energy, would be precisely the sources 
which feed it, and which in normal conditions preserve 
it unaltered. At the same time, the nervous flux dis- 
charged by the other nuclei in passing through any one 
nucleus acts like a functional trophic stimulus, in so far 
as it is favorable to the specific vital process of this 
nucleus. Each increase or decrease of this current 
passing through certain nuclei caused by conditions lying 
without these nuclei, would have as a result an aug- 
mentation or diminution first of their mass and later 
of their number. 
This augmentation of the nervous flux in given zones 
following the ablation of neighboring parts would thus 
‘be the general cause of the active proliferation of cells 
by which all the phenomena of reproduction commence. 
Later when there comes into play a disturbance of 
the equilibrium, one can conceive that its reestablish- 
ment can proceed and spread from any one whatever 
of the numerous parts which surround the part cut off. 
In other and more general terms one understands that 
the reestablishment of the normal distribution of nervous 
energy, necessary for the reformation of an organ, in 
case it be prevented from following the ordinary way, 
