THE METABOLISM OF THE BODY. 455 



mand an unusual supply of pabulum. This is, however, no 

 more a cause of the functional condition tlian food is a cause of 

 a man's working. It may hamper, if not digested and assimi- 

 lated. It becomes, then, apparent that the essential for metab- 

 olism is a vital connection with the dominant nervous system. 



It has been objected that the nervous system has a metab- 

 olism of its own independent of other regulative influences; 

 but in this objection it seems to be forgotten that the nervous 

 system is itself made up of parts which are related as higher 

 and lower, or at all events which intercommunicate and ener- 

 gize one another. We have learned that one muscle-cell has 

 power to rouse another to activity when an impulse has reached 

 it from a nervous ceater. Doubtless this phenomenon has 

 many parallels in the body, and explains how remotely a nerv- 

 ous center may exert its power. It enables one to understand to 

 some extent many of those wonderful co-ordinations (obscure 

 in detaU) that are constantly taking place in the body. We 

 think the facts as they accumulate will more and more show, 

 as has been already urged, that the influence of blood-pressure 

 on the metabolic (nutritive) processes has been much over- 

 estimated. They are not essential but concomitant in the 

 highest animals. Turning to the case of muscle we find that 

 when a skeletal muscle is tetanized the essential chemical and 

 electrical phenomena are to be regarded as changes difEeriag in 

 degree only from those of the so-called resting state. There is 

 more oxygen used, more carbonic anhydride excreted, etc. The 

 change in form seems to be the least important from a physio- 

 logical point of view. Now, while all this can go on in the 

 absence of blood or even of oxygen, it can not take place with- 

 out nerve influence or something simulating it. Cut the nerve 

 of a muscle, and it undergoes fatty.degeneration, and atrophies. 

 True, this may be deferred, but not indefinitely, by the applica- 

 tion of electricity, acting somewhat like a nerve itself, and in- 

 ducing the approximately normal series of metabolic changes. 

 If, then, the condition when not in contraction (rest) differs 

 from the latter in all the essential metabolic changes in rate or 

 degree only ; and if the functional condition or accelerated 

 metabolism is dependent on nerve influence, it seems reason- 

 able to believe that in the resting condition the latter is not 

 withheld. 



The recent investigations on the heart make such views as 

 we are urging clearer still. It is known that section of the 



