
- 1905.] On Reciprocal Innervation of Antagonistic Muscles. 297 
4 
excitation of them. Moreover, the various reflex arcs that cause inhibition 
of these muscles not only cause excitation of them instead, but are, 
periodically or more or less constantly, in a state of hyper-excitement, and 
yet attempt on the part of the sufferer to restrain, to inhibit, their reflex 
reaction, instead of relaxing them only heightens their excitation further, 
and thus exacerbates a rigidity or a convulsion already in progress. 
I have not yet examined in this respect the action of the virus of rabies. 
It seems to me not improbable that that virus also upsets reciprocal inner- 
vation, though its field of operation, at least in man, probably lies not in the 
same group of mechanisms as are affected by strychnine and tetanus toxin 
but in an allied one, namely, the co-ordinations inter-regulating deglutition 
and respiration. 
VOL. LXXVI.—B. X 
