Vol. 6, 1920 
PHYSIOLOGY: S. J. MELTZER 
537 
empty and contracted in all cases in which the state of that tttbe was looked 
for, while in thirteen out of eighteen animals in which both vagi were cut, 
the entire esophagus was distended and full of food, a fact which speaks for 
the contention that the vag^ts nerves have not been afected by the removal of 
the ganglia. 
From the foregoing evidences, I am inclined to conclude that the death 
of the animals in which both ganglia were removed was due to the removal 
of these organs — if I may call them so — and not due to the procedure of the 
operation. In other words, the superior cervical ganglia contain a principle 
which is essential for the maintenance of life. 
As to the nature of the pulmonary lesions which were found after 
death following the removal of both ganglia, I shall only say that nearly 
in all instances there was a bronchopneumonia which was mostly located 
in the upper and middle lobes, and a pulmonary edema located mostly 
in the lower lobes of the lungs. In a few cases there were large and small 
abscesses in some parts of the lungs, and in some lungs there were plugs 
in the small bronchi which were apparently connected with the abscesses 
and which consisted of fibrin, pus and foreign material. In a few in- 
stances there were also serous or purulent pleurisies. I shall not attempt 
to enter into further details. Furthermore, I shall not discuss the ques- 
tion whether there is any difference between the pulmonary lesions ob- 
served after the removal of both ganglia and the lesions found in the 
lungs after section of both vagi. This I can the more afford to do, since 
the centuries' old question as to the nature of the pulmonary lesions 
after section of both vagi was recently opened up again by the import- 
ant researches of Schafer^), and the entire question will surely have to 
be a subject of further investigations. 
As to the nature of the mechanism by which the ganglia may control 
life, I shall, for the present, offer only a hypothesis. At the beginning of this 
communication, I called attention to the fibres from the superior cervical 
ganglia which enter the "brain," and put forward the question, whether 
some of these fibres may not terminate in a vital part of the medulla 
oblongata. The hypothesis answers this question in the affirmative, 
namely, that the fibres reach the respiratory centre in which they exert 
a controlling influence upon the coordinate antagonistic activities of the 
laryngeal muscles in the function of respiration. As we know, the glottis 
becomes wider during inspiration and narrower during expiration and is 
otherwise changing its configuration in the different respiratory phases. The 
larynx is provided with extrinsic and intrinsic muscles which act alternately 
as adductors and abductors and are innervated by different fibers running 
in the trunks of the laryngeal nerves. According to the law which I 
termed Antagonistic Innervation or the law of Reciprocal Innervation 
(Sherrington), the adductor muscles of the larynx become inhibited dur- 
ing the contraction of the abductors, and the latter become inhibited during 
