214 
THOMPSON YATES LABORATORIES REPORT 
In the case of nerve no such apology is needed, for no other means have yet 
been found for detecting and measuring its intrinsic changes, even if these can finally 
he shewn to be of chemical rank ; nor can the study of the injury current be exempted 
from this claim. 
There still remains the great probability that a nervous impulse may be a change 
propagated by electrical agency, and even in its essential nature an electrical phen- 
omenon ; a travelling and temporary dislocation of pre-existing discrete particles, and 
not a travelling process producing new and differently gifted particles from the old. 
If so, it is as solutions of electrolytes confined to minute cylinders that nerve 
fibres have a most important interest ; and yet the characteristics of these solutions 
are beyond the reach of methods of ordinary chemical investigation. 
Therefore, any method which promises to reveal, even in an indirect way, the 
nature and concentration of these solutions, should be considered deserving of 
immediate and zealous application. 
The investigation of the injury current stands alone in offering such possibilities ; 
and its diligent prosecution is not a matter for apology, nor even of secondary though 
legitimate importance, but is the only means by which a knowledge of the funda- 
mental structure of the nerve can be obtained. 
