382 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
cause tlie traumatism the region had received. Could such 
condition have occurred, had not the animal been Under the in¬ 
fluence of a special diathesis? Evidently no .—(Annales de 
Bruxelles .) 
________ _ 
II Gran Simpatico nell’ Uomo e Negli Animale (The great sympathetic in 
man and animals.) By Prof. F Boschetti. 
Has the last word been said about this important nerve, the 
gi eat sympathetic , and can scientific medical men remain satisfied 
with all that has already been written about it—and concerning 
its history, physiology, pathology and therapeutics, made in a 
comparative point of view-—that is, in human as well as veteri¬ 
nary medicine. Dr. F. Boschetti, Professor at the University of 
Parma, does not believe it; he has made many researches 
through all the literature which he has found, and has recently 
brought out an excellent little work, illustrated with plates, 
where he reviews the entire subject, and from which he draws 
the following conclusions : 
(1) The great sympathetic has to this day been studied but 
little by anatomists, physiologists, pathologists and practitioners 
of human medicine. It has almost been entirely ignored in 
veterinary medicine. 
(2) Taking in consideration the works of Uobstein, Eilen- 
berg, Guttmann, White, Trumet, and specially those of De 
Giovanni, its pathology and clinical history must be revised 
from the first to the last, in bearing in mind its treble function 
(vaso-motor, secretory and sensitive), not only as an independent 
nervous system, but in its relations with the cerebro-spinal sys¬ 
tem. 
(3) The sympathetic has to be studied to the point of view 
of comparative anatomy, physiology, and pathology in man and 
animals. 
(4) Neurosis in general, neurasthenia in particular, find 
often their explanation in the great sympathetic, which may be 
altered primitively by specific causes (genital, intestinal, infec¬ 
tions, etc.) or by intellectual or physical excesses. But the first 
causes of neurosis and of neurasthenia are passions which act 
upon the cerebro-spinal system and upon the great sympathetic 
in giving various primitive or secondary forms. 
(5) Pharmaceutical therapeuty is but of small and relative 
value in the pathology of the sympathetic as in pathology in 
general. 
