770 
J. G. PARSLOW. 
show pain as the result of impaction anterior to the paralyzed 
portion of the bowel, while the other will present a sleepy, list¬ 
less, semi-conscious condition ; locomotion impaired and free 
from pain. Both of these cases have the same cause, ‘‘ indiges¬ 
tion.” Both the same condition as regards the bowel “ paraly¬ 
sis,” but showing a marked difference on the nervous system. 
Can those two cases be satisfactorily explained by the reflexed 
theory ? 
We will take the definition of a reflexed act, and it distinctly 
states that nerve force must be reflexed, as is conceded, and 
quite easily observed by pricking a horse without his seeing the 
same ; the result is that motor power is increased. In reflex 
paralysis, is there an3ffhing reflexed, or is it not simply a loss of 
functional activity ? 
With the latter view, I will go back over part of the ground, 
and taking the nerves presiding over the bowel, impoverished 
as the result of indigestion, we will notice that by degrees those 
nerves have been losing their function and that at no time has 
any great change taken place, but by a very evenly graded 
course they have gone on losing little by little of their function, 
until at last the}^ are completely deprived. Now, to say that at 
the last moment we must have a reflexed act to obtain this re¬ 
sult would appear largely imaginative and very complex, if not 
misleading. 
It has been demonstrated that we can have a reflexed act 
produced through the medium of the lower nerve centres, the 
higher centres being acquainted with the fact later, as an intel¬ 
ligence onl3^ In this same way we can have paralysis. When 
the nerve ending becomes so impaired as to lose its function, 
that function may only be lost to the first lower nerve centre, 
and in turn it may extend the loss of that function from one of 
these lower nerve centres to the other and so on to the highest 
nerve centre, and as such communion does exist as to use this 
lower centre as a transmitter or medium of exchange, whereby 
the force coming over one set of nerves is directed to the other, 
it is not to be wondered at that one or the other set of nerves 
