On the relation of the nervous system to disease and disorder in the viscera.

  • Morison, Alexander.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the relation of the nervous system to disease and disorder in the viscera. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    and Keiiiak, in which the former denied and the latter affirmed the origin of nerve fibres from ganglion cells. It is provocative of reverential admiration that, in this early brochm-e, Bidder mentions the favom-able reception—unaccount- able to him—accorded to the discovery published in 1844 by a young scientist of Zurich, that ganglia could originate fibres which shortly assumed the double contour of medullated nerves. That scientist was Albert Kolliker, who still, as an octogenarian, graces the ranks of medicine, and this retrospect alone conveys to the mind the long and valuable services of him who in 1896 published a new edition of his histology of the nervous system, and con- templates, with the enthusiasm of perennial vigour, still further Avork. That he may live to accomplish this must be the desire of all who honour distinguished service in the cause of science, and •especially of those who, like myself, have had the privilege of his personal instruction. Notwithstanding the admirable work of many investigators in the interval, the anatomy and physiology of the sympathetic system, and its relation to the cerebro-spinal centres, remained in many respects obscure, until a comparatively recent period, and debatable questions in connection with it cannot even yet be regarded as settled. During the last decade our knowledge of visceral innerva- tion has been greatly increased. The invisible (as in other spheres) was previously regarded as the non-existent in many organs, which are now known to be richly endowed with nerves. The researches of Golgi, Kamon y Cajal, Kolliker, Gustaf Eetzius, Van Gehuchten, Sala, Von Lenhossek, Ehrlich, and the Dogiels abroad, and of Berkley and Sihler in America, have done much to elucidate a dark field of inquiry. To our own countrymen we also owe much, and before refer- ring to later investigators it would be unpardonable not to acknowledge our indebtedness to Lionel Beale, whose position to-day is not identical with that of many histologists, as regards the manner of nerve termination, but whose accurate observations have a permanent value. Gaskell, Langley, and F. M. Balfour of Cambridge, have each, by different methods, rendered clearer to us a subject once the despair of anatomists, physiologists, and physicians alike ; and the more recent work of Professor Paterson on the embryology of the sympathetic system has placed in a clearer light the original relation of the sympathetic to the