On the histology and function of the mammalian superior cervical ganglion / by W. Hale White.

  • Hale-White, William, 1857-1949.
Date:
[1888]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the histology and function of the mammalian superior cervical ganglion / by W. Hale White. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    cells be confirmed, they will explain the yellow colour of the pigmenta- tion. This granular pigmentary change certainly cannot be due to alteration after death, for many of the sections prepared from ganglia of the lower animals and some of the sections prepared from human ganglia showed little or none of it, whilst others prepared in a precisely similar way showed it in abundance. Reference to the appended list of human superior cervical ganglia shows that the only ones which can be said to be but moderately affected are numbers 4, 5, 13, 14, 15, 17, 36. Forty-one ganglia are described, so that 83 per cent, of human superior cervical ganglia may be said to pos- sess considerably degenerate cells, and even the remaining 17 per cent, are not entirely free from degeneration. This is a result so astounding that it might be thought that the condition here described as degenerative is really normal for sympathetic cells, but that cannot be, for it is impos- sible to conceive that the minute masses of pigmented granular matter can be normal nerve cells; all stages may be seen between what I have already described as the normal types of sympathetic ganglion cells and these granular masses; and, lastly, many lower animals and human foetuses have cells corresponding to the usual type of nerve cells. Other observers, who have examined a large number of human sympathetic ganglia are agreed as to the frequency of this change, for example, Giovanni1 shows how common pigment granules are. His tables, and mine also demonstrate that this degenerate condition bears no relation to the cause of death. We seem therefore forced to the conclusion, that although the nerve cells cannot be called normal, nevertheless it must be allowed that the normal human superior cervical ganglion contains large numbers of cells in all stages of pigmentary granular degeneration. In order to see whether this condition is frequent in the lower animals I have examined the superior cervical ganglion from 46 mammals. I have not extended my researches to cold-blooded animals, for Gaskell2 says The evidence then strongly points to the conclusion that in those cold-blooded animals, which possess a cervical sympathetic of the same nature as that found in mammalia, no superior cervical ganglion exists. In the table at the end of this paper the animals are roughly grouped according to their position in the class Mammalia. Among the ten old-world apes examined, four, namely the vervet 1 Patologia del Simpatico, p. 117 et seq. 2 On the structure and function of visceral nerves. This Journal, Jan. 1886,
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