Rest, suggestion, and other therapeutic measures in nervous and mental diseases / by Francis X. Dercum.

  • Francis Xavier Dercum
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Rest, suggestion, and other therapeutic measures in nervous and mental diseases / by Francis X. Dercum. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    TISSUE-CHANGES OF FUNCTION strated, though the facts attending vascular supply and tempo¬ rary obstruction justify the inference that such changes of necessity take place. The effect of temporary compression of the vessels of the brain or of the abdominal aorta in producing arrest of function of the brain, on the one hand, or of the cord, on the other—is an instance in point. Further, the presence of substances that are the products of retrogressive metamorphosis can have but one meaning. In addition, a number of observers have demonstrated that nerve-cells at rest and in activity present marked differences histologically. Thus, Hodge, Vas, Nissl, Mann, Lugaro, and others have studied the changes in nerve-cells that result from function. While the various investigators differ somewhat as to details, they agree as to the essential facts. They have discovered that during rest the chromatic substance in the cells increases in amount, and that during functional activity it is diminished. Activity of the nerve-cell is first accompanied by swelling of the protoplasm of the cell-body, later by a progressive diminution in the size of the cell- body. If functional activity be prolonged, the nucleus undergoes changes similar to those of the cell-body, and this is true of the nucleoli; there is at first an increase in volume, which subse¬ quently gives way to the reducing action of fatigue. As regards the changes observed in other structures than nerves and muscles, it may be stated as a general fact that all organs in which periods of rest alternate with periods of activity, present striking differences, chemical and morphologic, corresponding with these periods. The behavior of the salivary glands or of the glands of the stomach needs only to be alluded to in this connection. In structures in which function is not periodic, no contrasts of state can of course be found, but the great truth of change, chemical and structural, accompanying functional activity either can be demon¬ strated or is a matter of logical inference. Again, even in the case of such organs as the blood-making structures and the glands of internal secretion, it is extremely probable that the same degree of activity is neither steadily nor always maintained, and that these organs likewise have periods of maximal and of minimal function. The changes, chemical and morphologic, taking place in muscles
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