Diseases of the nervous system / by Judson S. Bury.

  • Judson Sykes Bury
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases of the nervous system / by Judson S. Bury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    67/856 (page 39)
    SECTION II. Etiology and General Pathology. It is beyond the scope of this manual to give a detailed account of the etiology and pathology of nervous diseases. In the account of each disease a description will he given of its etiology together with the chief facts relating to its morbid anatomy. It seems desirable to make a few introductory remarks also on the various ways in which the functions of nerve-tissue may be deranged and on the resulting visible alterations in its structure. In the main the causes are the same as those which produce disease in other parts of the body and similarly may be classified under the headings of heredity and environment. For the sake of simplicity we may restrict our attention to a single neuron and consider any morbid influences in its neighbourhood which may adversely influence it. The neuron is bathed in lymph and is surrounded by vessels and a fine network of connective tissue called neuroglia. It is also to be noted that its branches or dendrites are contiguous to those of other neurons. A little consideration of these facts makes it obvious that the ways in which a neuron may be injuriously affected are numerous. Thus its resistance may be lowered by inherited feebleness, by poisons in the lymph which surrounds it, or by changes in adjacent neurons. Again, a neuron may be lacerated or actually destroyed by external violence, or its structure may be seriously damaged in consequence of concussion, or of compression by a tumour. It may be torn or compressed by the sudden impact of blood which has escaped from a ruptured artery. In such a case hereditary tendencies to premature atheroma may be traced; this shows that the influence of heredity in the production of nervous disease may be due to early degeneration of extra-