Medical diagnosis : a manual of clinical diagnosis / J.J. Graham Brown.

  • Brown, J. J. Graham (John James Graham), 1853-1925.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical diagnosis : a manual of clinical diagnosis / J.J. Graham Brown. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    422/454 (page 400)
    NERVOUS SYSTEM —{continued). TROPHIC FUNCTIONS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. Amidst a great deal that is uncertain in respect to these functions, there are several well ascertained facts which may be briefly alluded to here. The nutrition of all the tissues is under the control of the nervous system, and disease in this system may lead to serious and well-marked nutritional disturb- ance in various organs of the body. One or two of the more important of these trophic changes may be mentioned. I. Muscular Tropho-neuroses.—Muscles may atrophy as the result of local causes, or as a consequence of long inaction (such as follows paralysis from cerebral haemorrhage or em- bolism). Apart from these causes, when active neurotic atrophy of the muscles occurs, it is due either to disease of the nerve cells in the anterior horns of grey matter in the spinal cord or corresponding regions in the medulla, or to affections of those nerve fibres which connect these cells with the affected muscles. It is in such cases that electrical examination gives the reaction of degeneration already described, and hence its great importance as a means of diagnosis. True muscular hypertrophy, as a pathological condition, is exceedingly rare, but it is seen in Thomsen's disease. With this must not be confused the pseudo-hypertrophy with increase of the size of the muscles, due to proliferation of interstitial connective tissue, which is seen in the pseudo-hypertrophic paralysis of children. II. Affections of Bones and Joints.—In all nervous affec- tions, whether peripheral or central, changes in the nutrition