Fine Structure of Hereditary Defects of the Central Nervous System in Mice

1985 ◽  
pp. 239-272
Author(s):  
Doris Burda Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Central Nervous System ◽  
Nervous System ◽  
Fine Structure ◽  
The Central Nervous System

Some aspects of Sherrington’s contribution to neurophysiology

1957 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-225 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Central Nervous System ◽  
Nervous System ◽  
Fine Structure ◽  
Complex Network ◽  
Nerve Cells ◽  
Final Evaluation ◽  
Good Fortune ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Central Nervous System ◽  
Great Complexity

Since this year we are celebrating the centenary of Sherrington’s birth, it is fitting that we should try to understand and appreciate the significance of his life. Doubtless we still live too close to him for final evaluation, if that ever can be made, but this is the occasion for an appraisal by those who knew him and who are happy to be called his pupils. In the history of physiology there is one achievement that ranks above all others—the discovery of the circulation by Harvey. That discovery gave the foundation on which the physiology of the circulation could be built as a secure and ever-growing structure. It has been claimed that Sherrington’s achievement has been to construct the secure foundations for the physiology of the central nervous system, and even that The integrative action of the nervous system has had an influence comparable with that of De motu cordis . On account of its great complexity it is easy to understand that the central nervous system had to wait for almost three hundred years longer than the circulation before the foundation of understanding could be built. In fact Sherrington’s work could not have been done earlier. Descartes, Magendie, and Bell, for example, suffered from an insurmountable handicap, because it is only in terms of the fine structure that the working of the nervous system can be understood. As so often happens in outstanding human achievements, the young Sherrington had the good fortune to live just when the great neuro-histologists were making their fundamental contributions and he was no mean neuro-histologist himself. Sherrington saw clearly the enormous significance of the neurone theory of His, Forel, Cajal and van Gehuchten, so that all his physiological thinking was conceived in terms of the anatomical independence of the nerve cells or neurones. Hitherto the nervous system had been conceived as a complex network of fine nerve branches which freely anastomosed with each other.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document