BMJ

Nerve Energy
Author(s): W. Burridge
Source: The British Medical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3793 (Sep. 16, 1933), p. 544
Published by: BMJ
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25318685 .
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544 Sept.
16,
1933]
CORRESPONDENCE
.
[
The British
Medical Journal
Toxaemias of
Pregnancy
Sir,?I have read Dr. Theobald's article on "The
Aetiology
and Preyention of the Toxaemias of
Pregnancy,"
in the issue of
August
26th. He states that
"
the
1,000
ante-natal clinics in
England
and Wales have
merely
served to lower the incidence rate of the albuminuria of
pregnancy,
but not that of
eclampsia."
I
append
the
statistics of the
Southport Maternity Hospital
ante-natal
clinic with
regard
to
eclampsia,
and would like to know
how he correlates his statement with facts.
Sou Hi
port County Borough Maternity Hospital
1921
1922
1923
1924
1 25
1:26
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
Total
.
AH
Patients
129
218
256
247
261
224
283
307
281
330
310
337
200
3,386
Individual
Patients
Attending
the Ante
natal Clinic
124
211
247
239
:5\
216
272
292
256
3C8
292
312
188
3,211
Eclamptic Cases Deaths
ill?
Emergencies
Borough
Other
Authorities
as
The one case recorded
among in-patients
did not
carry
out instructions. She became
pregnant again
within a
year,
and was under observation from a
very early
date.
She had no albumin in the urine
during
the whole time
of
carrying
the
baby,
and had a normal confinement at
term of a
healthy
child.?I am, etc.,
Southport. Sept.
5th.
A- S.
GARDEN, M.D.,
L.M.
"Nerve
Energy"
Sir,?Facts
are
usually
more
potent
than theories.
It
happens
that I have
recently published
two
books,
Excitability,
and the New
Physiology of
Sensation,
in
which it is demonstrated that there is
producible
in a
rhythmic
structure a
specific type
of
augmentation
of
activity,
which I have termed the
"
hysteresial augmenta
tion." The
properties
of this are such
that,
if the
pro
positions
be
put
forward that
light produces
a
hysteresial
augmentation
of
the.
activity
of
rhythmical
retinal end
organs,
and that the stimulation of an
end-organ produces
a similar
augmentation
of the
activity
of
rhythmical
central
neurones, the
properties
of the reflex arc, and the behaviour
of retinal end
organs,
are then deducible from the
original
'
proposition
or
theory.
There is no
need,
for
instance,
to
put
forward
any subsidiary hypotheses
to
explain
such
facts as
after-images,
or the
possession by light
of colour ;
one would
require
instead
special hypotheses
to
explain
the non-existence of these
phenomena.
That is to
say,
the new
theory directly
embraces the facts.
These books have now been reviewed
by physiologists
in
England
and America,
and their assessments
vary
from
the
"
landmark in the
history
of
physiology
"
to the
"
word-salad."
Such extremes of
opinion
have,
of course,
always
been formulated whenever there has been
published
a work with facts or views
contrary
to current doctrine.
In further accord with
this,
the
majority complain
that
the views which I have
put
forward are so
contrary
to
those
currently accepted by physiologists
that further
confirmation of the facts is
necessary, though,
curiously
enough,
none of them seems to have
gone
to look at the
facts for themselves?the obvious
thing
to do when in
doubt,
more
especially
when the facts are so
important
and so
easily
verified.
Accordingly
I consider that there
is sound
justification
for the
suggestion
that
physiologists
do not believe in the inherent
rhythmicity
of central
neurones.
Other facts,
which are to be numbered
by
the thousand,
demonstrate that the
proposition
of
modifying
the
activity
of a structure which is
already rhythmically
active
is
entirely
different from the
proposition
of
exciting
quiescent
muscle to
activity. Accordingly
I have called the
former
property "responsiveness,"
and left
"excitability"
to
designate
the latter. These two
properties,
moreover,
are so different that a
rhythmic
tissue with much excita
bility
has little
responsiveness.
The
excitability
standard
used,
it should be noted,
is the maximum of the
cycle.
The existence of this
responsiveness
is a
question
of fact,
which can be verified in
any ordinary laboratory.
But it
is an
entirely
new
discovery,
and
up
to the
present
the
only property
of excitable tissues which
physiologists
have
been able to use to
explain
the behaviour
of central
neurones and
end-organs
is the
property
which has been
studied in the muscle-nerve
preparation
as
excitability.
This, however,
in a
rhythmic
tissue determines
only
its
intrinsic
activity
;
once the tissue
acquires rhythm
it
acquires
the
property
of
responsiveness
as
well,
and reacts
to environmental
change through
it.
None of the authorities
quoted by
Professor Fraser
Harris in
your
issue of
August
5th
(p. 267)
has known of
the existence of
responsiveness
;
they
have known
only
of the existence of
excitability. They
have used the
only
tool
they
know of,
and that now
appears
to have been
the
wfbng
one. I think, therefore,
that I have been
correct in the statements
previously
made
concerning
the
foundation theories so far current
among physiologists.
I would now
point
out
again
that the
questions
of
thc?
existence of
hysteresial augmentations
and of
responsive
ness
respectively
are
questions
of fact. If Professor Fraser
Harris is not
prepared
to
accept
the evidence of their
existence
presented
in
my
own
works,
I can
only suggest
that he should
see the facts at first hand for himself?
I a week should suffice. After that,
I do not doubt that,
instead of
indulging
in
controversy,
we could
co-operate.
But,
once the facts are
accepted,
the
implications
are
very
serious,
because
they
are that the undue attention
given
to the muscle-nerve
preparation by past physio
logists
has been a
grave
hindrance
to medical
progress.
For
they
have been
delivering
to the clinicians the
wrong
I
tools for at least
a
couple
of
generations,
and so have
given
these latter no end of trouble in
trying
to use these
tools for tasks for which
they
were unsuitable. When
the clinicians learn of the new tools and make use of
them I have
no doubt that the
resulting progress
concern
ing
the basis of nerve
energy
will be
by
mutation rather
than
by
evolution.?I am, etc.,
Lucknow, Aug.
27th.
W. BuRRIDGE.
Chloroform
in Labour
Sir,?I
have
just
read Dr. Welsh's letter in the
Journal
of
June
17th.
My experience
resembles his.
Fifty years
ago
I was
taught
to
give
chloroform in
Edinburgh,
and
that, according
to the
Edinburgh
method, danger
was
negligible.
It consisted in
dropping
the
drug
on a mask
or towel?a few
drops during every pain.
For
many
years
I
practised
in a
large country
town in Australia,
I and had well over
1,600
cases. I
gave
chloroform in
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