Abstract
THE work which Dr. Waller has recently summed up in the Croonian. Lecture, is an experimental study of the influence of reagents upon excitable—that is to say, living—protoplasm. The choice of nerve as the most convenient form of living matter in such an inquiry is justified by the consideration that nerve, as is now generally admitted, is practically inexhaustible. That nerve fibre, apart from its end organs, is peculiarly responsive to even slight changes of chemical condition; and, further, that with this tissue there is the advantage of a wide and regular range between minimal and maximal effects. A previous research had shown (Brain, 1895) that in nerve, contrary to what obtains in muscle, stimulus and response, cause and effect are proportional, the curve expressing their relation to one another being a straight line. Probably, however, the autographic records of these nerve experiments will afford the most convincing argument for the employment of nerve fibre as a test tissue.
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S., S. Observations on Isolated Nerve. Nature 54, 18–19 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/054018a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/054018a0