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THE HARVEIJAN ORATION, 1903 55

motions, and the innervations, are due to changes of the condition of these colloidal solutions. And the reason why the electrical current is the universal form of stimulation is that the particles in colloidal solutions are electrically charged, and that every alteration of the charge of the particles will result in a process of innervation, or a contraction, or a protoplasmic motion.” Thus nerve action is simply electrical action, negative ions being released where nerve blends with muscle or where systems of concatenated neurons come into connection. Ion after ion is pre- cipitated, and thus neural conduction takes place.’ This play of ions is excited or inhibited by the character of the fluids with which the protoplasm is bathed, by the nature, that is, of the ions which these fluids contain. Most effective in stimulating protoplasmic action are such substances as sodium salts, as those of lime restrain it, and since such inorganic bodies are among the products of tissue waste, it may be that in the ions of metabolism are to be found the causes of that rhythmic tendency to activity which nerve cell and muscle fibre alike exhibit. If normal neuro-muscular action may be thus induced, the theory offers a clue to the comprehension of some of the most obscure morbid manifestations of these tissues, for, says Professor Loeb, “ that

1 Philadelphia Medical ‘Journal, March 22, 1902.

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