"Involuntary" Nerves The medical correspondent of "The Times" writes The most interesting subject in present-day medicine is what has been called "the involuntary nervous system. The involuntary nervous system is that tertian of the nervous system which lies, or seems to lie, outside the power of the will. It acts "on its own," automatically. It controls such organs as the heart, the stomach, the liver, and so on. These organs, indeed, are now suspected of being as greatly dependent on this nervous control as is the engine of a motor car on the spark. The analogy may not be perfect but it is sufficient.
A new complication was intro. duced when it was found by Langley that the extract of one of the bodies known as "'ductless glands" (the nature of which had long been a puzzle) acted direotly on @ portion of the involuntary nervous system. Thus, if these Nerves caused certain muscular fibres to contract, the extract ("adrenalin") also caused the muscular fibres to contract when brought into contact with them. Or again if the effect of stimulate ing the nerves was relaxation, "adrenalin" produced relaxation,
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