ABSTRACT
In occupational and environmental health, diseases of the nervous system are seldom attributed with their true importance. The involvement of the nervous system in systemic intoxication offers diagnostic and investigative challenges to the occupational toxicologist. The nervous system consists of the central and peripheral nervous systems. The peripheral nervous system comprises nerves and ganglia. The structure of nervous systems can be quite complex, but at the cellular level it normally consists of neurones, support cells and other structures. Supporting neuroglial cells in the central nervous system are called oligodendrocytes and in the peripheral nervous system they are called Schwann cells. The function of the nervous system as a whole depends very much upon the complexity of the network of connections between the various neurones rather than the specific features of any single neurone. As the situations in which neurotoxic agents have been recognised in exposed workers have grown, so has the importance of occupational neurotoxicology as a speciality.
