ABSTRACT
The nerve-cells, considered as to their intrinsic properties, individually participate in all the general phenomena of the life of cells. Like all their fellows they have their history, their genealogy, their periods of growth and decay. The continuity of the sanguine irrigation is, then, the sine qua non of the regular working of the cerebral cells. It is at the expense of the juices exhaled from the walls of the capillaries, that they feed themselves and continually repair the losses sustained by their integral constitution. "The variations of temperature appear to be connected with different degrees of cerebral activity. During active brain-work it never exceeds 120th of a degree centigrade. When once provided with the necessary elements of nutrition, the cerebral cell becomes capable of entering into action, and performing the dynamic function for which it is designed. The blood which comes to the brain red and oxygenated, returns by the capillaries black and charged with carbonic acid.
