The effect of alcohol on the nerve cells of rats

✍ Scribed by R. T. Young

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1931
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 994 KB
• Volume: 52
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9967
• DOI: 10.1002/cne.900520202

✦ Synopsis

The basis of the activities of the organism is the cell. An understanding of the structure and function of the latter will solve for us the problems of the former, in health and in disease. Conversely, stimuli affecting the organism must produce their effect through the medium of the cell, and, in so doing, must affect the latter, either physically or chemically or both. If our technique be sufficiently refined, we should be able to detect such changes in the cell. I n many cases this is possible, but in others the changes are apparently too slight to be observed.

. . . . the chemical processes in the body are so delicate that an infinitesimal dose of poison (snake poison for instance) can fatally arrest them without causing any changes of structure in the corpuscles which even the highest microscopical magnification can detect (Horsley and Sturge, '15, p. 133).