Reversal of the reflex effect of an afferent nerve by altering the character of the electrical stimulus applied.

Sherrington, Sir Charles Scott & Sowton, Sarah C.M.

Publication Date: 1911

About this Item

Proc. Roy. Soc. B, 83. - London, Harrison and Sons, 1911, 8°, VI, pp.435-446, 8 figs., orig. wrappers. Offprint! From the Physiological Laboratory, University of Liverpool. "Stimulation of an afferent limb-nerve in the decerebrate or decapitate mammal (cat, dog) gives as its reflex result flexion of that limb; during this flexion the pure extensor muscles of the limb relax under central inhibition. In the hind limb this reflex effect is observable in the isolated vasto-crureus, the main extensor muscle of the knee; that muscle if engaged in contraction relaxes when the afferent nerve is stimulated. Its elongation is the sign of the central inhibition which takes place. If the reflex stimulation be strong the muscle relaxes quickly and greatly; if the stimulation be weak the relaxation is slower and less ample. These results are easily demonstrable by using as a stimulus either faradism or mechanical stimulation such as ligation of the central stump of the afferent nerve. Usual and uniform as this result is, we find it possible in the decerebrate preparation under certain conditions to obtain reflex contraction of vastocrureus as well as reflex inhibition, and to elicit the contraction through the same afferent nerves as under other conditions so regularly elicit inhibition. The condition influencing the nature of the reflex result in this respect are (1) the strength and (2) the form of the electrical stimulus applied to the afferent nerve, and (3) the reflex state obtaining in the preparation at the time." Sherrington & Sowton Sir Charles Scott Sherrington (1857-1952) was a British neurophysiologist. His experimental research established many aspects of contemporary neuroscience, including the concept of the spinal reflex as a system involving connected neurons (the "neuron doctrine"), and the ways in which signal transmission between neurons can be potentiated or depotentiated. Sherrington himself coined the word "synapse" to define the connection between two neurons. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1932 (along with Edgar Adrian). In addition to his work in physiology, Sherrington did research in histology, bacteriology, and pathology. Sarah C.M. Sowton - "The only records of Sarah Sowton consist of papers published in the Journal of Physiology and elsewhere in collaboration with prominent physiologists of the time, particularly Sherrington. In 1896, with A. D. Waller, she gave a communication to the Physiological Society on the action of CO2 on voluntary and cardiac muscle; Waller was at that time Lecturer in Physiology at St Mary's Medical School. In 1903 she assisted Sherrington in work for a committee on Chloroform and papers in their joint names appeared in the British Medical Journal (1904 ii 162; 1906 ii 85) using a Langendorff heart perfused with blood. A paper by Sowton and Sherrington in the Journal of Physiology in 1911 dealt with the effect of Chloroform on spinal reflexes in the cat and subsequently (1911-15) there were four joint papers in the Proceedings of the Royal Society or the Journal of Physiology. In 1916, in a paper by Leyton, Leyton and Sowton in the Journal of Physiology, the isolated heart was used to investigate some aspects of anaphylaxis. At that time Leyton (p. 363) was Professor of Pathology at Leeds, from where the paper is dated. It seems therefore that Sarah Sowton had been assistant to Waller in London and Sherrington in Liverpool before the Physiological Society accepted women as guests or members. She was a guest at a meeting in Edinburgh in 1906, which was the first meeting at which women were present as guests, and was also a guest at a meeting in Liverpool in 1910. She was one of six women elected members in 1915 at the first possible meeting after the Society had by vote decided in 1914 that women were eligible for membership. She was apparently not medically qualified; the name of Sarah Sowton does not appear in the .

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Reversal of the reflex effect of an afferent nerve by altering the character of the electrical stimulus applied.
• Publication Date: 1911
• Binding: Soft cover
• Seller catalogs:
  • Neuroscience