Development of the Nerve System
Already may be noted a hint and a prophecy of that future segmental organization by which it becomes possible for some spinal vertebra to become displaced and thus begin a morbid process which may diffuse itself throughout an entire body segment, involving neural and somatic elements together. Already the simple organization begins to become rapidly complex and difficult to trace.
Cell masses begin to migrate from the walls of the primitive neural tube to a position laterad to become the spinal ganglia; these send out long dendritic processes which marvellously thread their way to a predetermined peripheral connection which is to bring some cutaneous, or muscular, or joint tissue into sensor relation with the dorsal, or Sensor, portion of the cord and through it with the brain; at the same time they send their axonic processes inward to mingle with and communicate with the dendrites of other sensor cells remaining in the central axis to form the gray matter of the cord, and thus, migrating, keep up communication both with the central axis and the periphery. Other cell masses migrate ventrolaterad to form the sympathetic ganglia and they also send out afferent and efferent processes which make a connection on the one hand with the periphery and on the other with the source from which the cells developed, the situation to be occupied by the cord. From this view it is seen that the sympathetic system is merely an offshoot from the same source with all the rest of the peripheral nerve system, merely a mechanism for the proper distribution of nerve impulses from the central organs, and that it retains its connection in all its parts with those organs. Its ganglia, like those of the cord, are always and from the beginning under the domination of the upper or cephalic end of the neural tube.
This cephalic end rapidly expands. Its growth is faster than the rest of the neural tube and from its walls, by proliferation, develop the structures of the cerebrum, mid-brain, and hind-brain. It also gives off ganglionic masses from which grow sensor processes to form the afferent elements of the cranial nerves and contains, like the cord, motor nuclei, or nidi, from which motor axons grow toward the periphery to come into relation with definitely predetermined organs.