It was a dark and stormy night...
One thing about the Internet, You never know where you will find content.
At the beginning of the classic Mel Brooks film,
Young Frankenstein there is a medical classroom scene, where young Dr. Frankenstein is addressing his students. A quick “Google” found a first draft of the screen play:
Young FrankensteinI removed the “punch lines”, “cut” and “stitched” together the dialog, and an excellent tutorial on the nervous system,
“CAME ALIVE!”. All puns intended.
MEDICAL STUDENT: Well sir... I'm not sure I understand the distinction between 'Reflexive' and 'Voluntary' nerve impulses.
FREDDY ( Fronkonsteen…Frankenstein…)
Mr. Hilltop! Would you raise your left knee, please!
Mr. Hilltop raises his left knee.
FREDDY: You have just witnessed a 'Voluntary' nerve impulse. It begins as a stimulus from the cerebral cortex, passes through the brain stem and then to the particular muscle involved. Mr. Hilltop, you may lower your knee.
He lowers his knee.
FREDDY: Reflex movements are those which are made independently of the will, but are carried out along pathways which pass between the periphery and the central nervous system. We are not aware of the impulses, neither do we intend them to contract our muscles. Now then! Modern research has shown us that by simply applying local pressure of ' blocking' the nerve impulse... which can be done with any ordinary metal clamp...
Freddy reaches out his hand. Carlson hands him a bicycle clamp. Freddy holds Mr. Hilltop's head and places the clamp behind Mr. Hilltop's ears.
FREDDY ... Just at the swelling on the posterior nerve root -- for, oh say five or six seconds... All communication is shut off. Similarly, damage to a nerve will mean that not all the impulses can get through and there will be weakness of a muscle...or group of muscles, with some loss of skin sensation on the area supplied by that nerve. In spite of our mechanical magnificence, if there is not this continuous stream of impulses... we would collapse like... a bunch of broccoli. In conclusion... it should be noted that more than common injury to the nerve roots is always serious, because... once a nerve fiber is severed... there is no way to regenerate life back into it.
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Well, maybe this isn’t a hundred percent accurate, but it does make a point.