The nervous system, anatomical and physiological : in which the functions of the various parts of the brain are for the first time assigned: and to which is prefixed some account of the author's earliest discoveries, of which the more recent doctrine of Bell, Magendi, etc. is shown to be one.

  • Walker, Alexander.
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nervous system, anatomical and physiological : in which the functions of the various parts of the brain are for the first time assigned: and to which is prefixed some account of the author's earliest discoveries, of which the more recent doctrine of Bell, Magendi, etc. is shown to be one. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    longing to the anterior column and nerves, yet he does not exactly adopt Magendie's statement; that instead of saying that sensation belongs especially to the posterior, and motion to the anterior, columns and nerves, he says they belong entirely to them; that this differs from Magendie's doctrine, and therefore is not the same; and that Sir Charles cannot consequently be said to have borrowed Magendie's views ! Will not the profession in England indignantly repudiate such conduct, even as to M. Magendie ! What man is safe if it be countenanced ! It may perhaps be imagined that M. Magendie errs in allowing any degree of sense to the anterior, or of motion to the posterior, nerve. But, though his experiments were most carefully conducted, he had perpetual evidence of this, in the higher animals. These experiments were performed with great care, and often repeated : still, in mammalia, this was the uniform result. As to the experiments of M. Miiller, of Bonn, which are brought forward to correct those of Magendie, and of which Sir C. Bell says, The experiments upon the roots of the spinal nerves have been made by this distinguished German physiologist with so much care, and such ingenious con- trivances to avoid error, that no doubt can be entertained of their perfect accuracy,—of these, it is enough to say that, while M. Magendie's experiments were made upon the higher animals, those of Miiller were made upon frogs! in which the nervous system is so essentially different that the cerebel is absolutely wanting, there being in lieu of it a mere commissure of the fourth ventricle, and the spinal cord is enormously encreased in proportion to the brain, and therewith its connexions, their reciprocal influence, &c. I need not add, that it would be monstrous to assert, that because M. Magendie honourably avows that his experi- ments do not, in some respects, support his principle, there- fore, Sir C. Bell, who protests against all experhnents, as