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.

  • Alexander Walker
Date:
1834
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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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    hitherto been traced in connexion with that general course, and the double origins, as they are termed, even of the encephalic nerves [those of the head], which I have here pointed out. Nature thus presents to us the double means by which this double operation is effected. But it may be questioned, by which nerves, columns, and cerebral masses, the action as- cends to the brain, and by which it descends to the muscles. Fortunately, here nature also directs us. Several nerves of mere sensation [the olfac- tory, &c] join the anterior masses ; hence they must be the ascending: one nerve [at least—the internal oculo-muscular*] of mere motion pro- ceeds from the posterior masses ; hence, they must be the descending ;—for sensation, as al- ready said, must ascend to, and volition must descend from the sensorium commune [brain]. Thus then it seems to be proved, that me- dullary action commences in the organs of sense; passes, in a general manner, to the spinal marrow, by the anterior fasciculi [bundles] of the spinal nerves, which are, therefore, nerves of sensation, and the connexions of which with the spinal marrow or brain must be termed their spinal or cerebral terminations; ascends through the anterior columns of the spinal marrow, * The writer might have said the general oculo-muscular, the facial, &c. which penetrate and pass through the ante- rior masses.
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