On the state of the mind during sleep, etc. : a paper read to the physiological section of the British Association, on the sixth of September, 1852 / by R. Fowler.

  • Richard Fowler
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the state of the mind during sleep, etc. : a paper read to the physiological section of the British Association, on the sixth of September, 1852 / by R. Fowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    by Sir Humphrey Davy) and the sensation of ex¬ tended touch, may it not be inferred that these effects on the muscles must have been produced by retransmissions from the sentient extremities of nerves ramified on the arteries of the air cells of the lungs to the adjusting muscles, and there inducing the con¬ tractions and impressions on the muscular nerves which excited the involuntary antic motions, and at the same time the sensation of extended touch in every muscle. Is it not to a like process that we may attribute our sensations of buoyancy when after long confinement by sickness we breathe the fresh air of the country. The mad man who, in the asylum of Dr. Finch, in Fisherton, bit off the end of his tongue, and could when the stump was healed both articulate and feel;—to what nerves of sense can the continu¬ ance of these functions be referred if not to those of muscular sense ? The fact I believe to be this—that we have merely nebulous sensation of the quality of an object appropriate to the organ of sense by which it is recognised by our specific nerve (whether optic, auditory, olfactory, or tactile); but that all our ac¬ curate and perceptive sensations are acquired by our muscular nerves, and hence it is that we must adjust our organs of sense to learn all they can tell us: we must look to see, listen to hear, and handle to touch, &c. If the astronomer were merely to let the light of a star shine into his unadjusted eye, he would see it—but he would see it in motion. The retina is most sensitive to light in its centre, and is less and less sensitive from the central point to its circumference.* * There is a continual desire of exercising the sensible spot, the proper seat of vision. When an impression is made upon
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