On the physiological uses of the ganglionic nervous system / by James George Davey.

  • Davey, James George, 1813-1895
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the physiological uses of the ganglionic nervous system / by James George Davey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    anatomist) removed the brain of a frog, and that the animal lived “ six complete months ” after the operation ; and that Sir B. Brodie removed the spinal cord without, in any wray, affect¬ ing the strictly vital or “ organic” actions in those parts subor¬ dinate to it. The bare idea of referring the issue of the expe- ments of Redi and Brodie to a retained nervous influence is scarcely possible. I may add, in reference to the frogs and fish experimented on, that the peculiarity of their respiratory function renders them, in every way, eligible as a means of demonstrating the relative offices or qualities of the several nervous centres, viz., the brain, the spinal cord, and the solar ganglion; in other animals, higher in the scale of being, the destruction of the cerebrum and medulla spinalis would be directly fatal, unless the respiration was supported by artificial means. In mammals the respiration is, as a general rule, a mixed function, i. e., one partly vital and partly volitional; a a fact well known, and easily accounted for by the anatomist. If the preceding facts and experiments be transposed—if the cerebro-spinal system be left intact, and the solar ganglion be brought within the reach of physical injury, what follows ? All evidences of life cease from that moment—consciousness, voli¬ tion, sensation, motion—secretion, digestion, respiration, cir¬ culation, sanguification—calorification—all are extinct. The brain, the cord, and all parts of the organism, which in health subserve the same, the viscera of the chest, abdomen, and pelvis fail their wondrous offices. The heart, lungs, stomach, liver, intestines together cease their aids in this wonderful machine in man and animals ; and all is then, for ever, over. The first and great mainspring of life, i. e., the solar ganglion, has lost its energies, and all the instruments wherewith it worked its destiny, and preserved its relations to the external world, arc
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