Experimental researches, illustrative of the functional oneness, unity, and diffusion, of nervous action : in opposition to the anatomical assumption, of four sets of nerves, and a fourfold set of functions, and transmitted impressions : with a brief exposition of the philosophy of vivisection, and of sensation / by Bennet Dowler, M.D., of New-Orleans (Corresponding Member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia).

  • Dowler, Bennet
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experimental researches, illustrative of the functional oneness, unity, and diffusion, of nervous action : in opposition to the anatomical assumption, of four sets of nerves, and a fourfold set of functions, and transmitted impressions : with a brief exposition of the philosophy of vivisection, and of sensation / by Bennet Dowler, M.D., of New-Orleans (Corresponding Member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    ishedorincreased-increased in Tetanus, Epilepsy, Hyf «f'H^^'^ phobia, (which, by the way, he calls a disease of the blood,) by Stiych^ nine, ly Aloel. and by Cantharides. (Phys. IT 400, 401.) Ho., true soever this assertion may be, it does not prove that this mcrease or diminution can be ascribed with absolute certainty to either class of roots. To say, that because the power of the muscles (in Tetanus) is morbidly increased, therefore the power of the anterior roots is mor. bidly increased, is a nan sequUur. If strychnine, cantharides, and aloes, act specifically on the cord, or the anterior or posterior roots-^if the numerous diseases which are said to have their seat in these structures, produce, or result from morbid alterations analogous to other maladies- alterations, such as redness, vascularity, hypertrophy, atrophy, indura- tion, softening, and ulceration, anatomists have not been able to find them, after innumerable examinations of dead bodies, nor have descrip- tions of them appeared in books of pathological anatomy, so as to con- nect diseases of sensation and motion with any recognized lesions m the sensiferous and raotiferous nerves, roots, tracts, or central sensoriura. If there be no anatomical proof, (as is admitted by all,) showing that the sensiferous and motiferous nerves can be distinguished from each other only at their spinal origins*—if the numerous diseases which have been ascribed to each class of nerves, produce no lesions of their roots discoverable by the morbid anatomist; then no proof remains but that derived from experiments on the roots. Passing by the destructive nature of experiments upon the spinal centre—saying nothing of the induced, unnatural condition at the very moment that the operator is in^ *«Wi*hthis difference in the functions of the nerves, there is no apparent difference in the structure of the nerve-fibres by which it might be explamed. _0f the laws of action peculiar to nerves of sensation and motion respectively, many can be ascertained only by experiments on the roots of the nerves. For it is only at their origin that the nerves of sensation and motion are distinct.— No nerve-fibre can convey more than one kind of impression .-—AH nerve- fibres are mere conduclom of impressions.—Impressions are only conducted-- in the brain alone may be perceived. (Messrs. Kirke and Paget. Phys 286, 289 288 294 ) If there be no anatomical distinction between the motiferous and' sensiferous nerves, what becomes of Sir Charles Bell's discovery, which he himself declares is based wholly on anatomy? , ^ „ The doctrine of an exclusive sensorium—one restricted wholly to a spot in the brain, contradicts not only the universal intuition or experience of mankind but is self-contradictory; .for sensation can have no existence in time and space, only so far as it is felt; it exists only at the time when, and the place where, it is cognized. At all other times and places it has no existence whatever. The pain of a whitlow in the finger is felt there, and not in the optic thalami, or cms cerebri. The very essence of a sen- Bafion consists in the feeling of it, and when it is not felt, it is not. 1 he only method by which sensation is known, is that of consciousness, which w •tronger than any other evidence. ^