An inquiry into the nature of sleep and death with a view to ascertain the more immediate causes of death, and the better regulation of the means of obviating them : being the concluding part of the author's experimental inquiry into the laws of vital functions / by A. P. W. Philip, M.D.

  • Philip, Alexander Philip Wilson, 1770-1847.
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the nature of sleep and death with a view to ascertain the more immediate causes of death, and the better regulation of the means of obviating them : being the concluding part of the author's experimental inquiry into the laws of vital functions / by A. P. W. Philip, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    sensorial power, respiration ceases; because this func- tion partakes of all the three powers, the sensorial, nervous, and muscular*. It has been customary to speak of the muscles of respiration as at least in part muscles of involuntary motion. What is meant by a muscle of voluntary motion ? It is a muscle, whose action under all ordi- nary circumstances we can excite, interrupt, retard, and accelerate at pleasure, but it is not a muscle whose action we can at all times controul. There is no such muscle, because the impression on the sen- soriura tending to call any particular set of muscles into action may be so powerful, that we are unable to controul it. Who can prevent the action of the muscles of the arm when fire is suddenly applied to the fingers? Neither do we mean by the term muscle of voluntary motion, one which we cannot call into action during sleep. If our posture during sleep becomes uncomfortable, we call the muscles both of the trunk and limbs into action for the pur- pose of changing it. The uneasiness caused by the continuance of the same posture, sufficiently rouses the sleeper to make him will a change of posture, * Experimental Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Functions. Part II., Chap. XI.