Experimental rescearches on the post-mortem contractility of the muscles, with observations on the reflex theory / by Bennet Dowler.

  • Dowler, Bennet, 1797-1879.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experimental rescearches on the post-mortem contractility of the muscles, with observations on the reflex theory / by Bennet Dowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    phrenologists, uho perform the same offices for our cranial bumps, consi- der this matter well. Mr. G. dombe has mapped off thirty-five phreno- logical organs ; two refiective, twelve perceptive, leaving no less than twenty-one for the passions, propensities and sentiments—all absorbed by the spinal marrow, according to Dr. Hall,—a goodly number, seeing their unruly character and unfortunate location, to use an Americanism. Dr. Hall might as well claim all Oregcn as all the emotions and passions for the spine. Phrenology sustained itself with difficulty in upper realms of intellection, but, with more ease as soon as it dipped its wing in the lower, the animal, the philoprogenitive, the amative, the cerebel- lar territories. The reflex science, as if by enchantment, transfers the whole of the passions and the mysteries of generation to the spinal region, throwing, at least, a suspicion upon the stability of human knowledge ; though Dr. Hall maintains that his System is scarcely liable to error ; its originality is obvious.”—(P. 53.) “ Day follow's night, and night the dying day,”—not a pleiad has ever wandered from the constellation of Taurus, while medical systems disappear like the banks of the Mississippi, which often shoot noiselessly away, wdth house and builder many a fathom below the turbid waves. Sic transit gloria mundi. Dr. Plall has given a number of plates or maps, exhibiting, not the phrenological regions, nor yet the fantastic travels of a delirious dreamer, but the devious windings, and marchings, and counter-march- ings of this romantic reflex potentate, the veritable Don Quixote of physiology. Contraction by percussion in the manner 1 have described, would be wholly excluded from irritability, as defined by Dr. H., who says, “ The movements of irritability are the result of the vmnediate ap- plication of a stimulus to the nervo-muscular fibre itself.”—(P. 31.) I affirm, that a blow' on the skin with an intervening layer of fat an inch or more thick, is as effectual, perhaps more so, in exciting contractions than one immediately laid on the naked fibres themselves. There may be some convenience, if not philosophy, in dividing mus- cular contractility into voluntary, involuntary, and mixed—but to divide it into psychical, galvanic, cerebral, reflex, vital, irritable, and the like, w’ith a view to establish species of a scientific character, to tally sepa- rate and different from each other, is perfectly idle. Since the meta- physics of Neurology can furnish nothing better, let us appeal to com- mon sense for an illustration. The personator of the melancholy Ham- let, for example, in speaking of The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to,— | w^ould probably put his hand on his breast. The next day the tragedian | falls sick of a cardiac disease, and puts his hand to the same place to ij point out a physical ache. The day following, being comatose and insen- d .sible, he probably places his hand in the same way. He dies. I strike I the biceps, and as in the tragedy, as in the sickness, he carries his hand i to his breast. Here many circumstances have changed—muscular ac- . tion is modified ; yet wdio will prove that this action itself is not essen- tially the same in nature, though excited differently? Plaller would say—Vis insita !—C. Bell, Anterior roots !—Hall, Reflex action !—The | electricians, electricity ! galvanism !—The vitalists, vitality !—The che-