Inaugural dissertation on the respiratory system of nerves, considered as the vehicle of general sympathy : submitted to the Medical Faculty of the University of Edinburgh, in conformity with the rules for graduation, by authority of the Very Reverend Principal Baird, and with the sanction of the Senatus Academicus / by John R. Russell.

  • Russell, John Rutherford.
Date:
1838
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inaugural dissertation on the respiratory system of nerves, considered as the vehicle of general sympathy : submitted to the Medical Faculty of the University of Edinburgh, in conformity with the rules for graduation, by authority of the Very Reverend Principal Baird, and with the sanction of the Senatus Academicus / by John R. Russell. 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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    artificially produced in animals, respiration con- tinues, although sensibility be quite lost * In these and many cases we find respiration, which we take merely as an example of sympa- thetic action continuing after the nerves of volun- tary motion and sensation have either ceased to convey any stimulus, or are so perturbed in func- tion as to excite to morbid action all the volun- tary muscles. We have shewn that the stimulus of sympathy is not conveyed by the ganglionic; so that no other alternative remains except either to believe that it is not conveyed by the nerves at all, or that there exists a set of nei*ves independent of the system of voluntary motion and sensation besides the ganglionic This system was discovered by Sir C. Bell, and named the Respiratory, as he thought it was con- fined to the respu-atory organs and their depen- dants. This supposition, however, involves us in the diflBculty so triumphantly announced by its op- ponents. Why should there be a system for res- * See experiments by Dr J. Reid, to which we shall have oc- casion to 'refer more particularly afterwards, in the Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal, No. 134.