A treatise on indigestion and its consequenses, called nervous and bilious complaints : with observations on the organic diseases in which they sometimes terminate / by A.P.W. Philip.

  • Philip, Alexander Philip Wilson, 1770-1847.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on indigestion and its consequenses, called nervous and bilious complaints : with observations on the organic diseases in which they sometimes terminate / by A.P.W. Philip. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    007 having arrived at this important fact, and finding from his experiments that while the muscles of voluntary motion were easily excited through their nerves, the heart could not be excited in the same way, lie inferred that the latter was in- capable of being directly influenced through the nervous system. This hasty inference, although very generally, was not universally admitted, and the followers of Haller and his o])ponents who, for more than half a century, have formed the two great classes of physiologists both in this country and the continent, have equally with Haller himself failed in explaining the mutual dependence of the sanguiferous and nervous systems. One of the ablest of the latter class of writers, M. le Gallois, if he can be called an opponent of Haller, for he admits with him that the brain has no direct influence over the heart; being unable to answer the arguments of Haller on this head, yet convinced from a thousand phenomena that the heart was more or less directly subjected to the influence of the brain, had recourse to experiment; and arrived at a discovery of great consequence, namely, that the heart is capable of being directly influenced through the spinal marrow. This fact appeared to him to afford an easy solution of the question, it being acknowledged on all hands that the spinal marrow is under the immediate influence of the brain. It was only ne- cessary, therefore, in order to explain the phenomena, to sup- pose that the brain affects the lieart through this organ ; and such was the state of public opinion on the subject, and even .at this late period, so inaccurate our mode of reasoning re- specting the animal economy, that this supposition, although it is evident from a careful review of his experiments that they do not correctly bear upon it, was generally admitted, and his labours were regarded as having removed all difficulties. A little before I entered on the inquiry, the Institute of France, after the experiments of M. le Gallois had been re- peated in the presence of a committee appointed by it for the purpose, consisting of the celebrated Humboldt, M. Halle, and M. Percy, published a Memoir, drawn up by the com- mittee in support of his conclusions, nearly as long as the work- in which they were originally stated ; and the medical journals both of this country and the continent admitted their accuracy.