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. Republished by permission ... of the Royal Society, from the Philosophical Transactions for 1827-29-31-33 and -34. Being the concluding part of the author's Experimental inquiry into the laws of the vital functions / by A.P.W. Philip.

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. Republished by permission ... of the Royal Society, from the Philosophical Transactions for 1827-29-31-33 and -34. Being the concluding part of the author's Experimental inquiry into the laws of the vital functions / by A.P.W. Philip. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    the nervous system and those other organs on which life inunediately depends ; but there is another rela- tion of that system which must be investigated before the nature of its functions can be understood. The nervous system, in the usual acceptation of the term, is very ill defined, and functions of the most dissimilar nature are classed together under the general denomination of nervous. Those of sensation and volition, for example, are classed with the excitement of a muscle and the formation of a secreted fluid. It is impossible to believe that results so different should arise from the same or similar causes. On the most cursory view of the subject, we cannot help supposing that the nervous system, according to the common acceptation of the term, includes more than one principle of action. We have every reason to believe, that the sensorial is a power wholly distinct from that strictly called nervous ; and all doubt seems to be removed by the circumstance, that although the organs of both belong to the nervous system, it is evident they are not the same organs, because the sensorial power, particularly in man, resides chiefly in the brain, while the nervous power, properly so called, resides equally in the brain and spinal marrow ; the latter