THE ORGANS OF VOLUNTARY MOTION. 



this subject ; and his discoveries and descriptions, even of very minute 

 parts of the muscular system, are spoken of with praise by modern 

 anatomists. 9 



We may consider, therefore, that the doctrine of the muscular sy& 

 tern, as a collection of cords and sheets, by the contraction of which 

 the parts of the body are moved and supported, was firmly established, 

 and completely followed into detail, by Galen and his predecessors. 

 But there is another class of organs connected with voluntary motion, 

 the nerves, and we must for a moment trace the opinions which pre- 

 vailed respecting these. Aristotle, as we have said, noticed some of 

 the nerves of sensation. But Herophilus, who lived in Egypt in the 

 time of the first Ptolemy, distinguished nerves as the organs of the 

 will, 10 and Rufus, who lived in the time of Trajan, 11 divides the nerves 

 into sensitive and motive, and derives them all from the brain. But 

 this did not imply that men had yet distinguished the nerves from 

 the muscles. . Even Galen* maintained that every muscle consists of a 

 bundle of nerves and sinews. 12 But the important points, the neces- 

 sity of the nerve, and the origination of all this apparatus of motion 

 from the brain, he insists upon with great clearness and force. Thus 

 he proved the necessity experimentally, by cutting through some of 

 the bundles of nerves, 13 and thus preventing the corresponding mo- 

 tions. And it is, he says, 14 allowed by all, both physicians and philo- 

 sophers, that where the origin of the nerve is, there the seat of the 

 soul (-/jyvjiaovixov rf^ -^vx/is) mus t be : now this, he adds, is in the brain, 

 and not in the heart. 



Thus the general construction and arrangement of the organization 

 by which voluntary motion is effected, was well made out at the time of 

 Galen, -and is found distinctly delivered in his works. We cannot, per- 

 haps, justly ascribe any large portion of the general discovery to him : 

 indeed, the conception of the mechanism of the skeleton and muscles 

 was probably so gradually unfolded in the minds of anatomical students, 

 that it would be difficult, even if we knew the labors of each person, 

 to select one, as peculiarly the author of the discovery. But it is clear 

 that all those who did materially contribute to the establishment of 

 this doctrine, must have possessed the qualifications which we find n: 

 Galen for such a task ; namely, clear mechanical views of what the 



9 Sprengel, ii. 150. 10 Ib. i. 534. 1; Ib. ii 67. 



:l Ibid. ii. 152. Gaien, De Motu Muse. p. 553. " Ib. 157. 



14 De Hippocr et Plat. Dog. viii. 1. 



