PEE FACE. 



THIS attempt at a connected account of the General 

 Physiology of Muscles and Nerves is, as far as I know, 

 the first of its kind. The necessary data for this 

 branch of science have been gained only within the 

 last thirty years, and even now many of the facts are 

 uncertain and have been insufficiently studied. Under 

 these circumstances it might well be asked if the time 

 has yet come for such an account as this. But any- 

 one who endeavours to gain an idea of this branch of 

 knowledge from the existing text-books of Physiology 

 will probably labour in vain. Moreover, the subject 

 is one which has many points of interest not only for 

 the specialist, but also for the physicist, for the psy- 

 chologist, and indeed for every cultivated man ; and as 

 regards the gaps in our knowledge, they are scarcely 

 greater than those in any other branch of the science 

 of life. 



There being no previous writers on the same sub- 

 ject, I have been obliged to d peiid entirely on myself 

 in the matter of the arrangement, in the selection 

 of important points and the rejection of those of less 

 importance, and as to the form in which the subject 



