FUNCTIONS OF MOTOR AND SENSORY NERVES 79 



College of Surgeons — delivered an address at the Middlesex 

 Hospital — Bell's hospital — very properly laudatory of Bell's 

 career but very improperly promulgating the misrepresenta- 

 tions of Bell's "discoveries" that were elaborated from 1823 

 to 1839 by Bell himself and by his two devoted brothers-in-law, 

 John and Alexander Shaw. 



The family compact according to which Bell was greater 

 than Harvey is intelligible enough as a family compact but 

 the marvel, in this case, has been that Bell's pretensions should 

 have been admitted not only in this country but also to some 

 extent in Germany and in France, where it has been said that 

 though Bell missed the actual discovery yet he came very close 

 to making it. As we shall presently see, Bell's claim to the 

 discovery is analogous with that of a marksman who having 

 made two shots equally wide to right and left of the target, 

 should claim that two such shots are the equivalent of a double 

 bull's eye. Bell failed to discover the functions of the nerve 

 roots in 181 1 and failed to discover the functions of the facial 

 nerves in 1821 ; upon these two equally complete failures is 

 based his claim to both discoveries. 



Magendie and Bell, 1822-4 



In 1822, Magendie, aged thirty-nine, at the zenith of his 

 powers, the leading physiologist of France, published the 

 following paper in the second volume of the Journal de Physio- 

 logic} founded by himself in the previous year : 



" Depuis longtemps je desirais faire une experience dans 

 laquelle je couperais sur un animal, les racines posterieures des 

 nerfs qui naissent de la moelle epiniere. Je l'avais tentee bien 

 des fois, sans pouvoir y reussir, a cause de la difficulte d'ouvrir 

 le canal vertebral sans leser la moelle, et par suite sans faire 

 perir ou tout au moins sans blesser grievement l'animal. Le 

 mois dernier, on apporta dans mon laboratoire, une portee de 

 huit petits chiens, ages de six semaines ; ces animaux me par- 

 urent tres propres a tenter de nouveau d'ouvrir le canal vertebral. 

 En effet, je pus a l'aide d'un scalpel bien tranchant, et pour ainsi 

 dire d'un seul coup, mettre a nu la moitie posterieure de la 

 moelle epiniere entouree de ses enveloppes. II ne me restait 

 pour avoir cet organe presqu'a nu, que de couper la dure-mere 

 qui l'entoure ; c'est ce que je fis avec facilite ; j'eus alors sous les 



1 " Experiences sur les fonctions des racines des nerfs rachidiens," tome 

 1822, p. 276. 



