FUNCTIONS OF MOTOR AND SENSORY NERVES 81 



la moelle epiniere, ont des fonctions differentes, que les poste- 

 rieures paraissent plus particulierement destinees a lasensibilite, 

 tandis que les anterieures semblent plus specialement li£es avec 

 le mouvement." 



This short paper of Magendie's is a model of description ; 

 everything that had to be said is clearly said; there is no 

 unnecessary phrase or word, the narrative being plainly that 

 of the man who wanted to know, who went straight to the 

 point and who tells clearly what he has seen. 



Any one acquainted with the history of scientific discovery 

 will admit readily that here is a case of a discovery of first 

 magnitude stated by its author in language that cannot be 

 improved by paraphrase or elision. There is no other case that 

 I know of in Physiology in which a man's chief contribution can 

 be thus presented " en bloc " in the discoverer's own words ; we 

 are as a rule obliged to paraphrase or summarise and can at 

 best weave into our word-picture some few phrases from the 

 original story told by the discoverer, unless we give his story 

 in full ; and then how much must we not reprint that is obsolete 

 and redundant. There is nothing either obsolete or redundant 

 in Magendie's paper of 1822. 



In 1823, Charles Bell, aged forty-nine, surgeon to the 

 Middlesex Hospital and lecturer on Anatomy at the Great 

 Windmill Street School, hearing of these experiments, calls 

 them his experiments and evidently believes that they are his. 

 He has recently (1821, 1822, 1823) published some observations 

 on the facial nerves and ten years previously (181 1) he printed 

 a pamphlet about nerves. He naturally feels, therefore, a kind 

 of vested interest in nerves ; and since John Shaw told Magendie 

 about Bell's views and [methods two years before (1821) and 

 since Magendie expressed himself as delighted and astonished, 

 Magendie must have borrowed from him. 



Now so far all this is very human and quite pardonable. 

 A man who has thought round and about something is apt 

 to deceive himself when another man puts his finger on the 

 spot and picks out the plum ; he may be forgiven for exclaiming, 

 " But that's my plum ; I found it long ago and showed it to 

 that fellow who says he found it." A claim of this sort may 

 be good or bad ; the claimant may be entitled to credit — all or 



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