FUNCTIONS OF MOTOR AND SENSORY NERVES 89 



announced by the writer, i.e. that the anterior roots are motor, 

 the posterior sensory ; and that the posterior columns are 

 sensitive, the anterior insensitive. Can it be said on Bell's 

 behalf that he does not claim the facts and the experiments as 

 his? I think not. He does not name Magendie, although 

 obviously he is making use of results by Magendie, transferring 

 them to himself by implication, oblivious of what he has himself 

 said a few pages before (29-31) about the different roots and 

 different columns of the cord — i.e. that the anterior roots and 

 columns when irritated give motion, whereas no motion follows 

 -irritation of the posterior roots. 



Bell seems to have realised in later editions that the passage 

 was too strong. In 1830 he tones the claim down a little by 

 substituting the phrase " It has been confirmed " for " It has 

 been acknowledged." And in the third edition (1836 and 1844), 

 the concluding sentence about irritation of the columns was 

 deleted. 



Obviously Bell realised that such an experiment could not be 

 advanced as his (Bell's) property. And now a footnote implying 

 only that his " discovery " of anterior roots (motor) and of pos- 

 terior roots (sensory) has been confirmed by Tiedemann and by 

 Muller is substituted for the compromising incorporation of 

 Magendie's results as to the columns. 



The Introduction of 1824 concludes with the following 

 sentence (p. 66) : 



" I will now lay before my reader the papers which I pre- 

 sented to the Royal Society on this subject, and in the order 

 they are printed in the Philosophical Transactions. 



And then follow the first four papers republished from the 

 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, without any 

 warning of any kind that they are altered from their original 

 form. These four papers and two others form a group of six 

 papers, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal 

 Society from 1821 to 1829, which constitute the chief evidence upon 

 which Bell's quality as a man of science is to be appreciated. 



Bell's Six Papers, 182 i to 1829 



Up to this point we have realised that there is no trace to be 

 found of any discovery of the functions of the spinal roots in 181 1 



