FUNCTIONS OF MOTOR AND SENSORY NERVES 95 



This is all the more surprising inasmuch as every one of 

 Bell's publications after 1822 and nearly every English text- 

 book of Physiology from 1830 to 19 10 repeats the statement 

 that Bell said that the major portion is sensory and the minor 

 portion motor. 



We begin, therefore, to look a little more closely into the 

 "republications" of his original papers issued by Bell in 1824, 

 1830 and 1836. And now the matter is clear enough. The 

 "republished" differ from the original papers and practically 

 the whole literature of the last eighty years is based upon one 

 or other of the "republished" versions. The differences intro- 

 duced by republication are gradually progressive in the three 

 successive editions of Bell's Nervous System. The most im- 

 portant and the least conspicuous are those made in 1824. 

 In the subsequent editions of 1830 and 1836 they are maintained 

 and supplemented by further additions to the text, which are 

 acknowledged and therefore legitimate, although generally 

 inaccurate. But the morally important and indefensible altera- 

 tions are those unobtrusively made in 1824, immediately after 

 Magendie's discovery, whereby the paper of 182 1, as republished 

 in 1824, is made to convey a totally different meaning. The 

 most important portions to be collated are pp. 408 to 414 of 

 Bell's original paper on the nerves of the face in the Philosophical 

 Transactions of the Royal Society for 1821 and pp. 93 to 109 of 

 the republished paper in An Exposition of the Nervous System 

 published by Charles Bell in 1824. The title-page of this 

 work has upon it the legend, " With a republication of the 

 Papers delivered to the Royal Society on the subject of the 

 Nerves." At p. 66 of the introduction Bell says : " I shall 

 now lay before the reader the papers which I presented to 

 the Royal Society on this subject and in the order in which 

 they are printed in the Philosophical Transactions." Nothing is 

 said by Bell in this publication of 1824 of any change of views 

 nor of any alteration of text. 



Space will hardly allow of the reproduction of these two 

 passages in this article but a single short extract from the 

 original in 1821 and the republication in 1824 will suffice to 

 show the slightness and the gravity of the differences between 

 the two versions. It must be borne in mind, in comparing 

 the two passages, that Magendie's discovery was published 

 in 1822. 



