310 Broughton on the Lifluencc 



From a general review of the testimony of former authorities, 

 I cannot perceive that the conclusion which my experiments have 

 brought me to, essentially differs from past experience, though it 

 is absolutely at variance, in a most important point, with that of 

 Dr. Wilson Philip and his supporters. It is true, that some 

 authors notice the loss of power in the stomach to digest food 

 after the division of the eighth pair of nerves, but nothing of the 

 kind is mentioned by the majority of authors; many of them deny 

 its occurrence, and none state it to be an immediate consequence. 

 Le Gallois, who pursued the inquiry into the effects of dividing 

 the par vagum to a very considerable extent, met with one in- 

 stance only (in a pig) in which digestion ceased altogether. 



I by no means mean to assert that the division of the par va- 

 gum does not affect digestion at all, or that it is continued as per- 

 fectly as before the division of the nerves. The symptoms con- 

 tinuing, the disturbance to digestion is eventually very great, 

 sooner or later, till the general injury which the principal vital 

 functions suffer, puts an end to the animal's life. 



Though I am at a loss to account for Dr. Wilson Philip's 

 assertion, that the function of digestion ceases immediately 

 after the division of the eighth pair of nerves, and that it is a 

 phaenomenon from which he and his supporters know of no de- 

 viation whatever ; yet I think it is very easy to reconcile all 

 the contradictory statements elsewhere, from the earliest to the 

 present day, when it is considered how much the phsenomena, 

 produced by the experiments under consideration, have differed 

 in their time of coming on, their progress, and general character; 

 variations dependent upon the different species, ages, and other 

 circumstances of the animals employed, as well as, very pos- 

 sibly, on the part of the nerve divided. 



But that the par vagum exclusively holds such absolute con- 

 trol over the secretions of the stomach, as to render it impossible 

 for them to be produced after its communication with the brain 

 and stomach is cut off, cannot surely be credited, considering 

 the ample testimony which I have brought forward to the con- 

 trary ; testimony not resting upon my own experience alone, 

 but supported by that of the ablest physiologists of ancient and 



