of the Eighth Pair of Nerves, li96 



out which was the seat of those symptoms that induced death ; 

 and he found it to exist in the lu7igs. His next object was to 

 ascertain in what manner the lungs became affected, as they 

 are found to be after the operation. From several experiments 

 on young rabbits, pigs, cats, and dogs, Le Gallois was induced 

 to come to this conclusion, that, in dividing the eighth pair of 

 nerves, the recurrents being also cut off, the muscles moving 

 the larynx become paralyzed, the glottis is closed, and the ac- 

 cess of the air to the lungs is impeded. He divided the re- 

 currents alone, and the same pheenomena presented themselves 

 as when the par vagum was divided. It is added, on the 

 authority of the same author, that by dividing the recurrent on 

 one side only he paralyzed one side of the larynx, and also 

 that the aperture of the windpipe became entirely immoveable 

 after dividing both the recurrents. In order to prove this point 

 he cut a piece out of the windpipe ; and immediately, he says, 

 the breathing became free, and the dark colour of the arterial 

 blood was converted to a bright crimson ; and animals, on which 

 this opening was practised, lived longer than those on which 

 no opening of the trachea was made ; and, he likewise ob- 

 served, that the division of the nerves affected at the same 

 time the larj/nx, the heart, the lungs, and the alimentary 

 canal. 



The combination of phsenomena he attributes to the division 

 of the par vagum, from its supplying such important viscera, 

 and which may, therefore, be supposed to aggravate the symp- 

 toms accordingly. 



He refers the loss of voice, in those animals of which Galen 

 and others speak, to the same principle as that of the dyspnoea, 

 i.e., the cutting off of the communication between the brain and 

 the organs of voice, by dividing the recurrents. He noticed, 

 in performing these experiments upon different species of ani- 

 mals and of different ages, that the comparative severity of 

 the dyspnoea differed one from the other. In very young ani- 

 mals it was more severe than in older, and one species seemed 

 to be more violently affected than another; which he explains 

 by remarking, that the aperture of the larynx is narrower in 



