Q9fi Brougliton oti the Injiuence 



and in a third in three days. In all his experiments the Yoice 

 of the animal was lost. No account of the appearance of the 

 food in the stomach after death is given, nor whether the dogs 

 which survived longer than usual had any interval of health. 

 Dr. H. found that the division of one nerve only produced no 

 symptoms whatever, and that the animal fed as usual and 

 thrived. But when he, at subsequent periods, divided the other 

 nerve, the usual symptoms came on in different degrees of se- 

 verity ; and the animal survived the operation longer than 

 when both nerves were divided at once. Thus, after dividing 

 one nerve alone, and its fellow on the third day, the dog died 

 on the fourth day. After waiting nine days between the 

 divisions, another dog lived thirteen days. Also, after an 

 interval of six weeks between the divisions a dog recovered en- 

 tirely. Nineteen months afterwards both nerves were again di- 

 vided at once, and the animal died on the second day of the 

 usual symptoms. Dr. H. remarked the stomach to be more or 

 less affected in all cases ; and that dog, which survived after the 

 operation had been performed, allowing an interval of six weeks 

 between the divisions of the nerve singly, was six months in 

 recovering his condition, although he fed as usual after the ex- 

 piration of one month. 



Dr. H. accounts for a total loss of vital functions not directly 

 following the division of the eighth pair of nerves, by observing 

 that the stomach is supplied with branches also from the great 

 sympathetic nerve, by which the functions of this viscus are 

 sustained though imperfectly ; while the recovery of his dog, 

 •which was allowed to live six weeks between the separation of 

 each nerve, must be attributed, he says, either to an anasto- 

 mosis of nervous filaments (similar to that of the arterial sys- 

 tem), or to a re-production of nervous matter itself in the divided 

 nerve ; thus gradually restoring the perfect performance of the 

 stomach's functions, previously impeded by cutting asunder 

 the par vagum on each side at a certain interval between the 

 division of each branch, so as to allow time for the requisite 

 reparation in one before the other is divided. The foregoing 

 statements serve to convey a general notion of the discoveries 



