300 Broughton 071 the Influence 



truth of these assertions several individuals have borne 

 witness. 



A doctrine, so novel and so strongly insisted on, excited in 

 the Royal Society an opinion that the grounds upon which it 

 rests ought to be carefully investigated ; and accordingly, 

 Mr. Brodie, and two others of its members, were deputed to 

 practise that experiment which Dr. Wilson Philip states to have 

 so uniformly afforded him the results which induced him and 

 others to arrive at the conclusions above mentioned. At each 

 trial two rabbits were fed with parsley after a long fast, and 

 the eighth pair of nerves was divided in both instances in the 

 neck ; one of them continued unmolested, and the other was 

 subjected to the galvanic influence. The conclusions to which 

 these gentlemen came were, 1. That the respiration did not ap- 

 pear in any case to he at all improved by the galvanic power ; 

 and, 2. That no sensible change was wrought upon the parsley 

 in the stomach, so as to render it in any respect different in ap- 

 pearance to that of the other rabbit, which had not been galva- 

 nized. This was accordingly the report which the Royal Society 

 received. 



At a subsequent period Mr. Brodie divided the eighth pair 

 of nerves in a cat, close upon the stomach, below the branches 

 which supply the lungs, so as to observe the effects upon di- 

 gestion alone. No symptoms whatever were observed, and 

 the functions of life appeared to continue naturally for a week 

 and three days, at the end of which period the animal was 

 killed. The nervous filaments were found to be completely 

 divided, and digestion seemed to have continued. A repetition 

 of this experiment produced the same result. 



Considerable attention having been directed to this point in 

 question, I was induced to institute a series of experiments, 

 with the view of satisfying myself of the accuracy of the as- 

 sertions of Dr. Wilson Philip and his supporters ; in the first 

 instance, by endeavouring to ascertain how far the process of 

 digestion was affected by dividing the par vagum, and after- 

 wards of observing the effects of galvanism, if it should appear 



