mid Nervous Filaments into Motive and Sensitive. 75 



rather than refuted, has been also subsequently maintained by a small 

 number of the most accurate anatomists, as Malacarne and Reil ; and to 

 this result the recent observations of Ehrenberg and others seem to tend. 

 (See Memoirs of the Berlin Academy for 1836, p. 605, sq. ; Mueller's 

 Phys. p. 598.) 



Finally, to the objection — Why has Nature not, in all cases as in some, 

 enclosed the motive and the sentient fibrils in distinct sheaths ? — as an- 

 swer, and fifth argument, he shews, with great ingenuity, that nature 

 does precisely what, in the circumstances, always affords the greatest 

 security to both, more especially to the softer, fibrils ; and he might have 

 added, as a sixth reason and second answer — with the smallest expendi- 

 ture of means. 



The subtilty of the nervous fibres is much greater than is commonly 

 suspected ; and there is probably no point of the body to which they are 

 not distributed. What is the nature of their peripheral terminations it 

 is, however, difficult to demonstrate ; and the doctrines of Ruysch and 

 TVIalpighi in this respect are, as lie shews, unsatisfactory. 



The doctrine of Albinus, indeed, of the whole school of Boerhaave, in 

 regard to the nervous system, and, in particular, touching the distinc- 

 tion and the isolation of the ultimate nervous filaments, seems, during a 

 century of interval, not only to have been neglected, but absolutely for- 

 gotten ; and a counter opinion of the most erroneous character, with 

 here and there a feeble echo of the true, to have become generally pre- 

 valent in its stead. For, strange to say, this very doctrine, is that re- 

 cently promulgated as the last consummation of nervous physiology by 

 the most illustrious physiologist in Europe. '^ That the primitive fibres 

 of all the cerebro- spinal nerves are to be regarded as isolated and dis- 

 tinct from their origin to their termination, and as radii issuing from the 

 axis of the nervous system," is the grand result, as stated by himself, of 

 the elaborate researches of Johann Mueller ; and to the earliest dis- 

 covery of this general fiict he carefully vindicates his right against other 

 contemporary observers, by stating that it had been privately communi- 

 cated by him to Van der Kolk, of Utrecht, so long ago as the year 1830 

 (Phys., p. 596-603.) 



In conclusion, I may observe that it is greatly to be regretted that 

 these prelections of Albinus were never printed. They present not 

 only a full and elegant digest of all that was known in physiology at the 

 date of their delivery (and Albinus was celebrated for the uncommon 

 care which he bestowed on the composition of his lectures) ; but they 

 likewise contain, perdue, many original views, all deserving of attention, 

 and some which have been subsequently reproduced to the no small ce- 

 lebrity of their second authors. The speculation, for example, of John 

 Hunter and Dr Thomas Young, in regard to the self-contractile pro- 

 perty of the crystalline lens is here anticipated ; and that pellucidity and 

 fibrous structure are compatible, shewn by the analogy of those gelati- 



