TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 109 
by Dr. Gall; who, viewing the brain as a complex organ, and contem- 
plating it both in health and. disease, proposed to discover the use or 
function of each part of the brain, by comparing the relative develop- 
_ ment of these parts in the same brain, and in the brains of different 
_ persons, with the intellectual and moral powers and animal propensities 
_ manifested in the individuals. 
4 An Experimental Investigation into the Gilosso-pharyngeal, Pneumo- 
gastric, and Spinal Accessory Nerve. By Dr. Joun REtv. 
i This communication, which was but a short epitome of some length. 
_ ened observations which Dr. R. had drawn up on this subject, embraced 
_ the principal results which he had deduced from an extensive series of 
_ experiments, performed by himself, upon those complicated and im- 
_ portant nerves generally included under the eighth pair. 
_ _ Glosso-pharyngeal.—The experiments on this nerve were all per- 
_ formed on dogs, and were twenty-seven in number. Seventeen of 
these were for the purpose of ascertaining if it were to be considered a 
- nerve both of sensation and motion, and what are the effects of its sec- 
_ tion upon the associated movements of deglutition and on the sense of 
taste. The other ten were performed on animals immediately after 
_ they had been deprived of sensation, with the view of satisfying him- 
- self more thoroughly how far it is to be considered a motor nerve. 
The most remarkable effect witnessed in these experiments was an ex- 
_ tensive convulsive movement of the muscles of the throat and lower 
part of the face, on irritating this nerve in the living animal, provided 
_ the irritation was applied to the trunk of the nerve before it had given 
_ off its pharyngeal branches, or to one of the pharyngeal branches sepa- 
_ rately. These movements were equally well marked when the nerve 
was cut across at its exit from the cranium and its cranial end irritated, 
as when the trunk of the nerve and all its branches were entire. The 
_ conclusions drawn from a review of the whole experiments were these: 
| —That this is a nerve of common sensation. That mechanical or 
chemical irritation of this nerve before it has given off its pharyngeal 
branches, or of any of these branches individually, is followed by ex- 
tensive muscular movements of the throat and lower part of the face. 
_ That the muscular movements thus excited, depend not upon any in- 
4 - fluence extending downwards, along the branches of this nerve to the 
_ muscles moved, but upon a reflex action transmitted through the central 
_ organs of the nervous system. That these pharyngeal branches of the 
; glosso-pharyngeal nerve possess endowments connected with the pecu- 
_ liar sensations of the mucous membrane upon which they are distri- 
buted, though we cannot pretend to speak positively in what these 
consist. That this cannot be the sole nerve upon which all these sen- 
_ sations depend, since the perfect division of the trunk on both sides, if 
_ eare be taken to exclude the pharyngeal branch of the par vagum, 
Pehich lies in close contact with it, does not interfere with the perfect 
_ performance of the function of deglutition. That mechanical or chemi- 
