TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 



669 



great uniformity, and that if it were proved in any one instance 

 that sensibility and motion resulted from nervous matter, it must 

 be admitted that whenever motion and sensation were observ- 

 able in a creature, there there must be nervous matter. As in 

 some of the lowest animals we perceive motion to result from 

 the influence of heat and light, where yet no nerves were visi- 

 ble, it leads to the inquiry, what is the function of a nerve ? is a 

 nerve of itself a source of energy, or is it only a track of nervous 

 matter wrapped up in niembi^ne for t^ jmrpose of^^ 



/"hc procTeded to observe that iii the lowest links of the chain 

 ^ of animals there was ever attached to its nearer or centraVex- 

 "tremitv a little mass of nervous matter, or ganglion ; and that 

 %hi'^ central mass, it was reasonable to suppose, was the real 

 ' orffan whilst the nerves were the appendages, the intermmcit, 

 ^'between the central organ and the external organ of sense or 

 '"Wtween that central organ and the moving instrument of the 

 f animal. He proceeded to describe the ganghonic cord of the 

 Annelides, to show that the system in these lower animals was 

 essentially the same with that of man, although the extraor- 

 dinary accumulation of the central masses in the brain and 

 spinal marrow of the latter obscured the resemblance. He here 

 introduced the name of Mr. Newport with high approbation of 

 his talents : he said, having observed the happy methods that 

 gentleman employed in investigating the nervous system ot the 

 hivertebral animals, he persuaded him to mvestigate their nie- 

 dullarvcord, and to ascertain whether or not there was a di- 

 stinction of an anterior and posterior portion of that cord ; and 

 in a very few days afterwards that gentleman brought him a pre- 

 paratioi of the nervous system of the lobster, m which it was 

 shown that the anterior or lower portion of the cord passed over 

 the ganglion, and that the posterior portion merged in the gan- 

 glion. Here was a remarkable confirmation of the strict re- 

 terablance between the spinal marrow of the higher animals and 

 the medullary cord of the Invertehrata. 



Such then, Sir Charles Bell contended, were the modes of 

 investigating the nervous system : 1st, By minute dissection of 

 the nerves of the human body ; 2nd, By the study of functions, 

 which requires both the finest hand and the highest capacity for 

 observation ; 3rd, The observation of the roots of the nerves 

 and the different sources from which they proceed ; 4th, ±.xpe- 

 riments upon the living animal by observing what functions^are 

 cut off bv the division of certain nerves, a mode of proceeding 

 which for many reasons ought not to be lightly undertaken, and 

 which could be successfully prosecuted only under the guidance 



