Eighth Pair of Nerves'. 47 



tion of the first became more perfect, the vital organs gra- 

 dually recovered their healthy state." 



Dr. Macdonald, in his inaugural dissertation, De Ciborum 

 Concoctione, after relating various experiments, in which he 

 observed digestion in the healthy stomach, details the appear- 

 ances that were presented to him after the division of the 

 eighth pair of nerves. He says, that although the meat which 

 he gave to the animals was cut into very small portions, so as 

 to be in the most favourable state for digestion, and a sufficient 

 space of time was allowed to elapse between the performance of 

 the experiments and the death of the animals, yet the meat was 

 •undigested, and never passed beyond the pylorus ; neither could 

 any chyme, or chyle, ever be discovered in the stomach, intes- 

 tines, or lacteal vessels. 



Moreover in Mr. Brodie's experiments, after the food had 

 continued in the stomachs of animals whose nerves had been 

 divided seven hours, the food had still the appearance of mas- 

 ticated parsley*. And in those of Dr. Clarke Abel, to which 

 Mr. Broughton has made no allusion, it was found, that in those 

 rabbits in which the nerves were divided, and galvanism was 

 not applied, the stomach was greatly distended : when slit open 

 from the pylorus to the cardia, it disclosed a continuous mass 

 of masticated parsley, of a dark green colour, and of its natural 

 odourf. 



From the above statement it is evident, that Mr. Broughton's 

 conclusion is not only absolutely at variance with the expe- 

 rience of Dr. Wilson Philip, but also with that of the authors 

 quoted. It is also, as it appears to me, absolutely at variance 

 with the testimony of Le Gallois ; although an opposite opinion 

 is held by Mr. Broughton. I do not find that Le Gallois any 

 where denies that the functions of the stomach are greatly 

 disturbed by the division of the nerves in the neck. On the 

 contrary, his experiments seem to confirm those authorities 

 which mention the suspension of the digestive functions. Nei- 



*• See llif Cuncspondencc between Dr. Philiii ami Mr. IJroilie. 

 f Medical uiid Phyu'wul Jounial, No. cciv, pa^'e .388. 



