102 Dr. A. P. W. Philip on the 



ligatures, so tight as to intercept all communication between the 

 heart and sensorium commune in the calm and peaceful state of 

 the system, but not sufficient to prevent the sensorium acting 

 more or less powerfully on the heart in the agitation of the pas- 

 sions *. Sometimes he seems to believe that the interception 

 is complete and constant, and that it is by the nerves of the 

 eighth pair that the passions affect the heart f ; and he seems 

 to adopt the opinion of WinslowJ, renewed byWinkel§, John- 

 stone 1|, UnzerT, Lecat**, Peffingertt, &c., that the ganglions 

 are so many small brains. He admits, at the same time, that 

 the nerves of feeling are distinct from those of motion ; so that 

 the heart cannot contract, except when the impression of the 

 stimulus on its cavities is transmitted to the ganglions by the 

 nerves of feeling, and reflected on its fibres by the nerves of 

 motion Jt, But, besides, that this opinion, even by the 

 author's confession, is only a conjecture, it supposes, on the 

 one hand, that the circulation would continue after the de- 

 struction of the spinal marrow ; and, on the other, that the 

 heart would cease to beat at the moment when its communica- 

 tion with the ganglions and the plexuses is interrupted. Now, 

 both these suppositions are contradicted by facts. 



These fruitless attempts to modify the theory of irritability 

 by the intervention of the nervous power, have only increased 

 the zeal of some authors to maintain that theory in its original 

 purity ; and as the use of the nerves of the heart was among 

 the most embarrassing objections to it, M. Soemmering, one of 

 the most profound anatomists of Germany, and Behrends, one 

 of his most distinguished scholars, maintained, in 1792, that 



* Opera Minora, torn. II., j). 165. f If>id., p, 167. 



•f- Erposit. Anatom. Traiti des Nerfs, § 364. 



% Nov. Inflam, Theoria, Vienn. 1767, cap. 5, p. 154. 



§ Essay on the Use of the Ganglions, 1771. 



II Unzer, quoted by Prochaska, Oper. Minora, torn, iii.'p. 169. 



^f Traitd de V Exisirnce de la Nature et des Proprietes du Fluide Ncrveux. 

 Berlin, 1765, p. 225. 



** he Sfructura Nervorum, Argeutorati, 1783. Sect. 1. § 34, inserted 

 iu Ibe Collection of Luihvig, vol. i. 



ff Opera Minora, torn. II., p. 169. 



