252 Wilson Philip on the 



It is not my intention to trouble you with any speculative 

 opinions on this subject, but simply to inquire what inference 

 the facts we possess relating to it warrant. Having long been 

 engaged in the practice of medicine, and considered it as the 

 only object of my serious studies, I have been accustomed to 

 measure the importance of all physiological questions by the 

 degree in which they bear on the practical part of this profes- 

 sion, and consequently to attach but little value to any thing, 

 which could not be brought to th^ test of experiment, and ad- 

 mit of useful application. During some investigations which 

 have occupied the time I could spare, from the more active 

 duties of my profession, and writings relating to its more imme- 

 diate objects, I was struck with the wonderful power of galva- 

 nism in repairing derangement of function in the animal body ; 

 and conceived, that if we could ascertain the principle on which 

 it acts, it might be rendered an important agent in the cure of 

 diseases. Its effects in restoring vigour to the lungs and diges- 

 tive organs, under certain circumstances in the human body, of 

 which an account is given in the Philosophical Transactions of 

 1817, and more fully in my Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital 

 Functions, prove that this expectation has already been realized 

 to such an extent, as to hold out a rational hope of further ad- 

 vantages, and consequently to make it worth while carefully to 

 examine the grounds on which it is founded. 



It will be necessary to premise a few observations on the rela- 

 tion which subsists between the nervous and muscular systems. 

 Haller inferred from the fact, that after we have, as far as pos- 

 sible, deprived a muscle of nervous influence by dividing its 

 nerves, it is still found capable of its function ; that the muscular 

 is independent of the nervous power. His opponents, however 

 have objected to this inference, because although in his experi- 

 ment, the muscle is prevented from receiving more nervous 

 influence, it is not deprived of that already bestowed on it, either 

 forming a necessary part of the fibre itself, or dispersed through- 

 out its substance in nerves too small to be removed by the knife ; 

 and this objection appears to be greatly strengthened by the 

 circumstances, that after a muscle is separated from the body, 



