Secreting Power of Animals. 261 



Alison's mode of reasoning from it is inadmissible. - With respect 

 to the fact that considerable parts of the brain have been suddenly- 

 lost without materially affecting secretion, the same answer ap- 

 plies, neither do such losses of brain in general materially affect 

 the sensorial power. Were we to attempt to explain this, we 

 might say, in conformity with the opinion of some writers, that 

 it arises from the same cause that the loss of an eye or ear 

 does not materially affect the sight or hearing, nor the loss of a 

 kidney the secretion of urine. 



Much as Dr. Alison and 1 differ in many respects, 1 cannot 

 conclude without calling your attention to what appears to me, 

 the very correct view taken by him of the question respecting 

 the identity of the nervous influence and galvanism. Those 

 who have hitherto objected to my conclusion from the experi- 

 ments in question*, either maintain, that we must rather suppose 



* I have much pleasure in referring to a paper in the last number of the 

 London Medical and Physical Journal, by Clarke Abel, M.D. F.R.S., Physi- 

 cian at Brighton, in which he gives an account of very careful and well 

 conducted repetitions of my galvanic experiments on the lungs and stomach, 

 made in the presence of several medical gentlemen. In one of these repeti- 

 tions he employed a comparatively weak, and in the other a considerable 

 power, of galvanism. In the former, although the galvanism was not of 

 sufficient power to occasion evident digestion of the food, the constant effects 

 of dividing the eighth pair of nerves, the eflforts to vomit, and the difficulty 

 of breathing, were prevented by it. These symptoms occurring when it was 

 discontinued, and disappearing on its re-application. " The respiration 

 of the animal," he observes, "continued quite free during the experiment, 

 except when the disengagement of the nerves from the tin foil rendered a 

 short suspension of the galvanism necessary during their re-adjustment." 

 " The non-galvanized rabbit breathed with difficulty, wheezed audibly , 

 and made frequent attempts to vomit." In the latter experiment in which 

 the greater power of galvanism was employed, digestion went on as in my 

 experiments. The galvanism proved fatal in nine hours. He remarks the 

 greater moisture of the cardiac portion of the food, which is peculiarly 

 characteristic of the healthy state of the stomach in the rabbit. — Sec 

 the first section of Chapter seven, part second, of my Inquiry. " The 

 pyloric part of the mass," he observes, " was of a brownish colour and re- 

 sembled the contents of a healthy rabbit's stomach, except towards the 

 centre, where it had a greenish maculated appearance, seemingty from 

 the mixture of parsley in different states of digestion, while tne stomach 



