168 On the Relations between Mind and Muscle. 



3. Does it depend on any condition of the surrounding media i on gases ? 

 on degrees of heat or cold ? moisture or dryness ? 



4. If only observable in the decayed wood of one or two trees, may not 

 such restriction justify a suspicion that the substance of such trees affords 

 a nidus to peculiar insects, (as scolopendra electrica,) whose ova may pos- 

 sibly be luminous ? 



5. Has the luminous substance been duly submitted to microscopical, 

 or other, investigation ? If it has been so examined, where is the report 

 of such examination to be found ? 



These hints are thrown out with a hope that they may excite some one, 

 possessing adequate means, to pursue the enquiry.* Perhaps you, or some 

 reader of your Journal, may be prepared to throw further light on this 

 subject, and thus illuminate and gratify 



Yours very sincerely, 



I. S, D. 



* Workmen in peat bogs have told me that they have sometimes seen shining 

 wood, or roots, in the bog ; but their description was too vague to afford a guess at 

 the kind of root or wood. This may be the luminous matter to which Thomson al- 

 ludes, speaking of a " night-bewildered wanderer, who, 



" Perhaps, impatient a» he stumbles on, 

 Struck from the root of slimy rashes blue, 

 The wildfire scatters round, or, gather'd, trails 

 A length of flame deceitful o'er the moss." 



Such a phaenomenon, in such a situation, might indeed residt from trampling upon 

 putrid fish. 



ON THE RELATIONS BETWEEN MIND AND MUSCLE j 



(Being the substance of a Paper read before the Philosophical and Literary Society of 



Bristol, Dec. 1834. J 



BY J. A. SYMONDS, M. D. 



PART II. 



1. The first groupe of involuntary motions, is constituted by those which 

 are immediately consequent upon certain organic conditions, without sen- 

 sation. It includes all the muscular actions which belong to the mere 

 nutritive life of the system,* and which result from a property in the 

 organization of the part, called irritability, and the application of a stimulus. 

 Such is the contraction of the heart, excited by the stimulus of blood, such 

 also the vermicular motion of the stomach and intestines. The action of 

 the respiratory muscles belongs to this head, though there has been some 

 controversy on the subject. Some physiologists are of opinion that the 



* These have been generally, but very erroneously, made to monopolize the term 

 involuntary. 



