Physiology and Practice of Medicine. 465 
him to travel in Italy. It was upon M. Sergel’s suggestion that 
Gustavus purchased the Endymion, one of the chefs d’auvre of 
antiquity at Rome, and which now forms the chief ornament of 
the Stockholm museuin. 
M. Le Gallois, of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, has 
lately made some interesting inquiries on the principle of life, 
and particularly on the motion of the heart as connected 
with it. He was led by an adventitious circumstance to consi- 
der how long the young of rabbits can live without respiring, 
immediately after their separation from the mother, before the 
natural period of utero-gestation terminates. He found the 
time to be variable, and greater in proportion to its proximity 
to the termination of pregnancy. He then attempted to dis- 
cover, how long these animals can live after decapitation ; and 
found this to be also variable according to the age of the ani- 
mal: but he likewise observed, that it is always precisely equal 
to the time during which the animal resists suffocation, or takes 
in dying by asphyxia. M, Le Gallois thence concluded, that 
decapitation only destroys animals by suffocating them; that is, 
by impeding the respiration necessary to-their existence. 
The analogy being once assumed, required to be proved by 
direct experiments. There was, besides, this difference between 
the effects of simple asphyxia and decapitation ; viz. the animal 
under asphyxia made vain efforts to breathe, whilst in that . 
decapitated all the motions of respiration were destroyed. It 
became requisite to discover the cause of this difference. To 
resolve the first question, M. Le Gallois endeavoured to supply 
the material of respiration in the decapitated animal, hy inflat- 
_ ing the thorax, after having tied the arteries: this experiment 
sueceeded. Sensation and voluntary motion were seen to return 
with inflation ; they were of various duration in different rabbits, 
but even in the youngest continued for several hours. 
As it was thus proved that the destruction of the brain oc- 
casioned death by the interruption of respiration, it hecame ne- 
cessary to inquire whether the principle of the motion resided 
in this viscus generally, or was confined to one of its parts? 
For this purpose, our experimentalist opened the cranium of a 
young rabbit, and removed the brain by successive portions, 
cutting it horizontally, from before, backwards. He found that 
all the cerebrum could be thus removed, and the whole of the 
cerebellum, and even part of the medulla oblongata, without 
interrupting respiration ; but this function suddenly ceased 
when the origin of the eighth pair of nerves was included in 
the slice cut from the medulla oblongata. It therefore became 
evident, that the principle of motion in the respiratory organs 
Vol.43. No. 194. June 1534. Gg proceeds 
