120 Analyses of a Series of Papers, by Mr. C. Bell, 



must receive the author's assurance, " that already practical 

 benefits have resulted from the former paper ; that the views 

 presented there, as connected with general science, being car- 

 ried into practice, have enabled the physician to make more 

 accurate distinctions of disease, and the surgeon, in removing 

 deformity, to avoid producing distortion." 



Of the Motions of the Thorax, as affording a Key to the Intri- 

 cacy of its Nerves. (Phil Trans. 1822). 

 By enumerating the uses of the compages of bones and 

 muscles which constitute the walls of the thorax, we are made 

 sensible of the extent of the respiratory actions, and that they 

 in fact extend over the whole face and neck and trunk ; and 

 how the mechanism of the thorax, or rather the respiratory 

 apparatus generally, affects the arrangement of the whole 

 nervous system. The uses of the thorax, independently of 

 affording support and protection to the heart and lungs, and 

 the viscera of the higher region of the abdomen, being, 1st, to 

 alternately oppose, and yield to the weight of the atmosphere, 

 thus producing respiration : 2dly, to manifest an occasional 

 increase and agitation commensurate to the excited state of 

 the animal frame when additional muscles are brought into 

 action : 3dly, to produce natural voice and articulate lan- 

 guage : 4thly, to exhibit the emotions and passions of the 

 mind : 5thly, to join with the muscles which move the car- 

 tilages of the nose in the act of smelling, which is as necessary 

 to the sense of smelling as the act of expiration is to the 

 production of speech : 6thly, to give power to the arms in 

 voluntary action ; seeing that this is in a great measure de- 

 pendent upon the expansion of the thorax, inspiration being 

 always combined with sudden and powerful exertion. 



Origins of the respiratory Nerves. 



In all animals which have ribs rising and falling by respi- 

 ratory muscles, we find a medulla spinalis and the distinction 

 of cerebrum and cerebellum: and experiment and observation 

 prove that the extended act of respiration is controlled by a 

 power seated in the lateral portions of the medulla oblongata, 

 and continued from thence through certain respiratory nerves 

 passing out from the neck, and through the intercostal nerves 

 also lower down in the spine. 



But the associated actions of respiration depend upon cer- 

 tain nerves which arise very nearly together, though in a line 

 or series, from a distinct column of the spinal marrow : this 

 column or track of medullary matter is a continuation of the 

 corpus ret if or me, which is situated just posterior to the corpus 

 nlivare, and may be traced down the spinal marrow betwixt 



the 



