422 Refutation of Mr. IVulkers Claim lo tfte [Jra% 



palsy, which I humbly submit is just a loss of volition. Mr. 

 Walker's rude indigested hypothesis legarding the cerebellum must 

 therefore fall to the ground. There is not one word from him 

 about the cerebellum supplying the face with nervous energy. On 

 the contrary, he makes out a direct opposition between the face and 

 cerebellum. Had Mr. Walker, in his loose, dashing, conjectural 

 way, thrown out a hint that perhaps the face might derive its 

 nervous supply from the cerebellum, yet he would have had no 

 claim to the discovery ; for a discovery is not made until some kind 

 of proof has been adduced ; but it happens unfortunately for Mr. 

 Walker that there is not even the smallest hint, from the beginning 

 to the end of iiis tract, that could at all lead in the smallest degree 

 towards the discovery. On the contrary, Mr. Walker has kept his 

 face right away from the true direction, and looks earnestly down 

 through the foramen magnum after the posterior columns of the 

 spinal marrow as far as his eye can reach. Mr. Walker's volition is 

 just about as far from the function of the cerebellum as Dr. Gall's 

 amativeness. 



My letter to you does not announce that I intend to make these 

 discoveries the subject of my promised work. My announced 

 subject is physiology and physiognomy, in which there are yet vast 

 regions of terra incognita. 



Notwithstanding the grand eulogy bestowed by Mr. Walker upon 

 Dr. Spurzheim's work, I cannot help viewing it, with the exception 

 of a little anatomical discovery, as a most fanciful production. The 

 alchemists, as a friend of mine lately remarked when talking on 

 this very subject, did actually improve the science of chemistry, 

 alt.hough they have never yet found out the philosopher's stone. But 

 enough on this subject at present, as I intend to take a future oppor- 

 tunity of making a few critical remarks on the Gallian doctrine. 



In order to render this letter more worthy of insertion, allow me 

 io say a little in amplification of the tlieory of respiration broached 

 in my former letter. Of the three fundamental functions, respira- 

 tion, nutrition, and propagation, only two, respiration and nutri- 

 tion, are immediately connected with the life of the individual. The 

 third is prospectively concerned with the continuation of the species, 

 and indeed is not evolved till an advanced period of life. 



What becomes of the food which is swallowed ? Some goes to 

 the growth of the i)ody in youth, some in certain constitutions to 

 obesity ; some passes off in alvine, urinary, and cutaneous excre-. 

 tions, in cerumen, snot. Sec; but all these excretions, with the 

 largest allowance, do not nearly balance the quantity of food de- 

 voured. When it is moreover considered that some animals do not 

 grow at all from birth till death ; that all animals during a great part 

 <»t life do not grow; that many great eaters never become fat ; that 

 in a state of health the excretions are trifling, and consist more of 

 noxious than of nutritive materials, and that vegetables which 

 abs^orb such an immen-:e quantity of sap have no alvine, urinary, or 

 «ich other excretion whatever, tiie inquirer becomes quite <iksa- 



