396 ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF THE SPINAL CORD. 



these have been removed. Vauquelin remarks that the 

 spinal cord contains more fat than the brain ; and L'Heritier, 

 that the nerves contain more albumen and soft fat than 

 the brain. 



In Mammalia, the nervous system is in two great sub- 

 divisions the Cerebro-spinal and the Sympathetic. 



The Cerebro-spinal system, called by Bichat the nervous 

 system of animal life, includes the brain and spinal cord, 

 together with the nerves connected with these centres, and 

 the ganglia situated on the course of the nerves or in the 

 brain. This division presides over those acts with which 

 the mind is more immediately connected, as the mental, 

 and even a large proportion of the truly physical nervous 

 actions. 



The Sympathetic or Ganglionic system presides over 

 those physical nervous accions which are not directly 

 connected with the mind, as the functions of digestion, 

 circulation, nutrition, &c. On this account it has been 

 named by Bichat the nervous system of organic life. It 

 consists of a series of nervous ganglia, lodged in different 

 parts of the body, connected with each other, and, to a less 

 extent, with the Cerebro-spinal system, by nervous cords, 

 and sending off nervous trunks to ramify in the surrounding 

 tissues. 



ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF THE SPINAL CORD. 



The spinal cord or spinal marrow is that part of the 

 cerebro-spinal system which is contained in the spinal 

 canal of the backbone, and extends, in our domestic 

 animals, from the head to a short distance behind the loins. 

 It is an irregularly cylindrical structure, divided into two 

 lateral symmetrical halves by fissures ; a superior and an 

 inferior median, of which the former is the deeper. It 



