INFLUENCE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 307 



juice was any longer secreted after the interruption of continuity 

 of the pneurnogastric nerves in the neck, and that there was no 

 longer any true digestion of the albuminates in the stomach 

 (whilst the digestion in the small intestine continued its undis- 

 turbed course after such operations). In order more clearly to 

 demonstrate this circumstance. Bidder and Schmidt* instituted 

 very careful experiments on four dogs, in which fistulous openings 

 into the stomach had been made ; the result of these experiments 

 was, that the quantity and the composition of the gastric juice,, 

 which was secreted after the course of the pneumogastric nerves had 

 been interrupted, was precisely the same as in the normal state. In 

 two cases, however, the quantity and the acidity of the gastric juice 

 were not inconsiderably diminished, but after such an operation 

 as the division of the pneumogastric nerves, so many of the vital 

 functions of the animal become involved, that this diminution can 

 only be regarded as an indirect effect of this action, more especially 

 as in both the other cases a more abundant and more acid gastric 

 juice was secreted than is even commonly observed in the normal 

 state. Independently of the fact that the proportion and character 

 of the constituents, both organic and inorganic, were entirely the 

 same in the gastric juice after division of these nerves as before 

 the operation, the above-named observers convinced themselves 

 that such gastric juice, both within and external to the stomach, 

 possesses precisely the same digestive powers as the ordinary 

 secretion. Are we, then, justified, from these thoroughly exact 

 experiments, in entirely denying to the pneumogastric the 

 function of presiding over the secretion of the gastric juice ? We 

 believe not: for even the movements of the stomach, whose 

 dependence on the pneumogastric has been quite decisively 

 established, first by Weber, and subsequently by Reid, Bischofiyf- 

 and Volkmann, may often be perceived with scarcely any diminished 

 intensity after division of the pneumogastrics. A nerve whose 

 fibres form so abundant a net- work around the stomach can, 

 however, hardly exert no influence either on its movements or on 

 its secretion, especially when we recollect that Bidder and Schmidt 

 have found that it is in no way connected with the sense of 

 hunger. VolkmannJ has certainly been led, from anatomical con- 

 siderations, to the opposite view, in his experiments on the 

 influence of the pneumogastric on the movements of the stomach, 



* Op.'cit. pp. 90-07. 



t MUller's Arch. 1838, S. 496. 



Handworterbuch der Physiologie. Bd. 2, S. 584. 



X 2 



