300 DIGESTION. 



cles and the diaphragm. Other experiments were made, 

 however, which demonstrated the relative importance of the 

 different muscles in the performance of this act. The phrenic 

 nerves were divided in a dog, and the diaphragm was thus 

 rendered almost inert. On injecting emetic into the veins 

 after this operation, vomiting took place at times very feebly, 

 and at times not at all. In another animal, the abdominal 

 muscles were divided, leaving the viscera confined by the peri- 

 toneum and the linea alba. Emetic was then injected into the 

 circulation, and vomiting was effected solely by contractions 

 of the diaphragm. In this experiment, after having divided 

 the phrenic nerves, vomiting ceased, though the nausea con- 

 tinued. 



These experiments, which were satisfactorily repeated 

 before a commission from the Institut, consisting of Cuvier, 

 Humboldt, Pinel, and Percy, are as conclusive as any that 

 ever have been made upon living animals. Since their 

 publication, they have been repeated by a number of physi- 

 ologists, among whom may be mentioned Begin, 1 Legallois, 

 and Beclard. 2 We are also enabled to testify to their ac- 

 curacy from personal observation ; and in the fall of 1861 

 they were in part repeated in the course of lectures on phys- 

 iology before the class of the Bellevue Hospital Medical Col- 

 lege, and an animal was caused to vomit from a pig's blad- 

 der which had been substituted for the stomach. 3 



If any thing further were needed to establish the great 

 importance of the action of the abdominal muscles and 

 diaphragm in vomiting, and the insignificant part played by 

 the stomach itself in this operation, it could be furnished by 

 facts relating to the mode of contraction of the muscular 

 fibres which constitute the middle coat of the stomach, and 



1 Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales, in 60 vols., Paris, 1822, tome Iviii., Ar- 

 ticle Vbmissement. 



2 LEGALLOIS, Experiences sur le Vomissement. (Euvres, Paris, 1824, tome ii., 

 p. 93 et seq. 



3 These experiments were made simply for class-demonstration, and have 

 never before been published. 



