DISCHARGE OF THE TJRINE. 185 



thetic, and he has described a centre in the spinal cord, 

 which presides over the contractions of the lower part of the 

 intestinal canal, the bladder, and the vasa deferentia. This 

 he calls the genito-spinal centre, and he has located it, in ex- 

 periments upon rabbits, in the spinal cord opposite to the 

 fourth lumbar vertebra. From this centre the nervous fila- 

 ments pass through the sympathetic nerve which communi- 

 cates with the ganglion corresponding to the fifth lumbar 

 vertebra. 1 These experiments have been somewhat extended 

 by M. Giannuzzi, who operated upon dogs. The location 

 of a centre in the spinal cord somewhere in the lumbar re- 

 gion was confirmed, and it was further ascertained that 

 certain filaments passed to the bladder from a point corre- 

 sponding to the third lumbar vertebra, going through the 

 mesenteric ganglia, to form part of the hypogastric plexus. 

 Xervous filaments also passed directly to the bladder from a 

 point in the spinal cord opposite the fifth lumbar vertebra. 

 When the spinal cord at these points was irritated with the 

 point of a needle, contraction of the muscular walls of the 

 bladder was produced ; but this result did not follow when 

 the irritation was applied to the cord after division of the 

 nerves above mentioned. 2 



1 BUDGE, Lehrbuch der speciellen Physiologic des Henschen, Leipzig, 1862, 

 S. 510. 



9 GIAXXUZZI, Recherches physiologiqucs sur Ics nerfs motcurs de la vessie. 

 Journal de la physiologic, Paris, 1863, tome vi., p. 29. 



