MOTOR AND SENSORY NERVES. 69 



ied me to suppose that the two roots of the spinal nerves 

 had the same discrepancy of function with the two roots of 

 the fifth ; and that the ganglionic portion might belong to 

 sensation, the smaller anterior portion to volition." 1 



As we shall see farther on, all discussion relative to pri- 

 ority in the discovery of the true functions of the roots of the 

 nerves is confined to the claims of Bell and of Magendie. The 

 experiments of Miiller 3 and others were made after 1822, the 

 date of the first publication of the experiments of Magendie. 



In nearly every. treatise on physiology published since 

 1822, and in almost all works on the nervous system subse- 

 quent to that date, the great discovery of the distinct seat 

 of motion and sensation in the spinal nerves is a scribed to 

 Sir Charles Bell. The name of Magendie is seldom men- 

 tioned in this connection, even in France ; and his discov- 

 eries are supposed to relate chiefly to the seat of sensation 

 and motion in the different columns of the spinal cord. 



It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the importance of the 

 discovery that the anterior roots of the spinal nerves are 

 motor, and the posterior, sensory, and that the union of these 

 two roots in the mixed nerves gives them their double 

 properties, for we can hardly imagine a physiology of the 

 cerebro-spinal nervous system without this fact as the starting- 

 point ; and we have entered, rather more elaborately than 

 usual, into an historical review of this discovery, from the 

 fact that nearly all writers have ascribed it to Sir Charles 

 Bell, and have ignored the claims of Magendie, the real dis- 

 coverer. In an article published in English, in October, 

 1868, 3 and in French, during the same year, 4 we have given 



1 MAYO, Outlines of Human Physiology, London, 1827, p. 240. 



2 MULLER, Physiologic du systeme nerveux, Paris, 1840, tome i., p. 85, et seq. ; 

 and, Manuel de physiologic, Paris, 1851, tome i., p. 598, et seq. The experiments 

 of M tiller were first published in 1831. 



3 FLINT, JR., Historical Considerations concerning the Properties of the Roots 

 of the Spinal Serves. Quarterly Journal of Psychological Medicine, New York, 

 1868, vol. ii., p. 625, et seq. 



4 Journal de ranatomie, Paris, 1868, tome v. r p. 520, et seq., and p. 575, et seq. 



