FUNCTIONS OF MUSCULAR TISSUE. 321 



proved some years since by Dr. W. H. Madden f and Dr. Harless has more 

 recently found that when the nervous system had been rendered, by the inhala- 

 tion of ether, utterly incapable of conveying a galvanic stimulus, applied either 

 to the nervous centres or to the nerve-trunks, the same stimulus, applied directly 

 to the muscles, would immediately throw them into powerful contraction. 3 

 Various other experimenters have shown, that when the nerves supplying the 

 muscles of a limb are divided, and the animals are allowed to live, excitants 

 applied to the nerves beyond the point of division fail to produce muscular con- 

 tractions, long before they cease to do so when applied to the muscles themselves. 

 Hence it is obvious that the activity of the Nervous system is not essential to 

 the manifestation of the characteristic endowment of the Muscular. 3 



321. We find, however, that sudden and severe injuries of the Nervous cen- 

 tres have power to impair, directly and instantaneously, or even to destroy, the 

 contractility of the whole Muscular system ; so that death immediately results, 

 and no irritability subsequently remains. It is in this manner that the sudden 

 destruction of the Brain and Spinal Cord, especially of the latter, occasions the 

 immediate cessation of the Heart's action ; though they may be gradually re- 

 moved, without any considerable effect upon it. Severe concussion has the same 

 effect ; hence the Syncope which immediately displays itself. It is sometimes 

 an important question in Forensic Medicine, whether an individual, who has died 

 from the effects of a blow upon the head, could have moved from the place 

 where the blow was inflicted. If there be found, as is frequently the case, no 

 sensible disorganization of the Brain, the death must be attributed to the con- 

 cussion, and must have been in that case immediate. If, on the other hand, 

 effusion of blood has taken place within the cranium, to any considerable extent, 

 it is probable that the first effects of the blow were in some degree recovered 

 from, and that the circulation was re-established. It is not essential, however, 

 that the impression should be primarily made upon the Cerebro-Spinal system. 

 The well-known fact of sudden death not unfrequently resulting from a blow on 

 the stomach, especially after a full meal, without any perceptible lesion of the 

 viscera, clearly indicates that an impression upon the widely-spread cceliac plexus 

 of Sympathetic nerves (which will be much more extensively communicated to 

 them when the stomach is full than when it is empty), may cause the imme- 

 diate cessation of the Heart's action, in the same manner as a violent injury of 

 the Brain or Spinal Cord. In all these cases, the whole vitality of the system 

 appears to be destroyed at once ; for the processes which would otherwise suc- 

 ceed to the injury, and which, after other kinds of death less sudden in their 

 character, produce evident changes in the part of the surface that has imme- 

 diately received it, are here entirely prevented. An instance is on record, in 

 which a criminal under sentence of death determined to anticipate the law 

 by self-destruction. Having no other means of accomplishing his purpose, he 

 stooped his head and ran violently against the wall of his cell ; he immediately 

 fell dead; and no mark of contusion showed itself on his forehead. The same 

 absence of the usual results is to be noticed, in the case of blows on the stomach. 

 Yet it is well known that many of the ordinary vital processes will take place 

 in the injured parts, after death of a more lingering nature ; the vitality of the 

 individual organs not being destroyed immediately on the severance of the chain 

 which binds together the different functions. The influence of severe impres- 



1 "Reports of the British Association," 1887, p. 103. 



2 "Miiller's Archiv.," 1847, band ii. 



3 [Dr. Brown-Sequard has shown that, when the muscles of one limb have been paralyzed 

 by section of their nerves, their irritability lasts much longer after death than that of the 

 muscles of the other limb, and their cadaveric rigidity is much later in making its appear- 

 ance. This fact would also seem to prove that the irritability of the muscles is independent 

 of the nerves. "Gazette Medicale," Fev. et Mars, 1852. Ed.] 



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