114 SENSATIONS. 



It is, then, between these parts, that we must place the cerebral organs 

 of the senses, and it is with this part of the cephalo-spinal axis, that 

 the nerves of the senses are actually found to communicate. Mr. 

 Lawrence 1 saw a child with no more encephalon than a bulb, which 

 was a continuation of the medulla spinalis, for about an inch above 

 the foramen magnum, and with which all the nerves from the fifth to 

 the ninth pair were connected. The child's breathing and temperature 

 ,were natural; it discharged urine and faeces; took food, and at first 

 moved very briskly. It lived four days. 



If we divide the posterior roots of the spinal nerves and the fifth 

 pair, general sensibility is lost ; but if we divide the nerves of the 

 senses, we destroy only their functions. We can thus understand why, 

 after decapitation, sensibility may remain for a time in the head. 

 It is instantly destroyed in the trunk, owing to the removal of all com- 

 munication with the encephalon ; but the fifth pair is entire, as well as 

 the nerves of the organs of the senses. Death must of course follow 

 almost instantaneously from loss of blood ; but there is doubtless 

 an appreciable interval during which the head may continue to feel ; 

 or, in other words, during which the external senses may act. 2 M. 

 Julia Fontanelle 3 has indeed concluded, from a review of all the obser- 

 vations made on this matter, that, contrary to the common opinion, 

 death by the guillotine is one of the most painful ; that the pains of 

 decollation are horrible, and endure even until there is an entire ex- 

 tinction of animal heat ! It need scarcely be said, that all these infer- 

 ences are imaginative, and perhaps equally fabulous with the oft-told 

 story of Charlotte Corday scowling at the executioner after her head 

 was removed from her body by the guillotine ; and this conclusion is 

 strongly confirmed by the results of experiments on a robber who was 

 beheaded with the sword by Drs. BischofF, Heerman, and Jolly, who 

 inferred that consciousness must have ceased instantaneously. 4 But if 

 such be the case with man, it most assuredly is not so with the inferior 

 animals. Ample evidence will be afforded hereafter to show, that 

 both sensation and volition may persist in the rattlesnake and alligator 

 long after the head has been removed from the body. Singular facts in 

 regard to the latter animal have been recorded by Dr. Leconte, 5 and 

 more recently, by Dr. Dowler, 6 of New Orleans. 



It has been remarked, that the cerebral hemispheres may be sliced 

 away without abolishing the senses. The experiments of Rolando and 

 Flourens, which have been repeated by M. Magendie, show, however, 

 that the sight is an exception ; that it is lost by their removal. If the 

 right hemisphere be sliced away, the sight of the left eye is lost; and 

 conversely; one of the facts that prove the decussation of the optic 



1 Medico Chirurg. Transact., v. 166. 



2 Berard, Rapports du Physique et du Moral, p. 93, Paris, 1823. 



3 Phoebus, Art. Enthauptung, in Encyclopad. Worterb. der Medicin. Wissenchaft. xi. 

 204, Berlin, 1835. 



4 A condensed account of Dr. BischofTs Remarks, from Mailer's Archiv., by S. L. L. Big. 

 ger, is in the Dublin Journal of Medical iSoience, Sept., 1839, p. 1. 



5 New York Journal of Medicine, for Nov., 1845, p. 335, and Sir Charles Lyell, Travels 

 in North America, Amer. edit., i. 237. New York, 1849. 



6 Contributions to Physiology, New Orleans. 1849, from New Orleans Journal of Medi- 

 cine. 



