go PRELIMINARY ACCOUNT OF AN INQUIRY INTO 
in consequence of having noticed curious irregular contractions in the arteries 
of the frog’s foot from a similar cause. In order to decide the question, I tied 
three adjoining arterial branches in the mesentery of a rabbit, thus depriving 
about three inches of the intestine of its circulation, the parts so affected 
being accurately defined by the extent of absence of pulsation in the minute 
vessels close to the gut. In about a minute and a half, vermicular movements 
commenced in this part, the rest of the intestines being at the time very quiet. 
Powerful interrupted galvanic currents were then transmitted through the 
posterior dorsal region of the spine, with the effect of causing perfect quiescence 
of the whole of the intestine, including the part whose arteries had been tied. 
After cessation of the galvanism the movements recurred in the portion devoid 
of circulation, while elsewhere they were almost entirely absent. This experi- 
ment was repeated on another occasion with similar results. In one of the 
cases I divided the mesentery close to the gut, after ligature of the vessels, 
but no change took place in the character of the movements which had been 
previously induced, indicating that the increased action in these cases had been 
of the same nature as that which results from death. The arrest of the move- 
ment on the application of galvanism proved that the delicate operation of 
ligature of the mesenteric vessels had been performed without injury to the 
adjacent nervous branches; and it therefore followed that the movement 
in the parts supplied by those vessels was not due to any injury of the nerves, 
but simply to the arrest of circulation. It further appears from these experi- 
ments, that, in whatever way the cessation of the flow of blood through the 
vessels operates in increasing the peristaltic action, it does so through the medium 
of the nervous apparatus, and not by directly influencing the muscular tissue. 
For, in the latter case, the movement would have continued in spite of the in- 
hibiting influence, which, as we have seen, has no effect upon muscular irritability. 
The fact that the movements continue in a portion of gut deprived of its 
mesentery, proves that the nervous apparatus by which the muscular contrac- 
tions are induced and co-ordinated in post mortem peristaltic action, is con- 
tained within the intestine. 
The distinction between the co-ordinating power and muscular contractility 
was very strikingly shown in the further progress of one of these experiments. 
The peristaltic movements of the portion of gut supplied by the ligatured 
arteries ceased entirely about twenty minutes after the vessels were tied, and 
the surface of the gut became there perfectly smooth and relaxed, contrasting 
strongly with the wrinkled aspect of other parts. But muscular irritability 
had outlived the co-ordinating power, as was shown by energetic, purely local 
contraction taking place in a part pinched. Similar observations confirmatory 
