312 INFLUENCE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 



lytically. The patient would at first do well to practise sentences, from which 

 the explosive consonants are omitted ; his chief difficulty arising from the 

 spasmodic suspension of the expiratory movement, being thus avoided. Having 

 mastered these, he may pass on to others, in which the difficult letters are 

 sparingly introduced ; and may finally accustom himself to the use of ordinary 

 language. One of the chief points to be aimed at, is to make the patient feel 

 that he has command over his muscles of articulation ; and this is the best 

 done, by gradually leading him from that which he finds he can do, to that 

 which he fears he cannot. The fact that stammering people are able to sing 

 their words better than to speak them, has been usually explained on the sup- 

 position that, in singing, the glottis is kept open, so that there is less liability 

 to spasmodic action ; if, however, as here maintained, the spasmodic aption is 

 not in the larynx, but in the velum palati and the muscles of articulation, the 

 difference must be due to the direction of the attention rather to the muscles 

 of the larynx than to those of the mouth. Every one must have noticed how 

 much the impediment of Stammerers is increased, when they are particularly 

 anxious to speak fluently. 



CHAPTER VII. 



INFLUENCE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM ON THE ORGANIC FUNCTIONS, 



420. OF the modes in which the Nervous System influences the Organic 

 Functions, a part have been already considered. It has been shown ( 183) that 

 it is concerned in providing the conditions, either immediate or remote, under 

 which alone these functions can be performed ; so that, when its activity ceases, 

 they cannot be much longer maintained. The first mode in which it'operates 

 upon them is, therefore, by producing sensible movements in the Muscles or 

 other contractile organs, which can be stimulated to action through it ; and the 

 contractions thus induced have usually an important effect upon them, which 

 varies, however, in each individual case. Thus, the process of Nutritive 

 Absorption, which is the very first stage in the operations of Vegetative Life, 

 and which is accomplished in Plants by the accidental contact of the aliment- 

 ary materials with the radical fibres, cannot take place in Animals until the 

 muscular apparatus of prehension has been set in action by the Will, that of 

 deglutition by the Reflex Function, and that of the intestinal canal by direct 

 stimulation, the two former kinds of contraction being accomplished entirely 

 through the Nervous System, and the latter being influenced by it. The Cir- 

 culation of Blood, too, is chiefly effected, in the higher Animals at least, by the 

 contractions of a muscular organ of impulsion ; which contractions, though 

 not essentially dependent upon Nervous action, are nevertheless greatly influ- 

 enced by it. The function of Respiration, again, cannot be maintained even 

 short time, without muscular movement, excited through the Nervous 

 The functions of Nutrition and Secretion are more independent of 

 it; taking place, as in Plants, so long as the conditions are supplied by other 

 Junctions, without any sensible movements being actually concerned in them. 

 We shall presently see, however, that they are subject to a peculiar kind of 



