SECT. I.] PARTS INCLUDED IN THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 383 



abundantly shows how wonderfully and diversely the machine 

 of the nervous system is constituted, and how skilfully pro- 

 tected j and if it be compared with any other part or organ of 

 the body, testifies that nature nowhere else has adopted such a 

 variety and number of parts, nowhere else framed such sin- 

 gular forms, nowhere else used such a delicate and fragile ma- 

 terial, no other structures so skilfully protected as that system ; 

 whence it follows that its functions in the animal economy 

 must be of the highest importance, and at the same time the 

 most complicated. However composite the machine of the 

 nervous system may be, I think it may be divided into three 

 portions, just as its functions are most conveniently arranged 

 in three divisions : namely, in the first place, the animal organs, 

 or the organs of the mental faculty, the cerebrum and cere- 

 bellum ; secondly, the general sensorium which appears to con- 

 sist of the medulla spinalis and medulla oblongata, together 

 with that portion of the medulla of the cerebrum and cere- 



that it would be superfluous to quote them. Besides these, a most accurate de- 

 scription of the nerves of the humau body, containing all the recent discoveries 

 appropriately arranged, may be read in the new Latin edition of the * Institutiones 

 Neurologicse,' 1781, by Martini, President of the Royal Academy of Sciences of 

 Sweden, and formerly Professor of Anatomy and Surgery. They who desire to see 

 correct delineations of the nervous system, may consult, for this purpose, the 17th 

 to the 23d inclusive of Eustachius's plates, and the ' Anatoraica Adversaria' of Tarin 

 (Paris, 1750). Mayer, the celebrated anatomist and professor of Frankfort, in his 

 work entitled * Anatomisch-Physiologische Abhandlung vom Gehirn, Ruckenmark, 

 und Ursprung der Nerven' (Berlin, 1779), as also in another on the vessels of the 

 human body, has published most beautiful and accurate views of the cerebrum, 

 medulla oblongata, and medulla spinalis, together with the origin of the nerves. 

 Consult also the excellent work of S. T. Soemmering, * De Basi Encephali et Ori- 

 ginibus Nervorum Cranio Egredientium ' (Gottingse, 1778). The celebrated Meckel, 

 in his 'Tractatus de quinto pare Nervorum Cerebri' (Gott., 1748), and his tract 'De 

 Nervis Faciei' (Berolini, 1755), has dissected the most minute filaments with inimitable 

 skill, and most admirably depicted it. Neubauer, Professor at Jena, snatched away 

 by premature death, published (1772) a work entitled * Sectio prima Nervorum Car- 

 diacorum,* which could only have come from the hands of one equally skilled as an 

 anatomist and draughtsman ; also Camper's * Demonstrationes Anatomico-Patholo- 

 gicae ;* Lobstein's * Dissert, de Nervo Spinali ad par Vagura Accessorio ' in Sandifort's 

 Thesaurus, 1 : George Asch's ' Diss, de primo pare Nervorum Spinalium ; Wrisberg's 

 'Observ. Anatomicae de 5to pare Nervor. Cer.' (Gott., 1777); Boehmer's ' Com- 

 mentatio de nono pare Nervor. Cerebri (Gott, 1777). To these might be subjoined 

 my tract ' De Structura Nervorum ' (Viennae, 1 779). Consult also Ludwig's * Dissert, 

 de Cinerea Cerebri Substantia' (Lipsiae, 1779), and the beautiful plates of the nerves 

 lately published by Walther, Professor at Berlin. 



