158 LOCALIZED ELECTRIZATION. 



organ to which it is distributed (the sub-in axillary gland), an over- 

 activity of the capillary circulation, and a dilatation of the small 

 arteries, such that the blood would circulate in the veins with all 

 the appearances of arterial blood. He showed, also, that other 

 nerves going to the arteries of the face had equally the power to 

 dilate those arteries.^ 



B. — Oioinion of M, CI. Bernard in favour of the active dilatation of 

 vessels. — Although treating of the therapeutic influence of localized 

 faradization upon the activity of local circulation, I ignoreil the 

 mechanism of this influence until our great physiologist, M. CI. 

 Bernard, after having contributed so largely to make known the 

 proper action of the great sympathetic, entering upon a new path 

 of discovery, had shown, especially by his experiments upon the 

 chorda tympani, that, in opposition to the action of this nerve as 

 a constrictor of the vessels, other nerves, when excited, produced 

 dilatation of the vessels, and that hence they are dilatators of the 

 arteries, and accelerators of the capillary circulation. 



Although it is true that, in the hands of M. CI. Bernard, experi- 

 ment has as yet shown the two orders of vascular nerves (con- 

 strictors and dilatators) only on the arterioles of certain glands 

 and of the face, yet it must be remembered that his genius has led 

 him to believe that the active dilatation of vessels must be general. 

 The following are the terms in which he expresses his opinion : — 



" It is admitted, in general," he says, " that all the phenomena 

 that follow section of the great sympathetic in the neck are the 

 consequences of paralysis of the nerve and of the consecutive 

 passive dilatation of the vessels. This explanation appears to me to 

 be insufficient, to say no more. 1 am assured, indeed, after that 

 experiment, that the blood which enters the venous system is 

 warmer than that which traverses the arteries. There is then, 

 among these phenomena, something more than a simple passive 

 dilatation of the vessels : we are in the presence of an action of a 

 different kind, and until now unknown. The contraction of the 

 pupil, after division of the cervico-cephalic branch, is not a passive, 

 but, on the contrary, is an active phenomenon ; there is produced, 

 after the section of the sympathetic, a predominance of action of 

 the ciliary branches of the third pair. 



" The variations observed in the size of the vessels appear to 

 belong to the same class of phenomena, although here the contrac- 

 tion is produced when the sympathetic is excited, and the dilatation 

 when it is divided, the opposite of what happens in the pupil. This 



* See CI. Bernard, Lemons sur les pro- I pathologiques des liquides de Vorganisme, 

 prie't^s physiologiques et les alterations j tome ii., le9on.s des 4 et 9 Juin, 1858. 



