258 ENDOCRINE GLANDS 



What does Bichat understand by the nervous system 

 of vegetative life? 



"No anatomist has ever considered the nervous system 

 of the ganglia from the point of view under which I will 

 present it. This point of view consists in considering 

 each ganglion as a centre, independent of the others in its 

 action, furnishing and receiving its nerves, as does the 

 brain and having nothing in common by anastomosis, 

 with other analogous organs, so that there is a remarkable 

 difference between the animal and vegetative nervous 

 system, in that the first has a single centre in the brain, 

 which is reached by all kind of sensations and from which 

 arise all kind of impulses, while in the second there are 

 a number of centres and therefore as many nervous sys- 

 tems as there are ganglia. From the general conception 

 which I have given of the ganglia, it is evident that this 

 nerve, (the greater sympathetic) does not really exist and 

 that the continuous structure that is to be found from the 

 neck down to the pelvis is really only a series of nerve 

 communications, a series of anastomosis sent out by the 

 various ganglia and not a nerve starting from the brain 

 or the spinal cord. 



"It seems to me that most anatomists have a very 

 erroneous idea of this very important nerve. 



"They all represent it as a medullary filament, from the 

 head to the sacral region and sending out throughout its 

 course branches to the neck, chest and abdomen, following 

 in its distribution a course analogous to the spinal nerves 

 and arising, according to some, from these nerves, or 

 according to others, from the brain. Whatever name it 

 be given, be it sympathetic, intercostal, trisplanchnic, 

 etc., the way of looking at it is always the same. 



"I think this view is entirely erroneous and that such a 





