278 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



see that in paralysis, sometimes one property is 

 lost, sometimes another ; a circumstance most im- 

 portant to the physician. 



As connected with our present subject, it is a 

 strange thing to see that, whilst a person may 

 have every capacity for motion in the lips and 

 tongue, he will have the morsel remaining in the 

 mouth without knowing it. The first instance I 

 found of a defect in the lips exactly similar to that 

 produced by cutting the nerve of sensation on one 

 side of the face, was in a gentleman who, being 

 under the hands of his dentist, had the nerve of 

 sensation hurt by the pulling of a tooth : and hav- 

 ing a glass of water given to him, remarked that 

 the glass was a broken one: the fact being, that 

 the portion of the tumbler in contact with one- 

 half of his lips was not felt at all, which gave him 

 the same sensation as if a bit of the glass had been 

 broken away. 



We might show, in the lower creatures, an in- 

 finite variety in the forms of the mouth ; but even 

 in the mammalia, we may perceive that the lips 

 are projected, and have a power almost like that 

 of the hand. The horse has great power in his 

 lips. The camel, the elk, but more especially 

 the rhinoceros, have a still greater mobility, and 

 the latter has a very fine sensibility in the hook- 

 shaped extension of its upper lip: the snout of the 

 tapir and the trunk of the elephant belong to the 

 lips, rather than to the nostrils. We have the 

 least equivocal proof of this, in their supply of 



