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nervous system and the intimate nature of its ope- 

 rations, to compose a whole, which should have a 

 truly scientific appearance ; but all, that in latter 

 times has been tried this way, from what has been 

 called a higher philosophical point of view, has 

 only done honour to the imagination of the au- 

 thor, without bringing the human understanding 

 a hair's-breadth nearer the truth. 



Those of our contemporaries, who have sub- 

 jected parts of the nervous system to chemical 

 experiments, are THOURET, FOURCROY, JOR- 

 DAN, and in some respects, even BICHAT. The 

 former have given us analyses of the matter of the 

 brain, which, considering the time when they were 

 published, are of real merit : they constitute all 

 that Animal Chemistry can yet shew relative to this 

 noble organ ; but in the present state of the ana- 

 lytical part of the science, they need to be revised 

 and corrected. BICHAT has examined the mem- 

 brane of the nerves (the neurilema). He was, 

 properly speakiug, not a Chemist ; but in order to 

 improve his physiological works, he tried on most 

 parts of the animal body the effect of general che- 

 mical agencies, such as that of air, water, alkalies, 

 and mineral acids ; and the experiments thus made 

 on the "neurilema" are all that we know of it 



