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XXVIII. INFLUENCE OF RED BLOOD ON MUSCLES AND NERVES 

 DEPRIVED OF THEIR VITAL PROPERTIES. 



James Phillips Kay* has found that blood, injected into limbs 

 of dead animals, just after irritability has disappeared, is capable 

 of regenerating this vital property. I have gone much farther, and 

 have discovered that blood is able to regenerate the vital proper- 

 ties of nerves and muscles, even in limbs which have lost their 

 irritability and have been rigid for several hours. I have ob- 

 tained this result from the following experiments : 



1st. On the body of a rabbit, in which cadaveric rigidity had 

 already existed for 10, 20, and in one case, 33 minutes, I 

 divided the aorta and the vena cava in the abdomen, immediately 

 above the bifurcation of these vessels. By means of small tubes, 

 a communication was established between their peripheric ex- 

 tremity and the central extremity of the corresponding vessels 

 divided in a living rabbit. The blood of this living animal 

 circulated immediately in the posterior limbs of the dead one. 

 After about six, eight or ten minutes, rigidity disappeared, 

 and, a few minutes afterwards, movements took place when 

 I excited the muscles or the muscular nerves. 



2d. I have obtained a like result from an experiment more 

 easily made than the preceding, and which I have performed 

 more frequently. I divided transversely the body of a living 

 guinea-pig, or rabbit, into two halves, on a level with the lower 

 border of the kidneys, leaving no communication between the 

 two halves, except by the aorta and the vena cava. I then tied 

 the aorta immediately below the origin of the renal arteries. 

 The muscular irritability gradually diminished, and in a very 

 variable length of timef it gave way to cadaveric rigidity. I 

 waited until rigidity had been fully developed in all the muscles, 

 and then the ligature was relaxed and the circulation re-es- 

 tablished. Rigidity disappeared slowly, and the muscles and 

 the motor nerves resumed their vital properties. 



3d. In order to ascertain if voluntary movements and sensi- 

 bility could be restored to limbs that had been in a state of ca- 



* Treatise on Asphyxia. London, 1834 



t Sometimes 30, 20, or even only 10 minutes in weak animals, and from 

 1 to 8 or 9 hours in strong animals. 



