264 DR. PHILIP'S OBSERVATIONS ON :> ' 



exercised by different nerves bound up in the same envelope. Dr. Parry in 

 his treatise on the pulse for example, relates a ease where feeling alone was 

 lost in one arm, and voluntary power alone in the other. But these are not 

 the only nor indeed the most important functions of the spinal nerves. All of 

 them contribute to the formation of the ganglionic system, on which the life 

 of the animal, as will appear from many facts I am about to state, immediately 

 depends. 



It is evident from what has been said, that the ganglions and plexuses re- 

 semble each other in their nature ; and as the nerves which terminate in them 

 come from all the most distant parts of the nervous system, some from the 

 brain, and some from the lower extremity, and all intermediate parts of the 

 spinal marrow, we cannot help supposing, that there is some design in thus 

 uniting nerves which arise from so many different parts of these organs. One 

 of the most striking differences between the ganglionic nerves, and those pro- 

 ceeding directly from the brain and spinal marrow, is that even independently 

 of the ganglions and plexuses, the former every where more freely anastomose, 

 if I may borrow a term from the sanguiferous system ; while the latter proceed 

 in a more direct course, being less connected with each other in their progress 

 to the parts on which they bestow sensation and voluntary power ; still further 

 demonstrating the care with which nature blends the power of the ganglionic 

 nerves. 



What purpose is served by this perpetual intertwining of these nerves r It is 

 impossible for a moment to conceive that it is without an object. This question 

 is most likely to be answered by inquiring into the nature and functions of the 

 parts supplied by this class of nerves ; those parts are the vital organs, the 

 thoracic and abdominal viscera, and the vessels even, as we shall find by ex- 

 periment where the parts are too minute to be made the subject of dissection, 

 to their smallest ramifications. 



It would appear from this arrangement, that, although to other parts the in- 

 fluence of only one part of the brain or spinal marrow is sent, the vital organs 

 receive that of every part of them ; and this inference has been confirmed by 

 numerous experiments too simple to admit of our being deceived, which I 

 made many years ago, and the results of which were laid before the Royal 

 Society, and published in the Philosophical Transactions of 1815, and- which 



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