468 



HISTORY OF PHYSIOLOGY. 



interval of some years, it was more distinctly deli- 

 vered in the publications of Mr. John Shaw, Sir 

 C. Bell's pupil. Soon afterwards it was further 

 confirmed, and some part of the evidence corrected, 

 by Mr. Mayo, another pupil of Sir C. Bell, and by 

 M. Majendie (u). 



Sect. 2. The Consequent Speculations. Hypotheses 

 respecting Life, Sensation, and Volition (w). 



I SHALL not attempt to explain the details of these 

 anatomical investigations; and I shall speak very 

 briefly of the speculations which have been sug- 

 gested by the obvious subservience of the nerves to 

 life, sensation, and volition. Some general inferences 

 from their distribution were sufficiently obvious; as, 

 that the seat of sensation and volition is in the 

 brain. Galen begins his work, On the Anatomy of 

 the Nerves, thus : " That none of the members of 

 the animal either exercises voluntary motion, or 

 receives sensation, and that if the nerve be cut, the 

 part immediately becomes inert and insensible, is 

 acknowledged by all physicians. But that the 

 origin of the nerves is partly from the brain, and 

 partly from the spinal marrow, I proceed to ex- 

 plain." And in his work On the Doctrines of Plato 

 and Hippocrates, he proves at great length 8 that 

 the brain is the origin of sensation and motion, 

 refuting the opinions of earlier days, as that of 

 Chrysippus 9 , who placed the hegemonic, or master- 



8 Lib. vii. 9 Lib. iii. c. 1. 



