314 NATURE AND LIFE. 



injection, the motions cease, and give place to the spasms 

 of agony, and then to death. 



Physiologists asked whether such a momentary resur- 

 rection of the functions of life might not be brought about 

 in the human subject that is, whether movement might 

 not be excited and expression reanimated by injecting fresh 

 blood into a head just severed from a man's body, as in 

 Brown-S6quard's experiment. It was suggested to try it 

 on the heads of decapitated criminals, but anatomical obser- 

 vations, particularly those of Charles Robin, showed that 

 the arteries of the neck are cut by the guillotine in such a 

 way that air penetrates and fills them. It follows that it 

 is impracticable to inject them with blood that can produce 

 the effects noted by Brown-S6quard. Indeed, we know 

 that blood circulating in the vessels becomes frothy on con- 

 tact with air, and loses fitness for its functions. Robin 

 supposes that the experiment in question could be success- 

 ful only if made upon the head of a man killed by a ball 

 that should strike below the neck ; in that case it would be 

 possible to effect such a section of the arteries that no en- 

 trance of air would occur, and, if the head were separated 

 at the place pointed out by Brown-S6quard, those mani- 

 festations of function remarked in the dog's head would 

 probably be obtained by the injection of oxygenated blood. 

 Brown-S6quard is convinced that they might be obtained, 

 if certain precautions were observed, even with the head 

 of a decapitated criminal ; and so strong is his conviction 

 that, when it was proposed to him to try the experiment 

 that is, to perform the injection of blood into the head of a 

 person executed he refused to do so, not choosing, as he 

 said, to witness the tortures of this fragment of a being re- 

 called for an instant to sensibility and life. We under- 

 stand Brown-S6quard's scruples, but it is allowable to 

 doubt whether he would have inflicted great suffering on the 

 head of the subject ; at most, he would only have aroused in 



