450 USE OF 



impressions and transmitting them for sensation to the brain, 

 and must have nerves for incessantly influencing and being in- 

 fluenced by the rest of the frame, and in many instances for 

 influencing or being influenced by some other organ in par- 

 ticular, the existence and the amount of nerves called the gan- 

 glionic system, in addition to those which convey volition and 

 possess sensibility, is explicable ; and I conceive it unnecessary 

 to invent any other use of them. These purposes of the gan- 

 glionic nerves are certain. To ascribe others is an hypothesis ; 

 and in my opinion a very improbable and inconsistent hypothesis. 

 The old name of sympathetic system appears to me highly proper, 

 because it expresses the use of the system, as far as is known to 

 us. The especial use of ganglia is unknown. If Gall's opinion 

 of the use of the pulpy substance is right, and I think it is, they, 

 as they contain pulpy substance, may be, like ganglia in the brain 

 and chord, destined for the origin and reinforcement of the nerves, 

 as well as for their mingling. The encephalo -spinal nerves ori- 

 ginate in pulpy substance ; and the ganglia of the spinal nerves 

 of sensation are probably to give them the greater bulk and num- 



society in England, for a physiologist was blackballed at the Royal Society from 

 the horror excited by an account readjust before of experiments in which rabbits' 

 heads were crushed, though, on reflection, it was found that these experiments 

 were unattended with pain, and he was honourably elected on an early occasion. 

 Expt. clxi. " I inspired," says Dr. Brachet, "a dog with the greatest aversion for 

 me by plaguing and inflicting some pain or other upon it, as often as I saw it. When 

 this feeling was carried to its height, so that the animal became furious as soon 

 as it saw or heard me, I put out its eyes : I could then appear before it, without 

 its manifesting any aversion. I spoke, and immediately its barkings and furious 

 movements proved the passion which animated it. I destroyed the drum of its 

 ears, and disorganised the infernal ear as much as I could : when an intense 

 inflammation which was excited had rendered him deaf, I filled up its ears with 

 wax. He could no longer hear at all. Then I went to its side, spoke aloud, and 

 even caressed it, without its falling into a rage, it seemed even sensible to my 

 caresses." Nay, Dr. Brachet repeated the same experiment on another dog, and 

 begs to assure us that the result was the same. And what was all this to prove ? 

 Simply, that if one brute has an aversion to another, it does not feel or show that 

 aversion when it has no means of knowing that the other brute is present. If he 

 had stood near the dog on the other side of a wall, he might equally have proved 

 what common sense required not to be proved. After all, I do not understand 

 how it happened that the poor dog did not scent him. I blush for human nature 

 at detailing this experiment j and shall finish by informing my readers that the 

 Memoir containing this, and all the other horrors, obtained the physiological 

 prize from the French Institute in 1826. 



