TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 101 



of functions in particular parts of the cerebral convolutions, which was so exten- 

 sively and so very exhaustively discussed at Norwich, by his paper in our most 

 useful and comprehensive ' Cambridge and Edinburgh Journal of Anatomy and 

 Physiology,' May 1870, " On the Cerebral Convolutions of a Deaf and Dumb 

 Woman. 



I take this opportimity of mentioning two valuable papers on the very practical 

 question of the influence of the vagus upon the heart's action. One of these is a 

 German paper by a gentleman who is a zoologist and comparative anatomist as 

 well as a physiologist. Dr. A. B. Meyer ; " Das Hemmungsnerven-Sj'stem des Her- 

 zens " is the title of his memoir, a separate publication as I think : the other is an 

 abstract of a paper [I have not seen the paper published in extenso as yet] by Dr. 

 Rutherford, " On the Influence of the Vagus upon the Vascular System," published 

 in the journal just referred to. Especiallj^ do I think Dr. Rutherford's view as to 

 the vagus acting centrifugally as regards the stomach, and carrying stimidus, not 

 thither but thence, to the medulla oblongata, which stimulus is then radiated 

 downwards by a route formed distally by the splanchnic nei've, so as to produce 

 inhibitory vascidar dilatation in the neighbourhood of the peptic cells, as worthy 

 of attention*. 



A considerable number of the papers which vnll be read before this Section, 

 indeed a considerable part of tlie Section itself, will be devoted to the Natural 

 History of Man. Nothing, I apprehend, is more distinctive of the present phase 

 of that " proper study of mankind " than the now accomplished formation of a 

 close alliance between the students of archaeology strict and proper and the 

 biologist with the express purpose of jointly occupying and cultivating that vast 

 temtory. Literature and art and the products of the arts fm-nish each their 

 data to the ethnologist and anthropologist in addition to those which it is the 

 business of the anatomist, the physiologist, the paleontologist, and the phy- 

 sical geographer to be acquainted with ; nor can any conclusion attained to by 

 following up any single one of those lines of investigation be considered as definitely 

 absolved from the condition of the provisional imtil it has been shown that it can 

 never be put into opposition with any conclusion legitimately arrived at along 

 any other of the routes specified. In political alliances the shortcomings of one 

 party necessarily hamper and check the advance of the other ; a failure in the 

 means or in the perseverance of one party may bring the joint enterprise to a pre- 

 mature close ; mutual forbearance, not to dwell longer upon extreme cases, may 

 finally be as eflectual in slackening progi-ess as even mutual jealousies. No such 

 disadvantages attach themselves to the alliance of literature with science, as the 

 German ' Archiv fiir Anthropologic,' issued to the world under the joint manage- 

 ment of Ecker the biologist and Lindenschmit the antiquarian, will show any one 

 who consults its pages, replete with many-sided but not superficial, multifarious 

 but never inaccurate, information. 



The antiquary is a little prone, if he will aUow me to say so, when left alone, to 

 make himself but a connoisseur ; the historian, whilst striving to avoid the Scylla 

 of judicial dulness, slides into the Charybdis of political partisanship; and the 

 biologist not rarely shows himself a little cold to matters of moral and social in- 

 terest whilst absorbed in the enthusiasm of speciality. The combination of minds 

 varying in bent is found eificacious in coiTecting these aberrations ; and by this com- 

 bination we obtain that white and dry light which is so comforting to the eye of 

 the truth-loving student, to say nothing as to its being so much stronger than the 

 coloured rays which the work of one isolated student may sometimes have cast 

 upon it from the work of another. It would be invidious to speculate, and I 

 have forborne from suggesting whether the literaiy contingent in the conquering 

 though composite army has learnt more from observation of the methods and evo- 

 lutions of the scientitic contingent, or the scientific more from the observation 

 of the literary ; it is, however, neither invidious nor superfluous to congratulate 

 the general public upon the necessity which these, like other allies, have been re- 



* Since writing as above I have seen, but have not read, a paper by Dr. Coats in Lud- 

 wig's " Arbeiten aus der physiologischen Anstalt zii Leipzig" for the present year, which 

 ■would seem to treat of this subject. The VViirtzburg Physiologicid Laboratory Eeports for 

 1867-68 contain, as is well known, a series of papers upon it. 



