THE DISCOVERY OP MOTOR AND SENSORY NERVE CHANNELS. 287 



The Claim of Sir Charles Bell to the Discovery of Motor and Sensory 

 Nerve Channels (an Examination of the Original Documents of 

 1811 to 1830). By Augustus D. Waller, M.D., F.R.S 



[Ordered by the General Committee to be printed in extenso.] 



Contents, 

 section. rA° E 



I. Report to the British Association in 1833 on the Nervous System . . . 287 

 II. Documents relating to the spinal roots in 1811 and in 1822 .... 287 



III. Documents relating to the fifth and seventh nerves from 1818 to 1823 . .291 



Bellingeri's Dissertation of 1818. Bell's M.S. paper of 1821. Mayo's 

 Commentaries of 1822-23 292 



IV. Bell's publication of 1821 and republication of 1824 296 



An Exposition of the Natural System of Nerves of the Human Body. 1824 . 297 



Subsequent editions, 1830, 1836, 1844 297 



V. Conclusions 301 



VI. Appendix. Magendie's reply to Bell, 1822 and 1830. Bell's valedictory 



letter, 1830 301 



I. The anatomical distinction between motor and sensory nerves was 

 an event of capital magnitude in the history of physiology; it stands 

 on a par with the proof of the systematic circulation given by Harvey 

 two centuries before. 



The date and the authorship of the more recent discovery are not 

 yet authoritatively settled. Charles Bell 1811, Francois Magendie 

 1822, are the two names and dates between which a decision must still 

 be made. 



An opinion prevails very generally — not only in England but also 

 in Germany and in France — that the credit of the discovery belongs to 

 Charles Bell. That opinion is in part based upon a ' Beport on the 

 Fhysiology of the Nervous System,' by William Charles Henry, M.D., 

 received by the British Association in the year 1833, and containing 

 the following sentence: 'The honour of this discovery, doubtless the 

 most important accession to physiological knowledge since the time of 

 Harvey, belongs exclusively to Sir Charles Bell.' 



I submit that this statement, which has been widely accepted with- 

 out examination and widely repeated, is not justified by previous 

 scientific publications. The careful examination of those publications 

 has forced upon me the conclusions that the discovery was made by 

 Magendie in 1822, and that the claims made to it by Charles Bell 

 and his relations in 1823 and 1824 so far from being proved are in 

 fact completely disproved by the documents themselves. 



II. The principal ground upon which the distinction between motor 

 and sensory nerves was made consisted in experiments on the anterior 

 and posterior spinal roots. Subsidiary evidence leading to the same 

 fundamental distinction consisted in experiments and observations on 

 the fifth and seventh nerves. 



