OG 



THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 



Professor Sharpey before the Royal Commission of 

 1875 shows how things had been misjudged, before 

 Bernard's time, in the light of " views taken from 

 the Study of Anatomy and Natural Motions " : — 



" I remember that Sir Charles Bell gave the 

 increased size of the vessels in blushing, and their 

 fulness of blood, as an example of the increased 

 action of the arteries in driving on the blood. It 

 turns out to be just the reverse, inasmuch as it is 

 owing to a paralysis of the nerves governing the 

 muscular coats of the arteries." 



Claude Bernard's first account of his work was 

 communicated to the Societe de Biologie in 

 December 1851. The following description is 

 taken from his Lecons de Physio logie Opiratoire : — 



" I will remind you how I was led to the dis- 

 covery of the vaso-motor nerves. Starting from 

 the clinical observation, made long ago, that in 

 paralysed limbs you find at one time an increase 

 of cold, and at another an increase of heat, I 

 thought this contradiction might be explained by 

 supposing that, side by side with the general action 

 of the nervous system, the sympathetic nerve might 

 have the function of presiding over the production 

 of heat ; that is to say, that in the case where the 



by Sir Michael Foster in his life of Claude Bernard ; and the 

 question of priority between Bernard and Brown Sequard need 

 not be considered here, for the experimental method was the 

 only way open to either of them. For an account of the work 

 done, before Bernard, in this field of physiology, see Prof. 

 Stirling's admirable and learned monograph, Some Apostles of 

 Physiology (Waterlow & Sons ? London ? 1902), page 104. 



