43<j On Fbmiting, [June, 



had been a real stoinabh, which is not the least curious circun^- 

 stance attending this experiment. 



It only remains for us to submit to the Class some reflections 

 which M. Magendie did not think it necessary to add to his 

 memoir, though he did not fail to make them as well as our- 

 selves, on the question whose destiny he has thus finally fixed. 



These experiments prove not only that the stomach is passive 

 in vomiting, they lead us to a more important result, which 

 throws new light upon the nervous energy, that wonderful 

 energy which constitutes the whole of our being, the mysteries 

 of which it is so much our interest to penetrate. We may 

 deduce from the result of these experiments that the principle, 

 the prime mover of all those movements which produce vomit- 

 ing, has its source in the seat of the nervous energy itself ; for 

 we cannot otherwise explain how an emetic, whicii produces no 

 action on the stomach, determines the contraction of the dia- 

 phragm and abdominal muscles. We cannot have recourse here 

 to those sympathies which have been so much abused in physio- 

 logy, by advancing that the contraction of the stomach draws 

 along with it by sympathy that of the muscles just mentioned. 

 It is obvious that an emetic can only produce its effect by re- 

 acting from the stomach upon that place of the seat of the 

 nervous energy, where the principle of the contraction of the 

 diaphragm and abdominal muscles resides. It is the affection 

 of that part which is the immediate cause of vomiting. If the 

 nerves, by which the diaphragm and the abdominal muscles 

 receive the impression of it, were cut, the patient would have 

 the same desire to vomit, and would have the sensation of vomit- 

 ing without vomiting in reality. This is proved by the suspen- 

 sion of vomiting in M. Magendie's experiments on cutting the 

 phrenic nerves. On the other hand, though these nerves, and 

 all the rest of the body, remained untouched, if that portion of 

 the seat of the nervous energy were disorganised, no emetic 

 could give tlie animal either a desire to vomit, or produce in 

 him the sensation of vomiting. 



We have here a particular and very remarkable application of 

 that general truth demonstrated by M. le Gailois, namely, that 

 the seat of the nervous energy (the brain and spinal marrow) is 

 the sole source of all the motions which take place in a living 

 animal, and that no part can move without a particular and 

 anterior modification of that part of the nervous energy by 

 W'hich it is animated. The obstinate vomiting which in many 

 cases accompanies apoplexy, and which had been ascribed to 

 indigestion, had been already pointed out by M. le Gailois as a 

 phenomenon entirely unconnected w^ith every affection of the. 

 ^itomach, and totally depending upon that of the brain. 



