60 
rorULAK SCIENCE BEYIEW. 
brain may be paralysed, but if the involuntary organs retain their 
power, the animal is not dead. Sir Astley Cooper had under 
his care a man who had received an injury of the skull 
causing compression of the brain, and the man lay for weeks 
in a state of persistent unconsciousness and repose ; practi- 
cally he slept. He did not die, because the involuntary system 
remained true to its duty; and when the great surgeon re- 
moved the compression from the brain of the man, the sleeper 
woke from his long trance and recovered. Dr. Wilson Philip 
had a young dog that had no brain, and the animal lay in pro- 
found insensibility for months, practically asleep ; but the 
involuntary parts continued uninfluenced, and the animal lived 
and, under mechanical feeding, grew fat. Fluorens had a 
brainless fowl that lived in the same condition. It neither saw 
nor heard, he says, nor smelled nor tasted nor felt ; it lost 
even its instincts ; for however long it was left to fast, it never 
voluntarily ate ; it never shrunk when it was touched, and when 
attacked by its fellows, it made no attempt at self-defence, 
neither resisting nor escaping. In fine, it lost every trace of 
intelligence, for it neither willed, remembered, felt, nor 
judged : yet it swallowed food when the food was put into its 
mouth, and fattened. In these cases, as in that of the injured 
man, the involuntary systems sustained the animal life. It is 
the same in sleep. 
When we look at these phenomena, as anatomists, we find a 
reason for them in structure and character of parts. The in- 
voluntary muscles have a special anatomical structure; and 
the nervous organism that keeps the involuntary muscles in 
action is a distinct organism. There are, briefly, two nervous 
systems : one locked up in the bony cavity of the skull and in 
the bony canal of the spine, with nerves issuing therefrom 
to the muscles ; and another lying within the cavities of 
the body, with nerves issuing from it to supply all the involun- 
tary muscles. The first of these systems, consisting of the 
brain, the spinal cord, and the nerves of sense, sensation, and 
motion, is called the cerebro-spinal orvoluntary system of nerves ; 
the second, consisting of a series of nervous ganglia with nerves 
which communicate with the involuntary muscles and with 
nerves of the voluntary kind, is called, after Harvey the vegeta- 
tive, after Bichat the organic system : a sketch of this organic 
system is depicted in the accompanying diagram. 
In sleep the cerebro-spinal system sleeps ; the organic system 
retains its activity. Thus in sleep the voluntary muscles and 
parts fail to receive their nervous stimulation ; but the in- 
voluntary receive theirs still, and under it move in steady 
motion ; while the semi-voluntary organs also receive sufficient 
stimulation to keep them in motion. 
