126 FURTHER INQUIRY INTO THE REASONS 
of the experiments with hellebore, the basis of an inquiry, 
the results of which I shall narrate as succinctly as is con- 
sistent with a clear statement of fact. 
Ercolani and Vella invited Dr. Waller to perform on 
the horse, before the Piedmontese Biological Society, the 
experiments which he had successfully performed at Bonn, 
on dogs and frogs, of inducing vomiting by reflex move- 
ments, excited by galvanizing the superior extremity of a 
divided jagus nerve. The result was not considered con- 
clusive, and a new and modified trial was about to be made, 
wffien the receipt of my communication from Vienna led to 
the adoption of a new 7 plan of experiment, with the combined 
injection of hellebore, and galvanization of the distal end of 
the cut /jar vagum. Unfortunately, my learned friends at Turin 
proceeded to the new inquiry w 7 ith an extreme, and in my 
opinion unwarranted, appreciation of Viborg’s and Bering’s 
experiments, which they held to prove that the horse is really 
susceptible to emesis without vomiting taking place, where- 
fore the obstacles to the performance of that act must be 
essentially mechanical. 1 shall subsequently develop the 
reasons why I consider these conclusions based on insufficient 
evidence. 
All the phenomena which I had witnessed after the helle- 
bore injection, were manifested when the experiment w 7 as 
repeated by Ercolani and Vella, who additionally report 
having observed violent contractions of the abdominal 
muscles, synchronous with spasms of the pharynx and con- 
vulsive opening of the mouth. In another experiment, the 
injection of three drachms of tincture of hellebore did not 
suffice to produce the violent abdominal action, but this be- 
came manifest on galvanizing the distal extremity of a pre- 
viously divided vagus nerve. Comparing these symptoms 
with those reported to have been present in the rare cases in 
which horses have vomited, the experimenters concluded 
that the emetic action of the Veratrum album on the horse’s 
nervous system was proved beyond doubt. In pursuance of 
their inquiry those gentlemen injected the tincture of the 
white hellebore in the jugular vein of a dog, producing 
extremely violent vomiting; and they performed a similar 
experiment on the rabbit (an animal which, like the horse, 
is held not to vomit), and observed violent diaphragmatic 
and abdominal movements, and opening of the mouth as if 
to vomit, but not doing so; facts which were admitted as 
proof that in animals habituated to vomit, such as the dog, 
injection of white hellabore into the veins produces the 
reverted evacuation of the stomach’s contents through the 
