38 
ANIMAL PATHOLOGY. 
respiratory movement ; it is but a part of the function discharged 
by these bodies, and the nerves that spring from them. It is 
this limitation of organic power and function which has caused 
so much confusion in our conceptions and our language, and 
which has led to some erroneous statements with regard to the 
nervous system. It is not from this point that the respiratory 
apparatus alone derives its power of motion; here is the source 
— with the exception just referred to — of every organic action. 
In these bodies resides the principle — the soul of organic life: 
at least of organic motion and sensation. 
The Nerves of the Corpora Olivaria . — The glosso-pharyngeal 
and the great spinal organic nerves arise, says Sir Charles Bell 
and some other anatomists, from the middle (lateral) track of the 
medulla oblongata. They certainly spring from a fissure, of con- 
siderable depth in the human being, between the corpora olivaria 
and the lateral column, but in a direction which shews the deri- 
vation of their fibres plainly and palpably from the olivary bodies, 
and which minute dissection confirms. In the quadruped there 
is no sulcus. There is a faint line, but this portion of the me- 
dulla oblongata is composed of the corpus olivaria compressed 
and flattened out, with which the corpus restiforme, or lateral 
column, is blended, and in which it is lost. From this mingled 
mass a certain set of nerves proceeds. If there is some degree 
of repetition of that which I stated in 1834, you will kindly for- 
give it. Three years constitute almost an age in the history of 
the knowledge of the nervous system in the present state of ge- 
neral and physiological science ; and he has either been idle or 
clings too closely to his first impressions whose views on some 
minor, ay, and on some important points too, have not under- 
gone considerable change. I frankly confess that mine have, 
I am still a student, and I trust that while I have the power of 
thinking I shall remain so. In this and the following Lecture I 
cannot separate the new from the old, and the importance of the 
subject must be received as an apology for the repetition. 
The ninth, or Glosso-pharyngeat Nerve . — This used to be de- 
scribed as a branch of the great spinal organic nerve. From the 
side of the rounded head of the mingled mass of which I have 
spoken in our herbivorous quadrupeds, and between the origins 
of the seventh and the tenth pairs of nerves, are an uncertain 
number of minute filaments, arising in a line, and, before they 
unite into a nervous cord, passing through a ganglion first de- 
scribed by Mr. Mayo. We have to consider the character of the 
nerve at its first appearance. The corpora olivaria are decidedly 
on the inferior (anterior in the human being) surface of the cord. 
