HE VIEW OF SOLLY 
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a conductor. First, a conductor of the stimulus which arouses the 
cineritious neurine into action — the nerves of sensation. Secondly, 
a conductor of the will, which originates in the cineritious or 
pulpy neurine — nerves of motion or volition. Thirdly, an agent for 
combining the various impressions conveyed to the cineritious 
neurine in the brain, and thus constituting it one compound gan- 
glion, a centre of nervous power — the commissures. The cineri- 
tious portion of the nervous system standing in the same rela- 
tion to the rest of that system, which the secreting portion of a 
gland does to the rest of that organ. The cineritious matter is 
endowed with the faculty of generating or producing power, and 
the medullary is the instrument of conveying it. 
What a simple yet comprehensive view does this afford of 
the physiology of the brain ! — the organ which brings us into rela- 
tion with the external world — which informs us of the existence 
of surrounding objects, and to which is to be traced the existence 
and the activity of our intellectual faculties. 
This is one nervous system : but there is another indirectly 
connected with the brain and spinal cord, the prolongation of the 
brain, and acting in a thousand ways independent of both — that 
which has reference to the maintenance and the preservation of our 
, t * 
existence — our nutrition and our growth — our health and our 
disease — and, finally, the reproduction of the species. This is 
found in the neurine of the medulla oblongata, and of a thou- 
sand ganglia scattered over every part of the frame. There is a 
division here : the nerves from the medulla oblongata preside 
over the motions and the sensations of organic life ; those from 
the ganglia likewise are connected with organic feeling, but are 
principally employed in the processes of secretion and of nutri- 
tion, of growth and of decay. 
What simpler, what more satisfactory view can be given of 
two distinct yet combined nervous systems ! and what a revo- 
lution must take place in our views of disease, and our language 
respecting it, when these — no longer theories — facts, established 
by repeated and unequivocal experiments, are received as the 
basis of our medical studies ! They have been so received by the 
students of human medicine, and no great length of time will 
elapse ere they will be taught in our schools. 
Mr. Solly soon returns to the especial subject of his work, the 
brain, and he takes a rapid but luminous view of the structure 
and physiology of it in the inferior animals, and its gradual de- 
velopment, until we arrive at the intellectual organ which occu- 
pies the human cranium — from the scattered ganglia of those 
species who answer no other end in creation than that of ela- 
borating a nutrient material for others that hold a higher rank in 
