68 Dr. Philip's experiments to ascertain the principle 
spinal marrow that the heart derives the principle of its life 
and of its motions. Those motions of the heart, says M. le 
Gallois, which remain after the destruction of the spinal 
marrow, or the interruption of the nervous influence upon the 
heart in any other way, and which misled Haller and his 
followers, are motions without force, incapable of supporting 
the circulation, and analogous to the motions of other irri- 
table parts on the application of a stimulus, which in this case 
is the arterial blood contained in it. 
The experiments, on which these opinions are founded, he 
repeated in the presence of a Committee of the National In- 
stitute at Paris, which has expressed its conviction of their 
accuracy. Notwithstanding this high authority, I was led, 
from some experiments which I made many years ago, in 
which both the brain and spinal marrow were destroyed by 
the action of opium and tobacco, to doubt M. le Gallois* 
conclusions. The reader will judge how far the following 
experiments tend to invalidate these conclusions, and influence 
our opinions of the subject to which they relate. 
I cannot here omit to express my thanks to Mr. Hastings, 
House-surgeon to the Worcester Infirmary, who assisted me 
in the following experiments. His expertness in dissection 
was often of great use, where it was necessary to be expedi- 
tious, and to lose as little blood as possible. 
Exp. x . A rabbit was deprived of sensation and voluntary 
power by a stroke on the occiput. When the rabbit is killed 
in this way, the respiration immediately ceases; but the action 
of the heart and the circulation continue, and may be sup- 
ported for a considerable length of time by artificial respira- 
tion, as practised first, I believe, by Fontana, and since by 
