302 Mr. Bell on the nerves which associate the muscles 
A young man was brought into the Middlesex Hospital, 
who had fallen upon his head. He soon recovered, and lay 
for some time in the hospital without exhibiting a symptom 
to raise alarm. He had given thanks to the assembled Gover- 
nors of the Hospital, and had returned into the ward for his 
bundle, when, on turning round to bid adieu to the other 
patients, he fell, and in the instant expired. Upon examining 
his head, it was found that the margins of the occipital hole 
had been broken : no doubt it had happened that in turning 
his head the pieces were displaced, and closed and crushed 
the medulla oblongata, as it passes from the skull. 
A man was trundling a wheel-barrow in Goodge Street, 
which is immediately adjoining the Middlesex Hospital : in 
going from the carriage-way to the flag-stones he met the 
impediment of the curb-stone. He made several efforts to 
overcome it, and at length drawing back the wheelbarrow, 
he made a push, and succeeded ; but the wheel running for- 
ward, he fell, and remained motionless. He was taken into 
the Hospital, but he was found to be quite dead. The tooth- 
like process of the second vertebra of the neck had burst 
from the transverse ligament of the first.* The impulse given 
to the head had done this violence, and had at the same time 
carried forward the spinal marrow against the process, and 
on which it was crushed. 
We have seen by experiments, that the respiratory nerves 
are distinguished from the other nerves by retaining their 
power longer : that they are alive to impression, and can be 
* In my collection there is a preparation which exhibits this ligament destroyed 
by disease. The death was sudden, and caused by the falling forward of the head, 
and the crushing of the medulla spinalis. 
