264 
DR. PHILIP'S OBSERVATIONS ON 
exercised by different nerves bound up in the same envelope. Dr. Parry in 
his treatise on the pulse tor example, relates a case where feeling alone was 
lost in one arm, and voluntary power alone in the other. But these are not 
the only nor indeed the most important functions of the spinal nerves. All of 
them contribute to the formation of the ganglionic system, on which the life 
of the animal, as will appear from many facts I am about to state, immediately 
depends. 
It is evident from what has been said, that the ganglions and plexuses re- 
semble each other in their nature ; and as the nerves which terminate in them 
come from all the most distant parts of the nervous system, some from the 
brain, and some from the lower extremity, and all intermediate parts of the 
spinal marrow, we cannot help supposing, that there is some design in thus 
uniting nerves which arise from so many different parts of these organs. One 
of the most striking differences between the ganglionic nerves, and those pro- 
ceeding directly from the brain and spinal marrow, is that even independently 
of the ganglions and plexuses, the former every where more freely anastomose, 
if I may borrow a term from the sanguiferous system ; while the latter proceed 
in a more direct course, being less connected with each other in their progress 
to the parts on which they bestow sensation and voluntary power ; still further 
demonstrating the care with which nature blends the power of the ganglionic 
nerves. 
What purpose is served by this perpetual intertwining of these nerves ? It is 
impossible for a moment to conceive that it is without an object. This question 
is most likely to be answered by inquiring into the nature and functions of the 
parts supplied by this class of nerves ; those parts are the vital organs, the 
thoracic and abdominal viscera, and the vessels even, as we shall find by ex- 
periment where the parts are too minute to be made the subject of dissection, 
to their smallest ramifications. 
It would appear from this arrangement, that, although to other parts the in- 
fluence of only one part of the brain or spinal marrow is sent, the vital organs 
receive that of every part of them ; and this inference has been confirmed by 
numerous experiments too simple to admit of our being deceived, which I 
made many years ago, and the results of which were laid before the Royal 
Society, and published in the Philosophical Transactions of 1815, and which 
