270 
DR. PHILIP’S OBSERVATIONS ON 
The action of the muscles by which these objects are effected has been 
ascribed to a particular sympathy supposed to exist between certain nerves. 
But if the eighth pair of nerves which supplies the lungs originate near the 
nerves of the diaphragm, and certain muscles of the face, by which the nostrils 
are expanded, this cannot be said of the nerves of many other muscles equally 
called into action in severe dyspnoea, the muscles of the loins, &c. ; and if we 
could by what is called sympathy of nerves explain the phenomena in question, 
it is not to be overlooked that the same sympathy must exist with respect to 
the abdominal as thoracic viscera, for the same nerves supply both. 
We must therefore look for another principle to account for the relation 
which subsists between such acts and peculiar states of the lungs. The prin- 
ciple is at hand. The sensation which induces us to inspire forms a necessary 
link in the chain of causes ; for every contraction excited in the muscles is evi- 
dently calculated to relieve this sensation in one of the two ways just pointed 
out. It either tends to expand the chest, or enlarge the passage of the air. 
It is impossible in such a case to overlook the act of the sensorium, which is 
sufficient to account for the phenomena without any particular sympathy -of 
nerves, which on the other hand, I have just had occasion to point out, is in- 
sufficient for this purpose. 
The muscles employed in extreme dyspnoea are not confined to a particular 
set. They are the whole muscles of the trunk, and sometimes many of the 
limbs also, muscles which have nothing in common, except that they are all 
muscles of voluntary motion, and bear the same relation to the nervous and 
sensorial systems which all other muscles of voluntary motion do. Actions 
of the muscles of the face indeed are equally associated with sensations referred 
to the abdomen and the limbs, and arising from causes operating in them. 
Who can have a placid countenance while in agony from the operation of any 
cause to whatever part applied ? 
It appears from a great variety of experiments to which I have referred, that 
organs supplied with ganglionic nerves are subjected to the influence not of 
any one, but of every part of the brain and spinal marrow. No inference 
therefore can be drawn respecting the sympathies of any ganglionic nerve, as 
the term is here used, that is a nerve that either enters or proceeds from gan- 
glions, according to the sense in which I use the term, from any particular 
distribution of nerves, or from the part where any particular nerve which con- 
