MR. BELL ON THE NERVES OF THE FACE. 
327 
whose jaws are prehensile and used as hands. This curious fact, originally 
drawn from the anatomy and now confirmed by it, had nearly been obscured 
by experiment ; since the external branches of the fifth nerve, those most ex- 
posed to the experimenter, are not muscular. 
I am bound to acknowledge here the correction by M. Magendie, in regard 
to the office of the suborbital division of this nerve, since it has given occasion 
to the revisal of the anatomy*. 
We were involved in great confusion by the discovery of new branches of 
nerves and of ganglions, through which we had no guide, until we formed a 
correct arrangement of the whole system. It is satisfactory to find that the 
ideas first suggested by a comparison between the roots of the nerves and their 
complex distribution in the face and neck are correct, when tried by a minute 
investigation of the internal nerves of the head; and that the conclusions 
drawn from the anatomy, are confirmed both by experiment and by a know- 
ledge of the effects of injuries and of disease in the human frame. 
Additional Note. — As the most important fact in this paper is that ascer- 
tained by experiments on the fifth nerve, I am bound to say by whom they 
were made, and for what purpose. 
To my late brother-in-law Mr. John Shaw, whom I educated, I have been 
indebted through the whole of this inquiry. He had long been acquainted in 
the most intimate manner with my pursuits. He had repeated my experiments 
on the roots of the spinal nerves, confirming the results, — that the anterior 
roots when irritated caused the muscles to contract, and that the posterior 
roots had no such influence. 
He assisted me in my experiments on the nerves of the face, which were for 
the purpose of establishing that the fifth pair resembled the nerves of the spine, 
and at the same time proving, what was incomplete from the experiments on 
the spinal nerves, that a ganglion on one of the roots of a nerve is no cause of 
* M. Magendie says, “ Le resultat que nous avons obtenu s’accorde parfaitement avec celui que 
nous venons de rapporter, a l’exception toutefois de l’influence de la section de sous-orbitaire sur la 
mastication, influence qui n’a pas ete evidente pour moi.” — Journal de Physiologie, 1821. 
