305 
nerves of the orbit of the eye. 
x 
new views of a subject, but Bichat was continually holding 
a thing up by the wrong end, and presenting it in an aspect 
so singular, as to puzzle any one to say whether or not it was 
that with which he had been long familiar ; accordingly, what 
had been termed the sympathetic system of nerves, he called 
the ganglionic system ; although they are not more distin- 
guishable by ganglia than the other nerves, upon which in- 
deed the ganglia are remarkable for their size, number, and 
regularity. These ganglia must not be thrown out of the 
system altogether, merely because they are contained within 
the skull and vertebrae, which circumstance should rather 
mark their importance. 
Bichat persuaded himself that his ganglionic system was 
isolated, and a thing by itself ; when, on the contrary, the 
connections of this part of the nervous system are universal. 
The wide spreading fifth pair, and the thirty spinal nerves, 
give large and conspicuous roots to this system. It exhibits 
a tissue extending universally. 
It was a still more unfortunate mistake of this ingenious 
physiologist, to suppose the sympathetic nerve to be the same 
with that, which in the lower animals (the vermes), is seen 
coursing from one extremity of the body to the other. In 
the leech, or worm, those nerves produce union and concate- 
nation of all the voluntary motions, and bestow sensibility as 
well as motion ; yet he saw in the sympathetic system of the 
human body, only the developement of the same system of 
nerves, although he was aware that in man the sympathetic 
nerve bestowed neither sensibility nor the power- of motion. 
Bichat announced his system with a popular eloquence, 
which had a very remarkable influence over all Europe, 
mdcccxxiii. R r 
