32 
MEMOIR OF BARON HALLER. 
quadrupeds, if tie lungs were not contiguous with 
the pleura." 
But the views of Haller, which were the most 
original, and led to the keenest controversy at the 
time, and the greatest admiration afterwards, were 
those which he propounded on the subject of irrita- 
bility. The numerous family of polypi presented to 
him the appearance of a high degree of irritability, 
without any ascertained brain or nerves. "Worms 
also, often in the highest degree contractile, having 
very minute nerves, appeared by their structure to 
lead to a somewhat similar inference. He moreover 
remarked, that those parts of the frame which move 
the most frequently and powerfully, such as the 
heart, are very moderately sensible, and do not re- 
ceive a large proportionate supply of nerves : and 
very numerous experiments taught him that con- 
tractions, whether natural or excited by artificial 
stimuli, and sensibility, are veiy unequally distri- 
buted, and their proportions are very different in 
organized bodies. The following are the terms in 
which, at an after period, he gave a somewhat chro- 
nological account of his discovery, for such he clearly 
considered it.* “ In my Commentaries upon Boer- 
liaave’s Institutions, published in 1739, I have ex- 
pressed myself as follows : — Wherefore the heart is 
moved by some unknown cause, which depends neither 
upon the brain nor the arteries, but lies concealed in 
* Vis ab omni aliA hactenus cognita proprietate eorponim 
diversa ct nova eat : nequo enim a pondere, neque ab attrao- 
tione, neque ab elatere pendet. — Prim. Lin. Physiol. § 408. 
