348 
DR. PHILIP ON THE POWERS OF LIFE. 
many parts of the lungs, in the space of fifteen . or twenty hours, not a vestige of 
their healthy structure remains. 
Such it appears are the effects on the stomach and lungs of depriving them of a 
considerable portion of the influence of the brain. They are organs well adapted for 
such observations. In the stomach we have certain means of judging of any con- 
siderable deviation in the process of secretion ; and from the peculiar structure of 
the lungs, they are well adapted for observations on changes of structure. That the 
effects are proportioned to the degree in which the influence of the brain is with- 
drawn, appears from comparing those of dividing and separating the divided ends of 
one or both nerves. 
It is not however to the brain alone that similar observations apply, for it was 
found that depriving the stomach and lungs of the influence of the spinal marrow is 
attended with the same effects. When the lumbar portion of this organ was de- 
stroyed, the functions of the stomach and lungs and the structure of the latter were 
as much impaired as by the division and separation of the divided ends of one of the 
eighth pair of nerves; and when the lower half of the spinal marrow was destroyed, as 
much, as by the division and separation of the divided ends of both those nerves 
It thus appears that the powers on which the secreting and assimilating functions 
depend reside in the brain and spinal marrow, and equally in these organs ; nor does 
either of them act through the other in influencing the vital organs, as the brain is 
found to do through the spinal marrow in influencing many of the muscles of voluntary 
motion, the heart and vessels in every part being equally influenced by agents acting 
either on the brain or spinal marrow, when the other has been removed, as while both 
with all their connections remain 
The question which next presents itself is, how far are they assisted in these offices 
by the nerves, ganglions and plexuses ? 
In a paper, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1833 and republished 
in my treatise On the Nature of Sleep and Death, I have entered into this question 
at great length, where such observations and experiments will be found, as far as I 
am capable of judging, as render the following inferences unavoidable. That the 
nerves, ganglions and plexuses in no degree contribute to the formation of the ner- 
vous influence ; the spinal and cerebral nerves being merely the means of conveying 
the influence of the parts of the brain and spinal marrow from which they proceed, 
and of conveying to these organs the influence of impressions made on their extre- 
mities ; while the ganglions and plexuses are only the means of combining the in- 
fluence of all parts of the brain and spinal marrow, through all parts of which the 
organs of the nervous power properly so called, are distributed ; the nerves proceeding 
from the ganglions and plexuses, being the means of conveying this combined in- 
fluence to the muscles of involuntary motion and the other vital organs. 
* See my Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Functions, Part II. 
f Ibid. 
