DR. PHILIP ON THE POWERS OF LIFE. 
349 
The question here arises, For what purpose is the influence of every part of the brain 
and spinal marrow thus combined to be bestowed on these organs ? 
This question is answered by the experiments just referred to, which prove that the 
influence of every part of the brain and spinal marrow is necessary to the due per- 
formance of the functions of secretion and assimilation ; and by other facts to which 
I shall have occasion to refer, which prove the necessity of the muscles of involuntary 
motion being under the controul of the same power, on which these functions depend. 
All of them, as we have just seen, fail when any considerable part of the influence 
either of the brain or spinal marrow is withdrawn, the failure of function being pro- 
portioned to the degree in which the influence of either is withdrawn, proving that the 
influence of every part of them is essential to the due performance of those func- 
tions*. 
Important and extensive as these functions are, there is still another, hardly less 
so, dependent on the powers of the nervous system properly so called. Sir Ben- 
jamin Brodie^ proved by direct experiment many years ago that animal temperature 
is under the influence of the nervous system, and various observations evince that a 
debilitated state of the brain is accompanied with a diminished temperature. 
I made many experiments on this subject detailed in my Inquiry into the Laws of the 
Vital Functions, from which it appears that in this, as in all the other vital functions, 
the spinal marrow shares with the brain. If the power of either organ be impaired, 
the temperature sinks in precisely the same proportion as the secretions are deranged. 
A particular organ may be deranged by preventing its due supply of nervous influ- 
ence, and there may be no general diminution of temperature. The due nervous in- 
fluence is prevented reaching the particular organ, but there is no diminution of the 
power of the brain or spinal marrow. When, on the other hand, the power of either 
of these organs is impaired, there is an immediate diminution of temperature. 
When the lower half of the spinal marrow was destroyed the animal shivered, and 
would probably soon have died of cold if it had not been kept in a high temperature, 
and even when the lumbar portion alone was destroyed, a considerable but less dimi- 
nution of temperature ensued 
Thus it appears, from the whole of the facts which have been referred to, that on 
an influence derived from the brain and spinal marrow, and not from any part, but 
from the whole of these organs, the secreting and more immediately assimilating 
functions and the maintenance of animal temperature depend. This influence there- 
fore performs a still more important part in the vital than in the sensitive functions. 
In the latter we find it acting only a subordinate part ; while in the former it must 
be regarded as the great agent, to which all others employed are subservient. 
* See papers which appeared in the Philosophical Transactions for 1815 and 1827, and my Inquiry into the 
Laivs of the Vital Functions, Part II. 
t See the Philosophical Transactions for 1812 and 1814. 
+ Inquiry into the Laws of the Vital Functions, Part II. 
