240 
DR. MARSHALL HALL’S DISCOVERIES. 
Dr. M. Hall being called on by Dr. Mayo, at a late meeting of 
the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, to explain himself to 
the Society on the question of his claims as a discoverer, stated as 
follows :—He believed that no one, previously to himself, had 
pointed out the existence of a distinct organ, for which he knew of 
no better designation than the true spinal marrow, in the same 
theca vertebralis with the cord of the cerebral nerves. No one 
had shewn that in the same neurilema with the cerebral, sentient, 
and voluntary nerves, and although distinctly from these, there 
existed a system of excitor and motor nerves having the true spinal 
marrow for their centre and combiner. No one had shewn the 
agency of the vis nervosa of Haller, as the motor principle in this 
subdivision of the nervous system ; in fact, one thing had been im¬ 
possible, for it was necessary to demonstrate that the vis nervosa 
acted in modes and directions unknown before. Dr. Hall had 
further shewn that this system of nerves, that this motor principle, 
were the agents and channels of action in all physiological acts of 
ingestion and egestion, and in all the morbid acts of spasmodic dis¬ 
eases. Had any one previously suggested the idea even that 
deglutition, for example, was a spinal act I This simple question 
was enough to determine the whole. This (Dr. Hall’s) discovery 
was not that of the reflex actions, but of the true spinal system—its 
anatomy, physiology, pathology, and therapeutics. In reference to 
Dr. Budd’s observations on the reflex actions in disease, he (Dr. 
Hall) might remark, that the influence of volition over the reflex 
actions was conflned within limits which had not yet been deter¬ 
mined. These actions were generally most obvious, however, in 
those cases in which the paralysis of volition was complete : hemi¬ 
plegia was rarely so complete as paraplegia; the reflex actions 
were therefore less observable in the former than in the latter 
affection. Dr. Hall begged once more to call the attention of the 
Society to the very extensive application of the principles Avhich 
he ha.d been investigating to the diagnosis and practice in the dis¬ 
eases of the nervous system. A multitude of questions presented 
themselves for inquiry, which he proposed bringing in succession 
before the Society: none of these was more interesting than that 
of the influence of emotion, of which he proposed to treat in his 
next memoir.— Lancet, March 7, 1840. 
