The nervous system of the human body : as explained in a series of papers read before the Royal Society of London. With an appendix of cases and consultations on nervous diseases / by Sir Charles Bell.

Date:
1844
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nervous system of the human body : as explained in a series of papers read before the Royal Society of London. With an appendix of cases and consultations on nervous diseases / by Sir Charles Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    ence, and equal to all the phenomena exhibited in the nervous system, we should have expected to find the nerves diverging regularly from the brain to all parts of the body. But this is not the case. It has been attributed to me that these views are no- thing more than those of Galen. I should have been proud had I reconciled the theories of the ancients with the more perfect knowledge of modern anatomists. But it is not so. The division proposed by Galen of nerves arising from the brain into those of sensation and of motion, or into hard and soft nerves, implies no more than that he understood there were nerves appropriated to the organs of the senses, and nerves for the governance of the muscles. Neither does the idea of Galen, that the ganglion was given to a nerve when strong motory powers were required, indicate much knowledge of the distinction to which I have adverted. Galen supposed the same nerve to possess the two properties of motion and sensa- tion, motion being active, and sensation passive ; and he thought that there possibly might be nervous power suf- ficient for sensation, though not for motion. He attempt- ed thus to explain how it happened that sensation re- mained when motion wks lost. And the same idea has been entertained by some more modern authorities. Vesalius resisted the authority of Galen on many points, but he adopted, with little variation, both his description of the anatomy of the brain and nerves, and his opinions on the nervous system. The vital spirits, according to him, were elaborated in the brain, transmitted from the ventricles of the brain into the spinal marrow and the roots of the nerves, and so scattered over the body. Willis indeed gave an arrangement of the system, adapted to the appearance presented on dissection, and