Vital motion as a mode of physical motion / by Charles Bland Radcliffe.

  • Radcliffe, Charles Bland, 1822-1889.
Date:
1876
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vital motion as a mode of physical motion / by Charles Bland Radcliffe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    taken by Galvani, and who have a just claim to be com- memorated in these introductory remarks, about whose views I would say what I would also say about the views of Galvani, that I was in complete ignorance of them for long after the time when my own thoughts on the subject had taken definite shape. The name to be mentioned first in order here is that of the late Dr. West, of Alford, in Lincolnshire. As early as 1832,* in some remarks upon the influence of the nerves upon muscular contractility, this writer maintains, that the nervous influence which is present in relaxed muscular fibre is the only influence which the nerves of volition possess over that tissue; that its office there is to restrain or control the tendency to contract which is inherent in the muscle; and that contraction can only take place when by an act of the will this influence is suspended, the muscle being then left to act according to its own innate properties; . . . and again, ''that nervous influence is imparted to muscular fibre for the purpose of restraining its contraction, and that the action of the will, and of all other disposers to contrac- tion, is simply to withdraw for a while this influence, so as to allow the peculiar property of muscular fibre to show itself The co-existence of spasmodic action with \ nervous debility, the efficacy of stimulants as antispas-1 modics, and the postponement of rigor mortis until all I traces of nervous action have disappeared, are the! principal facts which are advanced in support of thej probability of this theory. ' A similar idea appears to have been also hinted at by Sir Charles Bell in a lecture at the Royal College of * On the Influence of the Nerves over Muscular Contractility, London Medical and Surgical Journal, edited by Michael Ryan, M.D. Vol. i. 1832.