The Croonian lectures on muscular movements and their representation in the central nervous system ; delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London, June, 1903 / Charles E. Beevor.

  • Beevor, Charles, E. (Charles Edward), 1854-1908.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Croonian lectures on muscular movements and their representation in the central nervous system ; delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London, June, 1903 / Charles E. Beevor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    muscle must be used during life for this movement, as it may not be advantageous to use the muscle for this purpose. § 3. The second method or electrical method is the one which was employed by Duchenne with such great success, and his classical observations on the actions of muscles will always rank as one of the most brilliant achievements in the subject. The method consists in faradising with the two poles of an induction coil the muscle under examination, and then noting the action produced on the joint or joints over which the muscle acts. The results of this method have given most valuable information as to the action of the muscles, and where the muscles are super- ficial enough to be reached by the current this method is much preferable to the anatomical method, in that the movements are produced by the living muscle undisturbed in its relation to surrounding parts. I venture to think, however, that this method is open to the same objections as the anatomical method in that, although every movement that the muscle is capable of is undoubtedly produced, yet, as the muscle acts alone, we do not know what the influence of the other muscles may be which also enter into the move- ment ; and also there is the second objection that we do not know by this method whether a muscle, which on stimulation gives the movement, let us say, of supination, is included in the move- ment of supination when this is performed as a voluntary act. It seems to me that, although the two former methods will tell us what a muscle may do, it does not tell us what a muscle does do, and we cannot say for certain that a muscle has a definite action without following the precept of the immortal Harvey and going direct to nature and there testing the results obtained by the anatomical and electrical methods. § 4. This last method, which we may call the physiological or natural method, differs from the two former in reversing the order of procedure. In the anatomical and the electrical methods one muscle is taken, and by dragging on it or stimulating it to contract certain movements are produced, whereas in the physiological method a living person is told to perform a definite movement, and it is then observed which muscles take part in this movement. Certain precautions have to be taken in using this method, the most important being that the person shall perforin by fixation of the limb the movement only which is required, so that, for example, if a person is told to pronate the forearm he must not at the same