History of the discoveries of the circulation of the blood, of the ganglia and nerves, and of the action of the heart / by Robert Lee.

Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of the discoveries of the circulation of the blood, of the ganglia and nerves, and of the action of the heart / by Robert Lee. 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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    INTRODUCTION. Ekasistkatus and Heropliiliis considered tlie brain, spinal cord, and nerves to be the primary organs of sensation and motion. Galen affirmed that the brain is the origin of the nerves, and that there is no part of the animal frame endowed with sensation and voluntary motion which does not possess nerves, and that if a nerve be cut, the part which it had supplied is immediately deprived of sensation and motion. Galen first described the ganglia of the great Sympathetic nerve, respecting which he says, Est autem et aliud mi- rabile naturte ab anatomicis ignoratum. This wonderful work of nature of which anatomists were ignorant before the time of Galen, appears to have fallen into oblivion until many ages had elapsed after his death, when these ganglia were again described by Fallopius, and called corpora olivaria. Ganglia have since been discovered on other nerves besides the great Sympathetic, especially on the Fifth pair, and the posterior roots of the spinal nerves; and it is now known to all anatomists that there are numerous tribes of living creatures endowed with sensation and power of motion, which have neither brain nor spinal marrow, whose wdiole nervous system consists of ganglia and nerves. Numerous treatises on the structure and functions of ganglia and nerves were published by foreign anatomists between 1791 and 1795, but their opinions were conjectural and discordant. Microscopical researches have since been made upon this subject, without any satisfactory results. If the engravings of Scarpa and Swan be examined, it will be seen that only a few small branches of nerves have been