V. On the relation which subsists between the nervous and muscular systems in the more perfect animals, and the nature of the Influence by which it is maintained

Abstract

In the last paper which I had the honour to present to the Society, and which appeared in the Philosophical Transactions for 1831, I endeavoured, by comparing the various facts relating to the circulation of the blood, and by such additional experiments as seemed to be required, to free the subject from the confusion in which it had been involved by the various and contradictory experiments and statements of writers, and to ascertain the source and nature of the powers on which the motion of the blood depends. In the present paper I propose to consider in the same way, another subject of equal importance, intimately connected with the preceding, and which has, by the same means, been involved in equal, and, from its more complicated nature, apparently greater perplexity; namely, the relation which subsists between the nervous and muscular systems, and consequently, between the nervous system and organs of circulation; for I think it will be admitted, from the statement of facts made in the paper just referred to, that the power of the vessels, like that of the heart, is a muscular power, and that on the combined power of the heart and vessels, the motion of the blood, in the ordinary states of the circulation, wholly depends. Having considered this part of the subject, I shall endeavour to point out how far we can proceed in ascertaining the nature of the nervous influence, the means by which the relation between the nervous and muscular systems is maintained.