[96] These terms and the conception they embody were proposed by me in 1859 in a paper “On the necessity of a reform in Nerve-physiology,” read at the Aberdeen meeting of the British Association, and were reproduced in the Physiology of Common Life. (Prof. Owen, probably in forgetfulness of my suggestion, proposed “neuricity.” Lectures on the Comp. Anat. of Vertebrates, 1866, I. p. 318.) The terms were fortunate enough to meet with acceptance from some physiologists both in England and France; and the conception has been more widely accepted than the terms. The most distinguished approver was Prof. Vulpian. “Faute d’une meilleure détermination on peut, avec M. Lewes, donner à la propriété physiologique des fibres nerveuses le nom de neurilité; c’est là ce qui correspondra à la oontractilitè des fibres musculaires.” Leçons sur la physiologie du système nerveux, 1866, p. 220. He also adopted my suggestion (since modified) of Sensibility as the property of ganglionic cells. Compare also Gavarret, Phénomènes physiques de la Vie, 1869, pp. 213 and 222. Taule, Notions sur la nature de la matière organisée, 1866, p. 131. Charles Robin, Anatomie et physiologie cellulaires, 1873, p. 166.
By these channels, and by the German, Italian, Russian, Polish, and Hungarian translations of my work, the suggestions were carried over Europe, crept into scientific journals, and became known to writers who never heard of me. I only mention these facts lest the reader should suppose that my views had been anticipated by certain continental writers.
[97] “La force nerveuse n’existe pas comme puissance independant des propriétés de tissu. Elle consiste en l’action des parties excités, sur les parties excitables, l’état de l’excitation des premières agissant comme impression ou stimulation sur les secondes.”—Landry, Traité des Paralysies, 1859, I. 142.
[98] “Le système nerveux est tout à la fois l’origine des sensations et l’origine des mouvements. Mais est-ce par une propriété unique, ou par deux propriétés diverses qu’il détermine deux phénomènes aussi distincts!” Flourens, Recherches sur les propriétés et les fonctions du Système Nerveux, 1824, p. 1. He concludes that “la puissance nerveuse n’est pas unique; il n’y a pas une seule propriété, il y en a deux,” p. 24. In this he has been generally followed.
[99] “I have raised and stretched the thick orbital nerve of horses on the handle of a scalpel, like a string on the bridge of a violin, without exciting the least sensation; but as soon as mechanical or chemical irritation had given rise to inflammation of the nerve a gentle touch caused violent pain.”—Romberg, Nervous Diseases (translated for the Sydenham Society), I. 10.
[100] The experiments of Haller, Sur la nature sensible et irritable des parties, I. 245; and the remarks of Prochaska, De Functionibus Systematis Nervosi (translated by Laycock in the volume published by the Sydenham Society, p. 396), ought to have sufficed. See further on, [Chap. V].
[101] In mammals about three days, in birds four days, in frogs fourteen to twenty days.
[102] Rutherford, in Journal of Anatomy, 1873, No. VIII. p. 331. (Fleischl denies that the nerve in situ has different degrees of reaction. Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akad., December, 1876.)
[103] Munk, in the Archiv für Anat., 1860, p. 798.
[104] Haller, Mémoires sur la nature sensible et irritable des parties.