On the 31st of March last, I divided, in two, a frog, in one of whose legs I had four months before excited inflammation, by laying bare the crural artery and nerve. The inflammation had been so violent and general, that the frog lost its cuticle in consequence of it, and, when compared with a healthy frog, its resperation was observed to be remarkably frequent. Three weeks after this, when the wound in its thigh had perfectly skinned over, I laid it open again, and divided the sciatic nerve. No general inflammation this time took place, nor did the wound again skin over; but for about a month before it was killed, a large ulcer had formed immediately over the division of the nerve, but had not proceeded down to it. The limb, at the time I killed the frog, was as destitute both of motion and of sensation, as at the first instant the nerve was divided, but contractions were excited in it, by touching the ulcer with zinc and silver. When the frog was dead, however, the contractions were found much more feeble in this than in the other leg.
The metals were now applied to the sciatic nerves within the abdomen. Vigorous contractions were excited in the sound leg, but none in that whose nerve had been divided. Hence it was plain, that no actual regeneration had taken place. On examining the nerve accurately at the part divided, I found the divided ends, which had receded considerably from each other, connected by a transparent gelatinous substance. From the upper end, which appeared elongated into a conical form, several red streaks projected into the interposed substance. The lower end was opaque, thickened, and rounded. No appearance of spiral bands could be detected, either in the interposed substance, or in the part of the nerve below the division, when these parts were examined with the assistance of a microscope. This substance had attained sufficient consistence to support the under part of the nerve, when the upper was raised with a pair of forceps. The leg, in which the nerve had been divided, continued to contract as long as the other, though much less vigorously, and the part, from which I could longest excite contractions, was the ulcer.
On the 14th of April last, I killed two other frogs, by dividing their hind extremities from their bodies. In one, the right sciatic nerve had been divided more than six weeks previous to its death. In the other, one of the sciatic nerves had been divided between three weeks and a month.
The legs of these frogs, examined by the metals both before and after their separation from the body, were found in a state very different from those before spoken of. The contractions were scarcely perceptible. The incisions made through the skin, in order to get at their nerves, had closed completely in less than a week after they had been made.
The appearance of the muscles in the legs, whose nerves had been divided, was found to be precisely the same as in those where nothing had been done; but, notwithstanding this circumstance, even strong electrical sparks excited but very feeble contractions. On examining the nerves, the ends of that which had been longest divided were found connected by a substance not at all resembling nerve, but similar to that found in the former experiment, and evidently proceeding from the upper division. In the nerve which had not been so long divided, this circumstance was still more apparent, as the substance had not extended quite to the lower division. The cellular membrane surrounding these upper divisions had the appearance of innumerable vessels finely injected, and some red streaks were seen projecting, as if from the nerve itself, into the gelatinous production. In the sound nerves, the obliquely transverse lines of alternate opacity and transparency, or, as Fontana has called them, the white spiral bands of nerves, were seen distinctly at the first glance of the eye, and without the assistance of a glass; but no appearance of these could be found in the parts of the divided nerves below the division; these were uniformly opaque. Their bulk, however, was not in the least diminished. The organization of nerves long divided, therefore, undergoes a very evident alteration, although it is by no means so clear that the same change happens in the muscles, to which these nerves are distributed. Yet their susceptibility to the action of electricity, as well as to that of this new influence, was nearly lost. Some may consider this as an additional argument, that stimuli act upon muscles only through the medium of nerves.
I have before observed that muscles of frogs, from whom the skin has been stripped, become in a short time hard when exposed to the action of water. Wishing, therefore, to see if there would be any difference between these legs, whose nerves had been divided, and others, in this respect, I laid them in water, and examined them every ten minutes, but both became hard nearly at the same time. Mr Allen, a gentleman well versed in physiological pursuits, was with me when I examined the alteration which had taken place in one of these nerves, in consequence of its having remained long divided, and I had afterwards an opportunity of shewing it to Dr Rutherford. In all the frogs, whose nerves I have divided, I have observed that the divided extremities, though placed in most exact contact from each other, had after a time receded at least 1/12 of an inch from each other.