Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/93

Rh wounded received in their hospital; and could you see them laid out naked, or almost so—one hundred in a row of low beds on the ground—though wounded, exhausted, beaten, you would still conclude with me that they were men capable of marching unopposed from the west of Europe to the east of Asia: strong, thickset, hardy veterans, brave spirits and unsubdued, as they cast their wild glance upon you—their black eyes and brown cheeks finely contrasted with the fresh sheets—you would much admire their capacity of adaptation. These fellows are brought from the field after lying many days on the ground; many dying—many in the agony—many miserably racked with pain and spasms; and the next mimics his fellow, and gives it a tune—Aha, vous chantez bien! How they are wounded you will see in my notes. But I must not have you to lose the present impression on me of the formidable nature of these fellows as exemplars of the breed in France. It is a forced praise; for from all I have seen, and all I have heard of their fierceness, cruelty, and blood-thirstiness, I cannot convey to you my detestation of this race of trained banditti." The following picture which the letter contains of their enemies by whom they were opposed, is equally striking:—"This superb city is now ornamented with the finest groups of armed men that the most romantic fancy could dream of. I was struck with the words of a friend, E―: 'I saw,' said he, 'that man returning from the field on the 16th—(this was a Brunswicker, of the Black or Death Hussars):—he was wounded, and had his arm amputated on the field. He was among the first that came in. He rode straight and stark upon his horse—the bloody clouts about his stump—pale as death but upright, with a stern, fixed expression of feature, as if loth to lose his revenge.' These troops are very remarkable in their fine military appearance; their dark and ominous dress sets off to advantage their strong, manly northern features and white mustachios; and there is something more than commonly impressive about the whole effect." After this account, the writer returns to his professional occupations. "This," he adds, "is the second Sunday after the battle, and many are not yet dressed. There are 20,000 wounded in this town, besides those in the hospitals, and the many in the other towns—only 3000 prisoners; 80,000, they say, killed and wounded on both sides."

The time at length arrived when Bell was to acquire that full amount of reputation for which he had toiled so long and laboriously, and amidst such unmerited neglect. From an early period his favourite subject of investigation was the nervous system, upon which the most erroneous opinions had hitherto prevailed. Even professional men of high medical and anatomical knowledge rested satisfied in the belief, that all the nerves were alike, and that the superior amount of susceptibility in any organ merely depended upon the greater number of nerves allotted to it. But even before he left Edinburgh, a suspicion had grown upon the mind of Bell, that this prevalent opinion was erroneous, and farther inquiry satisfied him that himself alone was in the right. He found that the nerves were distributed into different classes, to each of which belonged its proper function; and that the same puncture, which, applied to any other of these conductors to the senses, would produce a sensation of pain, when applied to the eye would give only the impression of a flash of light. He saw, also, that the two roots by which the spinal nerves are connected with the vertebral medulla, impart two different powers, the one that of motion, the other that of sensation. In this way he accounted for those cases in which the motive or sensitive powers are singly or severally lost. This discovery, which was as V.