Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/95

 Hall published his views in a separate work. His paper ‘On the Inverse Ratio which subsists between Respiration and Irritability in the Animal Kingdom,’ read before the Royal Society 23 Feb. 1832, was published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions’ for that year. It was followed by an important paper on hybernation, and by his election as fellow on 5 April. He was now on the track of his greatest discovery, which was made during a study of the circulation in the newt's lung. The newt's head had been cut off. On touching the skin with the point of a needle muscular movements occurred in the dead body. On examining into the cause of these they were found to be excited through the cutaneous nerves of sensation, passing to the spinal marrow, and thence being reflected to the muscular nerves. On cutting either set of nerves, or on destroying the spinal marrow, the phenomenon ceased. Thus was laid the foundation of the theory of reflex action, first made known at a meeting of the Committee of Science of the Zoological Society on 27 Nov. 1832, and more fully in a paper on ‘The Reflex Function of the Medulla Oblongata and Medulla Spinalis,’ read before the Royal Society on 20 June 1833, and printed in its ‘Transactions’ for that year. Notwithstanding the interest excited by his discoveries, and their immediate translation into German by Johannes Müller, who at the same time announced nearly similar and independent discoveries, the author was denounced as the propagator of absurd and idle theories (see, Address at St. Thomas's Hospital, 21 Jan. 1852), and his next paper, ‘On the True Spinal Marrow and the Excito-Motor System of Nerves,’ read before the Royal Society in 1837, was refused publication. Hall vainly begged the council to appoint a commission to witness his experiments, although he offered to withdraw from practice for five years to devote himself to further research on the subject. In 1840 a series of papers on the subject by Hall appeared in Müller's ‘Archiv.’ In 1847 he once more offered to the Royal Society an experimental paper, detailing researches on the relation of galvanism and the nervous and muscular tissues; but it was refused publication. Against this he protested in a letter (privately printed) to the Earl of Rosse, then president of the Royal Society. In 1850, however, his name appeared on the list of the council of the society, but he never received any of its medals. Meanwhile, in the midst of active practice Hall spent every spare moment in study and writing, trusting mainly to future recognition. ‘I appeal,’ he said, ‘from the first half of the nineteenth century to the second.’ His practice grew very extensive, as his discoveries gave him insight into disorders of the nervous system which till then remained obscure. His two small volumes of ‘Practical Observations in Medicine,’ 1845 and 1846, were cordially received. His fame spread widely in Europe and America, and many marks of distinction were conferred upon him from abroad, though he received none at home. His works were reprinted in America and translated into French, German, Dutch, and Italian. On the continent students and doctors regarded him as the most eminent practitioner in England. In London he never was appointed physician to any hospital. He lectured to medical students from 1834 to 1836, at the Aldersgate Street School; and from 1836 to 1838 at Webb Street School and Sydenham College. In 1839 he could not complete his course owing to failure of voice. In 1842–6 he lectured on nervous diseases at St. Thomas's Hospital. He was not elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Physicians till 1841, but in 1842 he delivered the Gulstonian lectures there, and the Croonian in 1850–2. In these lectures he fully explained his discoveries and opinions on the nervous system, and on nervous diseases. He took a prominent part in the formation of the British Medical Association, and delivered the oration on medical reform in 1840. Every philanthropic movement in which bodily and mental health was concerned found in him a warm and active advocate. Open railway carriages, cruel flogging of soldiers (see his letters signed ‘Censor,’ Times, 27 and 31 July 1846), the sewage question (see his pamphlet, Suggested Works on the Thames, 1850, 1852, 1856), and slavery in the United States, were among the subjects on which he actively exerted himself. He advocated a system of gradual emancipation. His ‘Twofold Slavery of the United States’ was published in 1854, after a visit of fifteen months to the States, Cuba, and Canada in 1853, when he had finally given up practice, owing to a peculiar affection of the throat, handing over his patients to Dr. J. Russell Reynolds. During 1854–5 he travelled in Italy and France, and in the latter year was elected corresponding member of the French Institute. After this his chief work was in connection with the restoration of persons apparently drowned; he devised a system, and drew up rules for its application, which were soon adopted by the National Lifeboat Institution. In 1856 he recommended the use of the living frog as the most delicate test of the presence of strychnia in cases where poisoning was suspected, and proved that a young frog was strongly affected by