Page:The Harveian oration, 1873.djvu/50

 44 for the activity of many organs, a paralysing and inactivity of certain nerve-centres in con- nection with them is a prerequisite. The ac- tivity of such, indeed of most, organs is but intermittent and occasional, being but inter- mittently and occasionally called for, whilst the constringing activity of the sympathetic has to be constantly at work to prevent waste of force i. Owsjannikow's paper (also to be found in Lud wig's Arbeiten, 6th year, 1871, and in the Bericht Math.-Phys.-Klass. K. S. Gesellsch. Wissench., Leipzig) just referred to, and pub- lished two years subsequently to Dr. Ruther- ford's, gives, as the result of a number of experiments performed in Professor Ludwig's laboratory at Leipzig on rabbits, and inde- pendently at St. Petersburgh on cats, the con- clusion that the ganglionic centres of inner- 1 The phenomenon of the distension of the corpora cavernosa, a phenomenon used by Harvey himself in the way of illustration (p. 129 of the Epistola Secunda ad Riolanum), I may adduce in the way of illustration also, being, as it is, dependent upon a similar nervous me- chanism; and being shown so unmistakeably, in cases where it follows lesions in the nuchal region, to result from paralysis of nerve-centres situated there or thereabouts.