Unpublished paper, 'Physiological inferences derived from human and comparative anatomy respecting the origins of the nerves; the cerebellum and the striated bodies' by Joseph Wilson Swan

Description

Swan remarks that those parts of the nervous system which are concerned in motion and in sensation exhibit a great similarity in all vertebrate animals. To the first of these functions belong the anterior and middle portions of the spinal cord and medulla oblongata, including the anterior pyramids, the crura cerebri, and some fibres leading to the corpora striata and the convolutions, and also the cerebellum. To the function of sensation belong the posterior surface of the spinal cord, the posterior and lateral portions of the medulla oblongata, including the posterior pyramids, the ventricular cords, and the fourth and third ventricles. From a general comparison of the relative magnitude and structure of these several parts in the different classes of vertebrated animals, Swan infers that only a very small portion of the brain is necessary for the origins of the nerves, their respective faculties being generally derived near the place at which they leave the brain. These origins are traced in various cases, where, from peculiarities of arrangement or of destination, they present certain remarkable differences of situation.

Subject: Physiology / Neuroscience

Received 15 April 1843 / 27 April 1843. Communicated Richard Owen.

Written by Swan at 6 Tavistock Square [London].

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 4 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'Physiological inferences derived from human and comparative anatomy respecting the origins of the nerves, the cerebellum, and the striated bodies'.

Reference number

AP/26/17

Earliest possible date

08 April 1843

Physical description

Ink on paper

Page extent

24 pages

Format

Manuscript