Unpublished paper, 'On the nerves which supply the muscular structure of the heart' by Robert Lee

Description

Lee remarks that, in a previous paper entitled 'On the Ganglia and Nerves of the Heart' (see PT/35/2), it is asserted that 'it can be clearly demonstrated that every artery distributed throughout the walls or the uterus and heart, and every muscular fasciculus of these organs, is supplied with nerves upon which ganglia are formed'. He then states that 'recent dissections which I have made of the heart of the race-horse, in which both the muscular and nervous structures are largely developed, demonstrate, that from the outer surface to the lining membrane the walls are universally pervaded with nerves, on which ganglia are formed, or enlargements invested with neurilemma, into which nerves enter and from which they issue, as in all the other ganglia of the great sympathetic nerve'. He concludes from his dissections that the ganglionic nerves at the surface of the heart are few in number compared to those distributed throughout the muscular structure of the heart. He suggests this 'completely subverts the opinion still entertained by some physiologists, the the sensitive and contractile powers of the heart are independent of nervous influence'.

Subject: Biology / Anatomy / Physiology

Received and read 7 November 1853.

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 6 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'On the nerves which supply the muscular structure of the heart'.

Reference number

AP/34/13

Earliest possible date

1853

Physical description

Ink on paper

Page extent

6 pages

Format

Manuscript