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The Royal Society: Science in the Making

Abstract, 'Summary of a paper on the power possessed by motor and sensitive nerves of retaining their vital properties longer than muscles, when deprived of blood' by [Charles Edward] Brown-Sequard

Reference number: AP/39/44

Date: 1857

Description

Brown-Sequard states that 'it is an admitted doctrine that the vital properties of motor and sensitive nerves disappear much sooner than those of muscles, after death, or when they are deprived of blood. Although founded on positive facts, this theory is not correct, these facts being capable of another interpretation'. He describes briefly a series of experiments in which organs such as the spinal cord and muscles have been deprived of blood, at the same time with the sensitive and motor nerves.

Subject: Biology / Neuroscience

Received 3 July 1857. Communicated by James Paget.

A version of this paper was published in volume 8 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'Summary of a paper (to be presented) on the power possessed by motor and sensitive nerves of retaining their vital properties longer than muscles, when deprived of blood'.

Reference number
AP/39/44
Earliest possible date
1857
Physical description
Ink on paper
Page extent
4 pages
Format
Manuscript

Creator name

Charles Edward Brown-Sequard

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Citation

Charles Edward Brown-Sequard, Abstract, 'Summary of a paper on the power possessed by motor and sensitive nerves of retaining their vital properties longer than muscles, when deprived of blood' by [Charles Edward] Brown-Sequard, 1857, AP/39/44, The Royal Society Archives, London, https://makingscience.royalsociety.org/items/ap_39_44/abstract-summary-of-a-paper-on-the-power-possessed-by-motor-and-sensitive-nerves-of-retaining-their-vital-properties-longer-than-muscles-when-deprived-of-blood-by-charles-edward-brown-sequard, accessed on 12 January 2026

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    The 'Archived Papers' collection is comprised of original manuscript scientific papers and letters submitted to the Royal Society which remained unpublished or were abstracted in the journal 'Proceedings of the Royal Society' published from 1830 onwards.

    Dates: 1768 - 1989

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