Unpublished paper, 'A description of the pneumogastric and great sympathetic nerves in an acephalous foetus' by Robert James Lee

Description

Lee writes: 'hitherto no account has been given of the origin and distribution of the par vagum or pneumogastric nerve in any instance of a foetus bom with brain entirely or partially wanting. This reason has been thought sufficient for communicating to the Royal Society the description of a dissection of the pneumogastric and sympathetic nerves of a foetus born at the full period, in which the cerebellum and medulla oblongata were absent. At the time of birth the foetus cried and moved. All the thoracic and abdominal viscera were found properly formed, and the upper and lower extremities properly enveloped. The eyes, nose, and mouth were present. The head, when regarded as a whole, seemed as though the posterior and superior parts seen entirely removed, thus leaving the spinal cord and base of the skull exposed. Some tough cerebral matter, covered only by a dense membrane, was seen in two small masses exposed in the cranium, not continuous with the spinal cord (which terminated abruptly at the base of the cranium and was entirely exposed at this point), but separated from it by a prominence arising from the floor of the cranial cavity.'

Subject: Physiology / Neuroscience

Received 20 November 1863. Read 21 January 1864.

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 13 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'A description of the pneumogastric and great sympathetic nerves in an acephalous foetus'.

Reference number

AP/45/7

Earliest possible date

1863

Physical description

Ink on paper

Page extent

13 pages

Format

Manuscript