DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4812#0104
94 v OBSERVATIONS ON THE
the limbs, and that these asterwards grow very torpid, or lose much os
their supposed vis insita, it seems clearly to sollow, that there is no just
ground for supposmg that any other principle produces the contraction of
a muscle.
4. An ingenious gentleman, Dr Thomas Smith phyfician at Birming-
ham, who, in 1767, publiilied, in this place, an excellent Inaugural Dif-
sertation on muscular action, aster having read, in manufcript, an ac-
count of the above experiments on opium, which I had communicated to
the Philosophical Society os Edinburgh in 1761, and which were publish-
ed 1771, Phys. Ess. Vol. iii. *; and aster having, in 1764, when he did me
the honour os attending my lectures, heard the above application of them,
has proposed the same opinion, that there is no vis insita disserent srom the
vis nervea; adding, in sarther consirmation os it, that saline bodies, and
particularly common sait, which powersully excite the fupposed vis insita
when applied to the muscles, had a similar efsect on the vis nervea when
applied to the trunk os the nerves.
5, Before quitting this subject, I would observe, that, is it ihall appear
that muscles, when irritated, poffess some degree os vibration many days
after their nerves have been cut, this may be explained srom attending to
the facts sormerly mentioned, with the view os proving that the nerves,
in their whole course, resemble the brain in stru&ure, and, as they pro-
ceed, receive an addition os nervous energy.
C H A P-
* See Dr T. Smith's Tentamcn Inaugurate, Edin. 1767, p. 45.
the limbs, and that these asterwards grow very torpid, or lose much os
their supposed vis insita, it seems clearly to sollow, that there is no just
ground for supposmg that any other principle produces the contraction of
a muscle.
4. An ingenious gentleman, Dr Thomas Smith phyfician at Birming-
ham, who, in 1767, publiilied, in this place, an excellent Inaugural Dif-
sertation on muscular action, aster having read, in manufcript, an ac-
count of the above experiments on opium, which I had communicated to
the Philosophical Society os Edinburgh in 1761, and which were publish-
ed 1771, Phys. Ess. Vol. iii. *; and aster having, in 1764, when he did me
the honour os attending my lectures, heard the above application of them,
has proposed the same opinion, that there is no vis insita disserent srom the
vis nervea; adding, in sarther consirmation os it, that saline bodies, and
particularly common sait, which powersully excite the fupposed vis insita
when applied to the muscles, had a similar efsect on the vis nervea when
applied to the trunk os the nerves.
5, Before quitting this subject, I would observe, that, is it ihall appear
that muscles, when irritated, poffess some degree os vibration many days
after their nerves have been cut, this may be explained srom attending to
the facts sormerly mentioned, with the view os proving that the nerves,
in their whole course, resemble the brain in stru&ure, and, as they pro-
ceed, receive an addition os nervous energy.
C H A P-
* See Dr T. Smith's Tentamcn Inaugurate, Edin. 1767, p. 45.