Mr. Brodie had formerly observed in dogs poisoned by arsenic, a
very copious secretion of mucus and watery fluid from the coats of
the stomach and intestines, and so rapidly excited, that he conceived
this to be a favourable instance for observing the effect of dividing
those nerves which supply the stomach.
He consequently divided the nerves of the eighth pair, with the accompanying sympathetic nerves in the neck of a dog, and immediately afterwards inserted ten grains of arsenic into a wound in the thigh. The symptoms which usually appear from the poison of arsenic were soon produced; but though the dog lingered under this treatment three hours and a half, none of that watery mucus observable in other instances of death by arsenic was found in the stomach and intestines, though both stomach and intestines were found much inflamed. .
In a second experiment, during nine hours that the dog lingered under the effects of the arsenic applied also to a wound, no such secretion had taken place.
In the third instance, the dog was made to swallow a solution of arsenic, With the same result, after he had lingered three hours.
Since in the preceding trials, respiration was disturbed in consequence of the injury done to the nerves supplying the thorax, a fourth experiment was made by dividing the lower branches of the eighth pair after their passage through the thorax, where they appear in the oesophagus, just above the cardiac orifice of the stomach. In this mode of operating the respiration was not affected; but still the symptoms and visible effects of the arsenic were the same as before, without any fluid evacuations from either the stomach or intestines.
From these experiments, the author thinks it hardly possible to avoid the conclusion, that the suppression of these secretions was owing to the division of the nerves; and that the secretions from the stomach, in general, must be much under the controul of the nervous system. But it appears premature to deduce any conclusion respecting their influence over other secretions.
The skeleton described in this letter was contained in a mass of stone nearly two tons in weight, brought home by Sir Alexander Cochrane, and presented by the Admiralty to the British bluseum. The existence of such skeletons had been mentioned by General Ernouf, in a letter to Faujas St. Fond, published in the fifth volume of the Annales du Illuseum ,- and also by Lavaisse, in his Voyage à ’a Trinidad. The block brought home by Sir Alexander Cochrane agreed very correctly with the description given by General Ernouf, measuring 8 feet by 2%, having very much the appearance of a huge nodule separated from a surrounding mass, without any marks of a
