Abstract
IT can only be with a feeling of regret that anyone can see so many pages, nearly 150, occupied with matter arguments most of which had much better have been retained only among the oral traditions of the author's acquaintances, for by publishing them he lays himself open to the severe criticisms of a non-appreciating scientific public. That Dr. Collyer was among the first to propose and employ anæsthetics, we will not question, but he cannot expect to increase the number of his supporters by the publication of such a work as the above, in which his want of knowledge of the first principles of scientific method and physiological fact is rendered too clear. An instance or two will suffice to indicate the manner in which the subject is treated. Speaking of chloral, he says—“It is administered by the stomach…. It seems that the action is immediate on the brain, through the eighth pair of nerves.” This is very different from the explanation of the discoverer of that substance, and quite contrary to any explanation of value that has been since proposed. The physiological dogma on which the author bases many of his arguments is that “the lungs at every respiration send vital electricity to the brain, which has been thus assimilated to subserve the purposes of life.” In a newspaper account of the relative chances of the Oxford and Cambridge crews for 1871, the author finds sufficient to justify the following valuable generalisation:- “thus endurance does not belong to mere size.” We think these quotations sufficient.
Exalted States of the Nervous System.
By R. H. Collyer (H. Renshaw.)
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Exalted States of the Nervous System . Nature 7, 360 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/007360a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/007360a0