Page:The Harveian oration, 1873.djvu/52

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46 much as the recurrent laryngeal nerve does. That other vascular regions receive their vaso-motor supply by this apparently cir- cuitous and, till the history of development is taken into consideration, paradoxical route, is from time to time being demonstrated. Dr. Pavy, to whom I have already referred, many years ago identified and mapped out one segment of the road along which nerve- force passes to the liver and prevents or allows the occurrence of diabetes. Fur- ther exploration of this route we owe to Cyon and Aladoff (Bulletin de l'Acade'mie Imperiale des Sciences de St. Petersburg, torn, xvi, p. 307 ; British Medical Journal, December 23, 1871); and this same investi- gator, working still in the same line of investigation, as it is in these days usually necessary for an investigator to work if he will make himself a name as a discoverer, has also shown us (Ludwig's Arbeiten, 3rd year, 1868) the track along which the vaso- motor nerves of the anterior limbs pass, proving that these nerves pass down in the spinal cord as low as the mid-dorsal region before leaving it to turn upwards in