paralytic limb when the power of motion is lost; and why, on the other hand, motion sometimes survives feeling.
But although it had been conceived by some that the nerves of sensation were distinct from those of motion, no progress had been made in pointing out the principle in the anatomy on which it depends that one nerve ministers to sensation, another to motion; and the singularly original remarks of Hunter in his paper on the Nerves of the Organ of Smell, con- cerning two or more nerves coming frum different sources to supply a single part, had hitherto re- mained unproductive; they had not fallen upon a congenial soil.
The multiplicity, intricacy of arrangement, and distribution of the nerves, had engaged the eager at- tention of Sir C. Bell at an early period; and I have it from one, who, on several occasions, so far back as the year 1806, has seen him rise from the contemplation of the subject with the exclamation, “ We must make something out of these nerves.”” And already, in 1807, he had caught a glimpse of the fundamental principle of his subsequent researches, as the extracts I am about to read will show. They are from letters addressed to his brother George Joseph Bell, then at the Scotch bar, now professor of law in the Univer- sity of Edinburgh—the talents of the family had not been engrossed by anatomy and surgery—and for- tunately the letters were written before the revival of envelopes. The first from which I quote bears ‘‘in dorso” the post-mark, London, Dec. 5th, Edin- burgh, Dec. 8th, 1807.
‘“ My new anatomy of the brain occupies my head
