The nervous system of the human body: As explained in a series of papers read before the Royal Society of London (3rd ed. with additions).

1886 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Bell
2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spencer G. Sealy ◽  
Mélanie F. Guigueno

For centuries, naturalists were aware that soon after hatching the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) chick became the sole occupant of the fosterer's nest. Most naturalists thought the adult cuckoo returned to the nest and removed or ate the fosterer's eggs and young, or the cuckoo chick crowded its nest mates out of the nest. Edward Jenner published the first description of cuckoo chicks evicting eggs and young over the side of the nest. Jenner's observations, made in England in 1786 and 1787, were published by the Royal Society of London in 1788. Four years before Jenner's observations, in 1782, Antoine Joseph Lottinger recorded eviction behaviour in France and published his observations in Histoire du coucou d'Europe, in 1795. The importance of Lottinger's and Jenner's observations is considered together.


Author(s):  
Elias Manca

AbstractSystemic lupus erythematosus is a complex immunological disease where both environmental factors and genetic predisposition lead to the dysregulation of important immune mechanisms. Eventually, the combination of these factors leads to the production of self-reactive antibodies that can target any organ or tissue of the human body. Autoantibodies can form immune complexes responsible for both the organ damage and the most severe complications. Involvement of the central nervous system defines a subcategory of the disease, generally known with the denomination of neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus. Neuropsychiatric symptoms can range from relatively mild manifestations, such as headache, to more severe complications, such as psychosis. The evaluation of the presence of the autoantibodies in the serum of these patients is the most helpful diagnostic tool for the assessment of the disease. The scientific progresses achieved in the last decades helped researchers and physicians to discover some of autoepitopes targeted by the autoantibodies, although the majority of them have not been identified yet. Additionally, the central nervous system is full of epitopes that cannot be found elsewhere in the human body, for this reason, autoantibodies that selectively target these epitopes might be used for the differential diagnosis between patients with and without the neuropsychiatric symptoms. In this review, the most relevant data is reported with regard to mechanisms implicated in the production of autoantibodies and the most important autoantibodies found among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus with and without the neuropsychiatric manifestations.


1828 ◽  
Vol 118 ◽  
pp. 153-239 ◽  

In the year 1790, a series of trigonometrical operations was carried on by General Roy, in co-operation with Messrs. De Cassini, Mechain, and Legendre, for the purpose of connecting the meridians of Paris and Greenwich. In England, the work commenced with a base measured on Hounslow Heath, whence triangles were carried through Hanger Hill Tower and Severndroog Castle on Shooter’s Hill, to Fairlight Down, Folkstone Turnpike, and Dover Castle on the English coast; which last stations were connected with the church of Notre Dame at Calais, and with Blancnez and Montlambert upon the coast of France. An account of these operations will be found in the Philosophical Transactions for 1790. In the year 1821, the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Board of Longitude at Paris communicated to the Royal Society of London their desire, that the operations for connecting the meridians of Paris and Greenwich should be repeated jointly by both countries, and that commissioners should be nominated by the Royal Academy of Sciences and by the Royal Society of London for that purpose. This proposal having been readily acceded to, Messrs. Arago and Matthieu were chosen on the part of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and Lieut.-Colonel (then Captain) Colby and myself were appointed by the Royal Society to co-operate with them.


1849 ◽  
Vol 139 ◽  
pp. 47-48

Since the communication above referred to was presented to the Royal Society, I have made a very minute dissection in alcohol of the whole nervous system of the young heifer’s heart. The distribution of the ganglia and nerves over the entire surface of the heart, and the relations of these structures to the blood-vessels and muscular substance, are far more fully displayed in these preparations than in any of my former dissections. On the anterior surface, there are distinctly visible to the naked eye ninety ganglia or ganglionic enlargements on the nerves, which pass obliquely across the arteries and the muscular fibres of the ventricles from their base to the apex. These ganglionic enlargements are observed on the nerves, not only where they are crossing the arteries, but where they are ramifying on the muscular substance without the blood-vessels. On the posterior surface, the principal branches of the coronary arteries plunge into the muscular substance of the heart near the base, and many nerves with ganglia accompany them throughout the walls to the lining membrane and columnse carneæ. From the sudden disappearance of the chief branches of the coronary arteries on the posterior surface, the nervous structure distributed over a consider­ able portion of the left ventricle is completely isolated from the blood-vessels, and on these, numerous ganglionic enlargements are likewise observed, but smaller in size than the chains of ganglia formed over the blood-vessels on the anterior surface of the heart. In the accompanying beautiful drawings, Mr. West has depicted with the greatest accuracy and minuteness the whole nervous structures demon­strable in these preparations on the surface of the heart. But the ganglia and nerves represented in these drawings constitute only a small portion of the nervous system of the heart, numerous ganglia being formed in the walls of the heart which no artist can represent. It can be clearly demonstrated that every artery distributed throughout the walls of the Uterus and Heart, and every muscular fasciculus of these organs, is supplied with nerves upon which ganglia are formed.


1823 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Dewar

The communication received from Dr Dyce chiefly consists of a description of a singular affection of the nervous system, and mental powers, to which a girl of sixteen was subject immediately before puberty, and which disappeared when that state was fully established. It exemplifies the powerful influence of the state of the uterus on the mental faculties; but its chief value arises from some curious relations which it presents to the phenomena of mind, and which claim the attention of the practical metaphysician. The mental symptoms of this affection are among the number of those which are considered as uncommonly difficult of explanation. It is a case of mental disease, attended with some advantageous manifestations of the intellectual powers; and these manifestations disappearing in the same individual in the healthy state.


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