Note f — BOOK IV.

There is no doubt to be made, but that the Muscles receive their Motion from the Nerves. For if a Nerve be cut, or straightly bound, that goes to any Muscle, that Muscle shall immediately lose its Motion. Which is doubtless the case of Paralyticks; whose Nerves are some of them by Obstructions, or such like Means, reduced to the same State as if cut or bound.

And this also is the cause of that Numness or Sleepiness we find oftentimes, by long sitting or lying on any Part.

Neither is this a modern Notion only: For Galen saith, Principium Nervorum omnium Cerebrum est, & spinalis Medulla.——Et Nervi à Cerebro animalem virtutem accipiunt——Nervorum utilitas est facultatem Sensûs & Motûs à principio in partes diducere. And this he intimates to have been the Opinion of Hippocrates and Plato. De Us. Part. l. 1. c. 16. & passim.