Note 116 — Chapter V · ACTION WITHOUT NERVE-CENTRES.

Since this was written Prof. Michael Foster and Mr. Dew Smith have published their very important researches on the motions of the heart, which establish beyond a doubt that, in the molluscs at least, there is no co-operation of either centre or nerve.—Proceedings of the Royal Society, 18th March, 1875. (See also Studies from the Physiological Laboratory of Cambridge, Part II., 1876.) Mr. Foster knows that I had independently, and from a totally different line of research, arrived at the same conclusion respecting the heart’s movement.