When this disease first began to attract attention, it was suggested that it might be cured by the division of the nerve. The phenomena of the nervous system afforded abundant grounds for mistrusting the soundness of this view. The tendency, however, to confound the more salient symptom of a disease with its intrinsic nature, caused such phenomena to be overlooked or little considered; and the consequence was, that where the nerve was divided, the treatment was sometimes entirely confined to that proceeding. In the end, the operation disappointed expectation; and that which careful reasoning might have predicted as probable, was left to be determined by experiment, In some cases, circumstances concurred to produce temporary relief; but on the whole the operation was a failure. In the case he here published, Abernethy removed a little bit of nerve from a lady's finger. As she had suffered severely, and he was anxious to give her more permanent relief, he did not rest satisfied with merely dividing the nerve. For about nine months the lady was in comparative ease; but then the sensation returned. He remarks on the interest attached to this return of sensation, and observes on the analogy it suggests between the supply of blood, and that of nervous power. For if the vessels conveying the former be tied or obstructed, the supply is gradually restored through collateral channels. The return of the nervous functions, after the removal of a portion of the nerve, seemed to favour that view of the nervous system which regarded as the proximate cause of the phenomena some subtle principle or other, like electricity or magnetism, or some analogous power, of which the nerves might be the conductors. Perhaps the most interesting fact of this case, however, was the significant bearing it had on those views which he was beginning to deduce from a multitude of other sources. The fact being, that when the lady died, which she did about four years afterwards, _she died of disordered digestive organs_. Showing, therefore, at least, the coincidence of the most severe form of nervous disturbance with disorder of these important functions.