[16] There is no proof that the sense of stricture which is felt in the epigastric region, is connected with the stomach; and if it were proved that it was so, it would not follow from it that this organ was primarily affected from fear. The same passion sometimes acts differently in different individuals; there are some who do not feel this stricture in the epigastric region, but who are deprived of the use of their legs; must it be said that in these individuals the seat of fear is in the extensor muscles of the legs? If the introduction of a warm drink into the stomach produces an increase of cutaneous exhalation, should we conclude from analogy, that it is by acting primarily upon this organ that fear causes that cold sweat which sometimes accompanies it? [17] _Note by the Author._--This nervous network, going principally from the semi-lunar ganglion, belongs to almost the whole abdominal vascular system, whose various ramifications it follows. It is, according to the usual manner of considering it, one of the divisions of the great sympathetic; but it seems to me that the ideas of anatomists respecting this important nerve are not conformable to nature. Every one considers it as a medullary cord, extending from the head to the sacrum, sending in its course various ramifications to the neck, the thorax and the abdomen, following in its distributions a course analogous to those nerves of the spine, and deriving its origin from those nerves, according to some, and from those of the brain, according to others. Whatever be the name by which it is designated, sympathetic, intercostal, &c.; the manner of describing it is always the same. I believe that this manner is altogether wrong, that there really exists no nerve analogous to the one designated by these words, and that what is taken for a nerve is only a series of communications between different nervous centres, placed at different distances from each other. These nervous centres are the ganglions, scattered throughout the different regions, they have all an independent and insulated action. Each is a particular centre which sends in various directions many ramifications, which carry to their respective organs the irradiations of the centre from which they go off. Among these ramifications, some go from one ganglion to another; and as these branches which unite the ganglions form by their union a kind of continuous cord, this has been considered as a distinct nerve; but these branches are only communications, simple anastomoses, and not a nerve analogous to the others.