"The necessity therefore of the influence of the brain and nerves towards producing muscular motion, is not to be disproved by a few rare instances of ossified, petrified, or otherwise morbid brains found in animals, which seemed tolerably healthy, and had the motion of all their muscles; since it is not more unreasonable to suppose, that the nerves may derive a fluid from a porous spungy ossified brain, than that a tree should spring out of a stone-wall; dry stone and lime being not less different from moist earth, than such an ossified brain from one in its natural state; nay the latter seems more capable of affording moisture to the nerves, than the former to roots of the tree."
An Essay on the Vital and Other Involuntary Motions of Animals
3 entries in ESTC (1751, 1763, 1768).<br>
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Robert Whytt, <u>An Essay on the Vital and Other Involuntary Motions of Animals</u> (Edinburgh: Printed by Hamilton, Balfour, and Neill, 1751). &lt;<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=eCz7KJ_6XYIC">Link to Google Books</a>&gt;