Journal
NATURE REVIEWS NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 3, Issue 5, Pages 395-400Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/nrn806
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For more than 1,500 years, nerves were thought to function through the action of 'animal spirits'. In the seventeenth century, Rene Descartes conceived of these 'spirits' as liquids or gases, and used the idea to explain reflex action. But he was rapidly proven wrong by a young Dutchman, Jan Swammerdam. Swammerdam's elegant experiments pioneered the frog nerve-muscle preparation and laid the foundation of our modern understanding of nerve function.
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