Expériences sur les fonctions des racines des nerfs rachidiens.

Magendie definitely discovered that the anterior root is motor and that the dorsal root is sensory, although Romberg, Flourens, Sherrington, and others credited the discovery to Charles Bell. In this paper Magendie announced that “section of the dorsal root abolishes sensation, section of ventral roots abolishes motor activity, and section of both roots abolishes both sensation and motor activity” (Cranefield, No. 1588.9). This discovery has been called “the most momentous single discovery in physiology after Harvey”. This work was confirmed by Müller in 1831 (No. 1259). For a translation of the paper, see J. F. Fulton’s Selected readings in the history of physiology, 2nd ed., 1966, pp. 280-85.