On the rhythm of the heart of the frog, and on the nature of the action of the vagus nerve.

Croonian Lectures, 1881. Gaskell’s classical memoir on the muscles and nerves of the heart included a description of “Gaskell’s nerves”, the accelerator nerves of the heart. He showed that the motor impulses from the nerve ganglia in the sinus venosus influence the heart rhythm but do not originate cardiac movements, which are due to the rhythmic contraction of the heart muscle. This led to the artificial production of heart block, the name for which Gaskell based on an expression of Romanes. See No. 632.