Anastomosis of Nerves

The earliest experiments on the anastomosis of nerves (1827) were those of Flourens.1He wrote: I divided in a cock the two main nerves which go from the brachial plexus, the one to the superior and the other to the inferior aspect of the wing. On section of the first of these nerves, the wing began to droop and to move with difficulty, on section of the second it drooped altogether; and its tip, the part chiefly supplied by the divided nerves, could no longer be moved at all. I then crossed the two divided nerves and united the central end of one with the peripheral end of the other, and maintained this artificial crossing with a stitch. After some months the bird had completely regained the use of the tip of its wing, which no longer drooped, and which he used in flying quite as well as before