On the reflex function of the medulla oblongata and medulla spinalis.

“Hall showed that reflex activity could be distinguished from other types of movement, that it produced what today we call ‘muscle tone,’ that it included sneezing coughing, and vomiting, and that it could be influenced by disease. The discovery of these characteristics, and the general formulation of the reflex concept, remain Hall’s outstanding contributions… [Hall and Johannes Müller] were able to rely entirely upon their experimental findings, and, unlike their predecessors, could discount the intervention of the soul and so exclude the metaphysical miasma that had clouded much of the previous work on the subject of reflex activity” (Clarke and O’Malley, 1996, p. 347).