I UBRAflf HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY. Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODF, New-Street-Square. HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY, BY JOHN ELLIOTSON, M.D. CANTAB. F.R.S. PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL MEDICAL AND CHIRURGICAL AND OF THE PHRENOLOGICAL SOCIETIES ; PROFESSOR OF THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF MEDICINE AND OF CLINICAL MEDICINE, AND DEAN OF THE FACULTY, IN THE UNIVERSITY J SENIOR PHYSICIAN OF THE NORTH LONDON HOSPITAL; FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; FORMERLY PHYSICIAN TO ST. THOMAs's HOSPITAL, AND PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL MEDICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH, ETC. ETC. ETC. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED, MUCH OF THE ELEMENTARY PART OF THE INSTITUTIONES PHYSIOLOGIC^ OF J. F. BLUMENBACH, M.D. F.R.S. PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN. ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS WOOD-CUTS. (ZEUitioiu UNIVERSITY OF LONDON- LONDON: LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMAN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1835. tavtf TO THE STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, THIS WORK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. JV1347773 ..-• PREFACE. IN 1815, I translated the third edition of Professor Blu- menbach's " Institutions Physiologic^," anonymously, with the addition of twenty pages of notes ; the whole amounting to two hundred and sixty pages. In 1817, I published a second edition, with my name, and the addition of a hundred and fifty pages of notes ; the whole amounting to four hundred and twenty-six pages. In 1820, I published a third edition, with two hundred pages of notes, in smaller type than the text; so that, although the whole amounted to four hundred and sixty-five pages, the matter of my notes very nearly equalled that of the text. In 1824, I published a fourth edition, from a new edition which had appeared of the original work in 1821. The notes, still in smaller type, filled three hundred and fifty pages, and the whole amounted to five hundred and eighty-one ; so that the matter of my notes greatly exceeded that of the text. Finding that, in the present edition (which, through my engagements, has been delayed long after the preceding was out of print), my own matter would very much exceed that Vlll PREFACE. of Blumenbach, and that much of the original would require emendation on account of recent discoveries or might be better omitted, and that the disjointed nature of the work would be a source of greater inconvenience to the reader than ever, I resolved to remodel the whole, omitting many parts of the original, and blending my notes with as much of it as I could retain : and as the portions of the original retained are of so much smaller amount than my own labours, and of a very elementary character, and the proportions of Blumenbach's share and my own thus completely reversed, I feel satisfied that, in now giving my own name to the work, I shall be justified in the eyes of even the celebrated and venerable Blumenbach, who, though eighty-three years of age, still delivers his lectures at eight o'clock every morning. The passages with inverted commas and no farther intimation are from Blumenbach. I have illustrated many pages with wood- cuts, from Dr. Jules Cloquet's collection, for the sake of the general reader ; since works of this description are now read as much out of the profession as by medical men. The correction of any errors, and the communication of any facts, either publicly or privately, will always be esteemed by me a valuable favour. 37. Conduit Street, Feb. 14. 1835. HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY. I. GENERAL PHYSIOLOGY. CHAPTER I. GENERAL VIEW OF THE DEJECTS OF NATURE, AND OF MAN AS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE REST. NUMEROUS authors have remarked that a gradation exists among all the objects of the universe, from the Almighty Creator, through archangels and angels, men, brutes, vegetables, and inanimate matter, down to nothing. " Vast chain of being which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, *;-i, 'si jilj Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach, from infinite to thee, From thee to nothing." a Yet this gradation, striking as it is, deserves not the epithet regular or insensible. " The highest being not infinite must be, as has been often observed, at an infinite distance below infinity." " And in this distance between finite and infinite there will be room for ever for an infinite series of indefinable existence. Be- tween the lowest positive existence and nothing, wherever we suppose existence to cease, is another chasm infinitely deep; where there is room again for endless orders of subordinate beings, continued for ever and ever, and yet infinitely superior to 3 Pope, Essay on Man, Epistle 1. B 2 GRADATION OF OBJECTS. non-existence." " Nor is this all. In the scale, wherever it begins or ends, are infinite vacuities. At whatever distance we suppose the next order of beings to be above man, there is room for an intermediate order of beings between them, and if for one order then for infinite orders ; since every thing that admits of more or less, and, consequently, all the parts of that which admits them, may be infinitely divided. So that, as far as we can judge, there may be room in the vacuity between any two steps of the scale, or between any two points of the cone, for infinite exertion of infinite power." b In fact, at how vast a distance do we see the innate mental properties of man standing above those of the most sagacious brute ! How immensely does the volition of the lowest animal raise it above the whole vegetable kingdom ! And how deep the chasm between the vital organisation of the meanest vegetable and a mass of inanimate matter ! Gradation must be admitted, but it is far from regular or insensible. Neither does it at all regard perfection of system, nor very much the degree, but chiefly the excellence, and, within the limits of the visible world, the combination, of properties. Man, placed at the summit of terrestrial objects by the excellence of his mind and the combi- nation of the common properties of matter, of those of vege- tables, and of those of brutes, with those peculiar to himself, is surpassed by the dog in acuteness of smell and by the oak in magnitude, nor can he boast of more perfection than the gnat or the thistle in their kinds* Substances consist of Particles endowed with certain properties without which their existence cannot be conceived, viz. extension and impenetrability; with others which proceed, indeed, from their existence, but are capable of being subdued by opposing energies, viz. mobility, inertness ; and with others apparently neither necessary to their existence nor flowing from it, but merely superadded : for example, various attractions and repul- sions, and various powers of affecting animated systems. INANIMATE SUBSTANCES may be gaseous, liquid, or solid. If solid, the inanimate body has no properties which are not analogous to these, or even dependent upon them. It is for the most part b Dr. Johnson, Review of a Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil. INANIMATE SUBSTANCES, VEGETABLES, AND ANIMALS. 3 homogeneous in its composition, and disposed to be flat and angular, increases by external accretion, has an indeterminate volume, and contains within itself no causes of decay. The rest of the bodies in nature are animated, and are vegetables and animals. VEGETABLES, in addition to the properties of inanimate matter, possess those of LIFE, viz. sensibility (without consciousness or perception) — I would say excitability, for sensibility without the power of sensation is nonsense, — and contractility; or I would rather express both by the term excitability.6 Their structure is beautifully organised, their volume is determinate, and their sur- faces disposed to be curved ; they grow by interstitial deposition, changing substances to their own nature, and are destined in their very nature for a limited existence, — a period of increase and decay. They contain fluids, some of which they receive, others they produce, and others they discharge. ANIMALS, in addition to the properties and characteristics of vegetables, enjoy MIND, the indispensable attributes of which are the powers of consciousness and perception, and of volition : the two former, — which are in truth but one, termed consciousness when it takes cognisance of internal impressions, and perception when of external, — without the latter, would be, like vegetable or organic sensibility without contractility, were this possible, useless; and the latter could not exist without the^formerd, any more than vegetable or organic contraction could occur without excitability: nor can the existence of mind be conceived without the faculties of consciousness, perception, and volition, any more than the existence of matter without extension and impenetra- bility. The possession of mind by animals necessarily implies the presence of a brain for its exertion, and of a nerve or nerves for the purpose of conveying impressions to this brain, and at least volitions from it to one or more voluntary muscles. A system :..,} US : ••*?••>•.- .:.;1, ;.• OJW:)! M ;* CMlJ WU.' i cr-i>!ui •>'}• . v:;! C'i' .eviJI-'f i ' !.;Oti'*.->j '-" .• c By their possession of the former, stimuli act upon them, and by the latter, they upon stimuli : by the sensibility and contractility of the vessels, substances are taken in by the roots, circulated through the system, and converted into the various parts of the vegetable. Yet this does not imply perception, consciousness, or will. The excitability of the absorbents and secretories of our own system car- ries on absorption and secretion without our consciousness or volition. d " Sense" says Hamlet to his mother, " sure you have, Else could you not have motion" Act iii. Sc. 4. B 2 4 BRUTES. which is not thus gifted certainly deserves not the name of animal.6 Notwithstanding the vast interval which of necessity exists between the animal and vegetable kingdoms, the lowest brutes approach as nearly as possible in organisation, and consequently in function, to vegetable simplicity. They possess merely con- sciousness and perception, and volition, with the appetite for food, or are even nourished by imbibition, and multiply by shoots, fixed like vegetables to the spot which they inhabit. The five senses, sexual appetite, instincts, memory, judgmentf, and loco- * I cannot conceive an animal without consciousness, perception, and volition ; nor can I conceive these in an animal without a brain, any more than the secre- tion of bile without a liver, or something analogous. I contend not for the name, but for the thing. Zoologists indeed affirm that many internal worms and all the class of zoophytes have no nervous system. But comparative anatomy is yet imperfect, the examination of minute parts is extremely difficult, and new organs are daily discovered. Blumenbach, after remarking that, except those animals •which inhabit corals and the proper zoophytes, most genera of the other orders of the Linnaean class of vermes are found to possess a distinct nervous system, adds: " although former anatomists have expressly declared in several instances that no such parts existed." (Comparative Anatomy, ch. cxvi. F.) Besides, some beings have been denominated animals without any very satisfactory reason. Where the nervous system of an animal cannot be readily detected, its presence inay be inferred from motions evidently voluntary, such as retraction upon the approach of footsteps, — proving the existence of an organ of hearing, a brain, and nerves : motion in a part directly stimulated, as the contraction of an hydatid upon being punctured, is no proof of an animal nature, for this is common to vegetables, for instance, the leaves of the diontea muscipula, which contract forc- ibly on a slight irritation. It may likewise be inferred from the presence of a stomach, because, where there is a stomach, the food is taken in, not by absorbing vessels constantly plunged in it, but by a more or less complicated and generally solitary opening regulated by volition. John Hunter contended that the stomach was the grand characteristic of the animal kingdom. f I see daily instances of something deserving some such name as judgment or reason in brutes. To the incredulous I offer the following anecdote in the words of Dr. Darwin. " A wasp on a gravel walk had caught a fly nearly as large as itself. Kneeling on the ground, I observed him separate the tail and the head from the body part to which the wings were attached. He then took the body part in his paws and rose about two feet from the ground with it; but a gentle breeze wafting the wings of the fly turned him round in the air and he settled again with his prey upon the gravel. I then distinctly observed him cut off with his mouth first one of the wings and then the other, after which he flew away with it unmolested with the wind." Zoonomia: Instinct. — The works of the two Hubers, Sur les Abeilles and Sur les Mceun des Fourmis indigenes, furnish MAN. 5 motive power, with the necessary organs, are variously super- added, and endless varieties of organisation constructed, so that air and water, the surface and the crust of the earth, are all re- plenished with animals completely calculated for their respective habitations. * Many besides the common properties of animals, has others which raise him to an immense superiority. His mind is endowed with powers of the highest order that brutes have not, and his body being, like the bodies of all animals, constituted in harmony an abundance of most interesting instances of reason in those insects. See also Mr. Smellie's paper in the Transact, of Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 39. sqq. e An error has been committed not only in representing the gradation regular, but in supposing every species of animal to constitute a distinct step in the grad- ation. «« The whole chasm in nature," says Addison (Spectator, No. 519.), " from a plant to a man, is filled up with divers kinds of creatures, rising one above another, by such a gentle and easy ascent, that the little transitions and deviations from one s'pecies to another are almost insensible." " All quite down from us," says Locke (Essay on the Human Understanding, b. iii. c. 6.), " the descent is by easy steps, and a continued series of things, that in each remove differ very little one from the other. There are fishes that have wings, and are not strangers to the airy region ; and there are some birds, that are inhabitants of the water ; whose blood is cold as fishes, and their flesh so like in taste that the scrupulous are allowed them on fish days. There are animals so near of kin both to birds and beasts, that they are in the middle between both : amphibious animals link the terrestrial and aquatic together, seals live at land and at sea, and porpoises have the warm blood and entrails of a hog ; not to mention what is confidently reported of mermaids or sea men." " In respect of our intellectual and moral principles," remarks Mr. Dugald Stewart (Outlines of Moral Philoso- phy, par. 109.), " our nature does not admit of comparison with that of any other inhabitant of this globe : the difference between our constitution and theirs being a difference, not in degree, but in kind. Perhaps this is the single instance in which that regular gradation, which we, every where else, observe in the universe, fails entirely." Now the various kinds of animals do certainly run into each other ; — there are no great peculiarities of construction in single organs between which and the ordinary structure of the same organs in other animals an intermediate structure connecting the two are not continually brought to light by naturalists. No two are so different but that discoveries are continually made of a third intermediate. But connection is not gradation. Many kinds, and the intermediate ones by which they are united, are all on a level in point of excellence and combination of properties, so that a single step in the gradation may comprehend a great number of kinds : — the whole vegetable kingdom forms but one step. B 3 6 MAN. with the mind that the powers of the latter may have effect, differs necessarily in many points of construction from the body of every brute. Well might Shakspeare exclaim, " What a piece of work is man ! How noble in reason ! how infinite in faculties ! in form and moving how express and admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a god ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals !"h The orang utans approach the nearest of all brutes to the human subject. Possessing expression of countenance, elevation of forehead, and less projection of the lower part of the face than other brutes, anterior extremities that are really arms and hands, and teeth of the same number and pretty much of the same figure as our own ; curious, imitative, covetous, social ; said by some to place sentinels and dispose themselves in a train for the propaga- tion of alarm ; to seem now and then to laugh and weep 5, to walk a little occasionally erect, to defend themselves with sticks and stones, to copulate face to face, to carry their young either in their arms or on their backs, and to be very lascivious in regard to our species ; — the orang utans at first sight afford, if any of the genus can afford, a little probability to the opinion of a close con- nection between apes and the human race. Uncivilised men, too, make a slight approach in many corporeal particulars, as we shall hereafter find, to the structure of other animals, and since, also, the circumstances of their existence call into action few of the peculiar mental powers of our nature, they have been adduced in corroboration of this opinion. But the least examination displays differences of the greatest magnitude between the human and the brute creation.k These we shall review under two divisions, the h Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2. 1 Le Cat (Trait^ de V Existence du Fluide des Nerfs, p. 35.) asserts that he had seen the jocko or chimpanzee (simia troglodytes) both laugh and cry. The reader will remember the lines in Milton's Paradise Lost (B. ix.), — " Smiles from reason flow, To brute denied. " The orang utans exhibited a few years ago at Exeter 'Change, — the one a satyrus and the other a chimpanzee, — are said by their keepers to have sometimes laughed when much pleased, but never to have wept. Steller states the fact of Mreeping in regard to the phoca ursina; Pallas, in regard to the camel ; and Hum- boldt, in regard to a small American monkey. Mr. Lawrence, Lectures, p. 236. * In La Fontaine's charming fable of Le Singe et U Dauphin, the former MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MAN. 7 first embracing the mental, and the second the corporeal, charac- teristics of mankind. In judging of the mental faculties of mankind1, not merely those should be considered which an unfortunately situated indi- vidual may display, but those which all the race would display under favourable circumstances. A seed and a pebble may not on a shelf appear very dissimilar, but, if both are placed in the earth, the innate characteristic energies of the seed soon become conspicuous. A savage may in the same manner seem little superior to an orang utan, but, if instruction is afforded to both, the former will gradually develope the powers of our nature in their noble superiority, while the latter will still remain an orang utan. The excellence of man's mind demonstrates itself chiefly during a shipwreck, near Athens, resolves to profit by his resemblance to man, for whom the dolphin was anciently said to have a great regard. (See Pliny, Hist. Nat. ix. 8, 9.) In the hurry, Un dauphin le prit pour un homme, Et sur son dos le fit asseoir Si gravement, qu'on cut cru voir Le chanteur que tant on renomme. Just before landing him, the dolphin asked whether he often saw the Piraeus, to which he unfortunately replied, Tous les jours : il est mon ami : C'est une vieille connaissance. One glance was sufficient to discover the difference between a man and a monkey. Le dauphin rit, tourne la tete ; Et, le magot considere, II s'apper9oit qu'il n'a tire" Du fond des eaux rien qu'une bete ; II 1'y replonge, et va trouver Quelque homme a fin de le sauver. " The difference between the volume of the brain of the orang utan and man is as 5 to 1 : their convolutions differ considerably in number and structure ; the anterior lobes especially are narrowed into a cone, flattened above, hollowed out below, &c. and the difference is much more striking in other apes." Gall, 1. c. t. vi. p. 298. 1 In the external senses of at least smelling, hearing, and seeing, man is sur- passed by brutes. Whether they have any sense not possessed by us I cannot pretend to say. ' 8 MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MAN. by his voice and hands. Witness the infinite variety and the depth of thought expressed by means of words : witness his great reasoning powers, his ingenuity, his taste, his upright, religious, and benevolent, feelings, in his manufactories, his galleries of the fine arts, his halls of justice, his temples, and his charitable estab- lishments. Besides the qualities common to all animals, each of which he, like every animal, possesses in a degree peculiar to himself, and some indeed in a degree very far surpassing that in which any brute possesses them, for instance, benevolence, me- chanical contrivance, the sense for music and language, and the general power of observation and inference respecting present circumstances, he appears exclusively gifted with at least feelings of religion and justice, with taste, with wit, and with decided reflecting faculties of comparing and reasoning into causes. The corporeal characteristics of mankind are not less striking and noble.m Among the beings beheld by Satan in Milton's Paradise, " Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, Godlike erect, with native honour clad, In naked majesty seem'd lords of all." n The erect posture is natural and peculiar to man.o All nations walk erect, and, among those individuals who have been disco- m Consult Blumenbach, De Generis Humani Varietate Nativa. Sect. i. De Hominis a cseteris Animalibus differentia. n Paradise Lost, book iv. 288. * There is little necessity in the present day to attempt the refutation of the ridiculous opinion that man is destined to walk on all-fours. But I do so for the purpose of displaying many peculiarities of our structure. It is almost incredible that a thinking man could have entertained it for a moment, any more than the idea of our naturally having tails. Yet this is the fact ; and, in exquisite ridicule of such philosophers, Butler makes Hudibras, after proving to his mistress by his beard that he is no gelding, fruitlessly urge his erect posture in proof that he is not a horse. " Next it appears I am no horse, That I can argue and discourse, Have but two legs, and ne'er a tail. — Quoth she, That nothing will avail ; For some philosophers of late here Write, men have four legs by nature, And that 'tis custom makes them go, Erroneously upon but two. CORPOREAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MAN. 9 vered in a wild and solitary state, there is no well authenticated instance of one whose progression was on all-fours. If we at- tempt this mode of progression, we move either on the knee* or the points of the toes, throwing the legs obliquely back to a considerable distance ; we find ourselves insecure and uneasy ; our eyes, instead of looking forwards, are directed to the ground \ and the openings of the nostrils are no longer at the lower part of the nose, — in a situation to receive ascending odorous particles, but lie behind it. Our inferior extremities, being of much greater length, in proportion to the others and to the trunk, than the posterior of brutes with four extremities, even in children in whom the proportion is less, are evidently not intended to coin- cide with them in movement ; they are much stronger than the arms, obviously for the purpose of great support : the presence of calves, which are found in man alone, shows that the legs are to support and move the whole machine; the thigh bones are in the same line with the trunk, in quadrupeds they form an angle, frequently an acute one ; the bones of the tarsus become hard and perfect sooner than those of the carpus, because strength of leg is required for standing and walking sooner than strength of arm and hand for labour; the great toe is of the highest import- ance to the erect posture, and bestowed exclusively on mankind ; the os calcis is very large, particularly at its posterior projection, for the insertion of the strong muscles of the calf, and lies at right angles with the leg ; we alone can rest fully upon it, and in fact upon the whole of the tarsus, metatarsus, and toes. The superior extremities do not lie under the trunk as they would if destined for its support, but on its sides, capable of motion in every direction towards objects; the fore-arm extends itself out- wards, not forwards, as in quadrupeds, where it is an organ of progression; the hand is fixed not at right angles with the arm, as an instrument of support, but in the same line, and cannot be extended to a right angle without painfully stretching the flexor tendons ; the superior extremity is calculated in the erect As 'twas in Germany made good B' a boy that lost himself in a wood, And growing to a man was wont With wolves upon all- four to hunt." Hudibras, part ii. canto i. 10 CORPOREAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MAN. posture for seizing and handling objects, by the freedom of its motions, by the great length of the fingers above that of the toes, and by the existence of the thumb, which, standing at a distance from the fingers and bending towards them, acts as an opponent, while the great toe is, like the rest, too short for apprehension, stands in the same line with them, and moves in the same direc- tion : were our hands employed in the horizontal posture, they would be lost to us as grand instruments in the exercise of our mental superiority. Quadrupeds have a strong ligament at the back of the neck to sustain the head ; in us there is no such thing, and our extensor muscles at the back of the neck are compa- ratively very weak. P They have the thorax deep and narrow, that the anterior extremities may lie near together and give more support ; the sternum too is longer, and the ribs extend con- siderably towards the pelvis to maintain the incumbent viscera; our thorax is broad from side to side, that the arms being thrown to a distance may have greater extent of motion, and shallow from the sternum to the spine ; and the abdominal viscera, press- ing towards the pelvis rather than towards the surface of the abdomen in the erect attitude, do not here require an osseous support. The pelvis is beautifully adapted in us for supporting the bowels in the erect posture ; it is extremely expanded, and the sacrum and os coccygis bend forwards below: in brutes it does not merit the name of pelvis; for, not having to support the abdominal contents, it is narrow, and the sacrum inclines but little to the pubes. The nates, besides extending the pelvis upon the thigh bones in the erect state of standing or walking, allow us to rest while awake in the sitting posture, in which, the head and trunk being still erect, our organs of sense have their proper direction equally as in walking or standing; were we compelled to lie down like quadrupeds, when resting during the waking state, the different organs of the face must change their present situation to retain their present utility, no less than if we were compelled to adopt the horizontal progression ; and, conversely, P As the head is connected with the trunk farther back in brutes than in us, the small length of lever between the occipital foramen and the back of the head, and the length of the head below the foramen, require all this power ; but even in us much more upholding power than we have at the back of the neck would be required for all-four progression, as the head would no longer rest upon the spine. CORPOREAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MAN. 11 were their situation so changed, the provision for the sitting pos- ture would be comparatively useless. While some, perversely desirous of degrading their race, have attempted to remove a splendid distinction by asserting that we are constructed for all fours, others with equal perverseness and ignorance have asserted that monkeys are destined for the upright posture. The monkey tribe, it is true, maintain the erect posture less awkwardly than other brutes with four extremities, but they cannot maintain it long, and, while in it, they bend their knees and body ; they are insecure and tottering, and glad to rest upon a stick ; their feet, too, instead of being spread for support, are coiled up as if to grasp something. In fact their structure proves them to be neither biped nor quadruped, but four-handed, ani- mals. They live naturally in trees, and are furnished with four hands for grasping the branches and gathering their food. Of their four hands the posterior are even the more perfect, and are in no instance destitute of a thumb, although, like the thumbs of all the quadrumana, so insignificant as to have been termed by Eustachius, " omnino ridiculus;" whereas the anterior hands of .one variety (slmia paniscus) have not this organ. The whole length of the orang utan, it may be mentioned, falls very much short of ours. It was anciently supposed that man, because gifted with the highest mental endowments, possessed the largest of all brains. But as elephants and whales surpass him in this respect, and the sagacious monkey and dog have smaller brains than the com- paratively stupid ass, ox, and hog, the opinion was relinquished by the moderns, and man was said only to have the largest brain in proportion to the size of his body. But as more extensive observation proved canary and other birds, and some varieties of the monkey tribe, to have larger brains than man in proportion to the body, and several mammalia to equal him in this particular, and as rats and mice too surpass the dog, the horse, and the elephant, in the comparative bulk of their brains, this opinion also gave way, in its turn, to that of Sommerring, — that man possesses the largest brain in comparison with the nerves arising from it. This has not yet been contradicted, although the com- parative size of the brain to the nerves originating from it (grant- ing that they originate from it) is not an accurate measure of the faculties, because the seal has in proportion to its nerves a larger 12 CORPOREAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MAN. brain than the house-dog, and the porpoise than the orang utan.q - As the human brain is of such great comparative magnitude, the cranium is necessarily very large and bears a greater pro- portion to the face than in any other animal. In an European the vertical section of the cranium is almost four times larger than that of the face (not including the lower jaw) ; in the monkey it is little more than double ; in most ferae, nearly equal ; in the glires, solipedes, pecora, and belluae, less. The faculties, however, do not depend upon this proportion, because men of great genius, as Leo, Montaigne, Leibnitz, Haller, and Mirabeau. had very large faces, and the sloth and seal have faces larger than the stag, horse, and ox, in proportion to the brain, and the proportion is acknowledged by Cuvier to be not at all applicable to birds. We are assisted in discovering the proportion between the cranium and face by the facial angle of Camper. He draws two straight lines, the one, horizontal, passing through the external meatus auditorius and the bottom of the nostrils ; the other, more per- pendicular, running from the convexity of the forehead to the most prominent part of the upper jaw. The angle which the latter, — the proper facial line, — makes with the former, is greatest in the human subject, from the comparative smallness of the brain and the great developement of the mouth and nose in brutes. In the human adult this angle is about from 65° to 85° ; in the orang utan about from 55° to 65°; in some quadrupeds 20°; and in the lower classes of vertebral animals it entirely disappears. Neither is it to be regarded as an exact measure of the under- standing, for persons of great intellect may have a prominent mouth; it shows merely the projection of the forehead, while the cranium and brain may vary greatly in the size of other parts ; three- fourths of quadrupeds, whose crania differ extremely in other re- spects, have the same facial angle ; great amplitude of the frontal sinuses, as in the owl and hog, without any increase of brain, may increase it, and for this reason Cuvier draws the facial line from the internal table of the frontal bone. In proportion as the face is elongated, the occipital foramen lies more posteriorly; in man consequently it is most forward. While in man it is nearly in the centre of the base of the cra- nium, and horizontal, and has even sometimes its anterior margin i See Gall, 1. c, t. ii. p. 281. sqq. CORPOREAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MAN. IS elevated ; in most quadrupeds it is situated at the extremity of the cranium obliquely, with its posterior parts turned upwards, and is in some completely vertical. On this difference of situation, Daubenton founded his occipital angle. r He drew one line from the posterior edge of the foramen to the lower edge of the orbit, and another, in the direction of the foramen, passing between the condyles and intersecting the former. According to the angle formed, he established the similarity and diversity of crania. The information derived from it in this respect is very imperfect, because it shows the differences of the occiput merely. Blumen- bach remarks that its variations are included between 80° and 90° in most quadrupeds which differ very essentially in other points. The want of the ossa intermaxillaria has been thought peculiar to mankind. Quadrupeds, and nearly all the ape tribe, have two bones between the superior maxillary, containing the denies in- cisores when these are present, and termed ossa intermaxillaria, incisoria, or labialia. But these do not exist universally in them. 8 Man only has a prominent chin : his lower jaw is the shortest, compared with the cranium, and its condyles differ in form, direc- tion, and articulation, from those of any brute : in no brute are the teeth arranged in such a close and uniform series ; the lower incisores, like the jaw in which they are fixed, are perpendicular, — a distinct characteristic of man, for in brutes they slope back- backwards with the jaw bone; the canine are not longer than the rest, nor insulated as in monkeys ; the molares differ from those of the orang utan and of all the genus simia by their singularly obtuse projections. The slight hairiness of the human skin in general, although certain parts, as the pubes and axillae, are more copiously fur- nished with hair than in brutes ; the omnivorous structure of the alimentary canal ; the curve of the vagina corresponding with the curve of the sacrum formerly mentioned, preventing woman from being, as brute females are, retromingent ; the peculiar structure r Memoires de f Academie des Sciences de Paris. 1764. s In a chimpanzee that died at Exeter Change a few years ago, the statement of Tyson and Daubenton was verified, — that this black ape has no intermaxillary bone. The red-haired variety (Simia Satyrus) has it, and is said to be destitute of nails on the hind thumbs and of ligamentum teres at the head of the os femoris, both which structures this chimpanzee possessed. The Satyrus is therefore not so near the human subject as the Troglodytes. In a simia satyrus, however, lately dissected at the Zoological Gardens, the hind thumbs possessed nails. Proceed- ings, $c. Nov. 23. 1830. 14 DEFINITION OF PHYSIOLOGY. of the human uterus and placenta; the length of the umbilical chord and the existence of the vesicula umbilicalis until the fourth month ; together with the extreme delicacy of the cellular mem- brane; are likewise structural peculiarities of the human race. The situation of the heart lying not upon the sternum, as in quad- rupeds, but upon the diaphragm, on account of our erect position, — the basis turned not, as in them, to the spine, but to the head, and the apex to the left nipple ; the absence of the allantois, of the panniculus carnosus, of the rete mirabile arteriosum, of the suspensorius oculi ; and the smallness of the foramen incisivum, which is not only very large in brutes, but generally double, though not peculiarities, are striking circumstances. Man only can live in every climate l ; he is the slowest in arriving at maturity, and, in proportion to his size, he lives the longest of all mammalia ; he only procreates at every season, and, while in celibacy, experiences nocturnal emissions. None but the human female menstruates. Man, thus distinguished from all other terrestrial beings, evi- dently constitutes a separate species. For " a species comprehends all the individuals which descend from each other, as from a com- mon parent, and those which resemble them as much as they do each other" ;" and no brute bears such a resemblance to man. The knowledge of all the objects and laws of nature might be supposed to be signified by the term physiology, derived as it is from .) : and as we have also examples of paralysis and convulsions affecting a limb only, so ague is said sometimes to have seized but a single limb. (Dr. Macculloch, on Marsh Fever and Malaria.) c 3 22 GENERAL VIEW OF THE FUNCTIONS. see that the actions of the heart, lungs, &c., have intervals of remission. The animal functions are much influenced by habit ; the vital or organic are considered by Bichat as removed from its influence. The power of habit over our sensations and voluntary motions is manifest, — the more frequently an object is applied to our organs of sense, the less intense is the sensation produced by it ; and the more frequently we perform an act of volition, the more readily is it performed. Yet I think the force of habit equally great over the organic functions. The operation of food and of all de- scriptions of ingesta is most remarkably modified by habit; through it poisons become comparatively innocuous, and divers bear a long suspension of respiration. Bichat regards the passions as directly influencing the organic functions only, and springing from the state of the organs of that class. Here he is to me perfectly unintelligible. Vexation indeed disturbs the stomach, and fear augments the quantity of urine ; but does not vexation equally and as directly disturb the mind, — confuse the understanding, and occasion heat and pain of the forehead ? Are not, in fact, the passions a part of the mind? — a part of the animal functions? They powerfully affect, it is true, the organic or vital functions, but this shows the close connection merely between the two classes of functions. d This connection is conspicuous in respiration, the mechanical part of which belongs to the animal functions, the other to the organic ; and in the alimentary functions, in which the food is swallowed and the faeces rejected by volition, and digestion, &c. performed, independently of our influence, by the powers of simple life. So close indeed is this connection, that every organ of the animal class is the seat of organic functions ; — in the voluntary muscles, the organs of sense, and even in the brain, circulation, secretion, and absorption are constantly carried on. This connection is likewise apparent in the property of sensibility. In the language of Bichat, there are animal sensibility and contrac- d Bordeu, Buffbn, Cabanis, and the anatomist Reil, placed the passions in the thoracic and abdominal viscera, &c. ; the two first in the diaphragm particularly. Gall has shown the absurdity of these authors in his Fonct. du Cerveau, t. ii. p. 93. sqq. We might as well consider the cheeks the seat of the feeling of shame, because in shame we blush. Hippocrates opposed such absurdities in his day. " The heart and praecordia," says he, " feel acutely,* but have not the least intelligence : the brain is the cause of all these things." De Morbo Sacro. GENERAL VIEW OF THE FUNCTIONS. 23 tility, and organic sensibility and contractility, besides the common extensibility of matter, which he terms extensibilite de tissu, and common contractility upon the removal of distension, — contrac- tilite par defaut tf extension, which, indeed, is greater during life than afterwards.6 Animal sensibility is accompanied by a perception e The following is Bichat's table of the properties of the living body : — Classes. Genera. Species. Varieties. 1 1 C Animal Sensibility -I 2 1 J [ Organic Vital 1 1 2 r Animal 1 Contractility J _ C Sensible Such as the motion of the 2 f Extensibility l_ Insensible Such as the motion of the Structural •{ 2 capillaries. \^ L Contractility Although these are the general properties of the living frame, and sensibility, or more properly excitability, is at the bottom of all the other vital or organic properties except the active power of contraction, yet each part has also some peculiarity, altogether inexplicable, — not in the least, I think, to be accounted for on Bichat's supposition of each part possessing a certain degree of organic sen- sibility in relation to its fluids. What causes the vessels of muscle to produce muscle ; of bone, bone ; of membrane, membrane ; what causes the secreting vessels of the liver to form bile, and of the testes semen, we know not. The causes of these circumstances are called by Blumenbach, after Bordeu, vitce proprice ; but it must be carefully remembered, that this expression simply denotes an unknown cause of a fact, and affords no explanation. Feeling (I use the word for want of another to embrace consciousness and perception) is in the same manner at the bottom of all the mental properties except the active power of willing, but it alone will not explain them. All matter is probably the same ; but its modifications likewise are so various, that at present we are compelled to speak of distinct kinds of matter. The operation of agents on the system is analogous. As far as they all affect the living solid, they may be all called stimuli ; but they differ in something more than degree of stimulus. Each affects particular parts more than others ; each affects in a peculiar way ; some directly depress life, and many occasion opposite results in different parts ; some produce specific diseases, in which the composi- tion of the fluids may be altered ; and here occasionally the specific disease pro- duced is contagious. When organic sensibility is heightened in one part, it sinks in another, and vice versa ; unless the change of it should be such as to extend generally, and even then it is still frequently found in the opposite state in some particular part . v. c. we notice coldness and paleness of the feet, and heat and fulness of the head, c 4 24 GENERAL VIEW OF THE FUNCTIONS. in the mind, as in seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling: animal contractility is excited by the volition of the mind con- veyed to the voluntary muscles by means of the nerves. Organic sensibility is attended by no perception, and is followed by con- together ; blisters relieve internal inflammation, and irritate the more difficultly in proportion to the violence of the internal disease. The same phaenomena are observable in animal sensibility and in the mind at large : — " Tut, man ! one fire puts out another's burning, One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish ; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning ; One desperate grief cures with another's languish ; Take thou some new infection to thy eye, And the rank poison of the old will die." SHAKSPEARE. Romeo and Juliet, act i. sc. ii. The effect of vicissitudes of temperature, and a large number of other patho- logical phaenomena, are principally explicable on the derangement of the balance of excitability, and for the most part, consequently, of circulation. Notwithstanding it is a general law that the effects of an agent diminish the more frequently it is applied, and vice versa, as shown on the one hand, in the large quantities of spirituous liquors which persons at length bear, and on the other by the violent inflammation excited by the application of warmth to parts exposed to intense cold ; yet, if a stimulus is applied so energetically as to leave the sensibility heightened, especially if to the point of inflammation, its subsequent power is greatly increased. Immense potations of spirituous liquors may gradually be borne, but if the increase is too great, the sensibility of the stomach may become such that a single glass will prove violently irritating. The general law, to which the effects of agents, in proportion to their previous application, is referable, appears to be this ; — that an agent acts according to the difference between its strength and the strength of the former application. Thus, if the right hand be immersed in water of 30°, and the left in water of 50°, and both are removed to water of 70°, the effect of the water at 70° upon the right hand will be greater than upon the left, on account of the difference between 30° and 70° being greater than between 50° and 70°; and this explains the glow of the cold bath, as, during immersion, there is less stimulus, and, on emerg- ing, the temperature of the atmosphere, and the re-admitted blood into the super- ficial vessels, though stimuli absolutely of the same strength as before immersion, are, comparatively, more powerful than what the system experienced during immersion. The specific action of one agent frequently prevents or destroys that of another : v. c. small-pox and measles very rarely occur together ; the former disease is frequently prevented for ever by the cow-pock ; bark cures the effect of marsh GENERAL VIEW OF THE FUNCTIONS. 25 traction totally independent of the will : — the heart is said to feel (physiology has no proper term for the idea, but excitability would answer the purpose) the stimulus of the blood, and, without our influence, forthwith contracts ; the lacteals to feel the stimulus of the chyle without our knowledge, and they then propel it miasmata. It in some cases destroys its own power in future, as is exemplified in those diseases which occur usually but once during life. These observations on rare and frequent agency may relate to agency in general or by particular agents. A very high or low excitement may influence the effects of all subsequent stimuli ; but the rare or frequent application of a particular agent in less intensity may influence its own effects only, as is exemplified in the acquired capability of smoking or taking snuff, while other vapours or powders affect no less than usual. While moderate excitement is necessary to maintain action and excitability, and excitement by one stimulus, within due limits, augments the effects of an- other, violent excitement wears out the power, and, very violent, may suddenly destroy life altogether : according to the verses, Nutritur ventis, ventis extinguitur ignis, Lenis alit flammas, grandior aura necat. Dr. John Brown, seizing the undeniable general facts respecting the effect of rare or frequent application upon the power of stimuli, and naming all agents stimuli, founded a system of pathology and practice at once absurd and destruc- tive. (Elementa Medicince.} Exhaustion, from excess of stimulus, he termed direct debility ; torpor, from deficiency of stimulus, indirect debility ; and how- ever inflammatory a disease, if it arose from a stimulus, it was to be treated by violent stimuli, to prevent the excitability from falling too low. In the first place, he abused the word stimulus, by confounding it with the word agent, forgetting what has been just advanced respecting the peculiar pro- perties of every agent, — that some depress, and thus, though agents, are not stimuli ; and some affect different parts differently ; and some have a specific power upon certain parts and certain diseases, and against other agents. In the second place, he forgot what has been just said respecting the necessity of a certain degree of excitement to maintain excitability ; the effect of one sti- mulus, within due limits, of increasing the effect of others ; and the fact of a stimulus producing so much excitement, that morbid sensibility occurs, far less stimulus than was at first applied causing ten times the effect, and this being reducible only by lessening all stimuli, — the temperature, the quantity of blood, &c., and stimulating distant parts. He forgot, also, the effect of sympathy and specific action. His error was in keeping in view some general laws, which all know and acknowledge, to the exclusion of others of at least equal importance. 26 GENERAL VIEW OF THE FUNCTIONS. without our assistance/ But although we never acquire the least direct voluntary power over the actions of organic contractility, — over the peristaltic motion of the intestines or the contractions of the heart, yet every organ of the organic functions may have its organic sensibility heightened into animal sensibility, as inflamma- tion, for instance, of the pleura and the joints, daily demonstrates; indeed, in some organs of that class of functions, we invariably have sensation; — the stomach is the seat of hunger; in the lungs we experience an uneasy sensation nearly as soon as their air is expelled. The nerves of the animal functions run to the brain or spinal marrow ; those of the organic chiefly to ganglia ; but, as might be expected, the two nervous systems have abundant commu- nications. The animal functions have not only a shorter existence than the organic, from their necessity of alternate repose g, but they flourish for a shorter duration, — they do not commence till birth, they decline, and, in the natural course of events, terminate, earlier, v. c. the organs of sense and the mental faculties fail be- fore the action of the heart and capillaries. But the decay of the animal functions must, in truth, be only the consequence of the decay of the organic, because there are fundamentally in every part organic functions, — circulation, nutrition, &c.; and the per- fect performance of these in the organs of the animal functions is indispensable to the perfect performance of the animal functions. Hence the impairment of these organic functions, even to a small extent, must derange or diminish the animal functions, and the decline of the latter is really owing to the decline of the former, although these still remain vigorous enough to appear unimpaired. f There is no proof of feeling. There can be no feeling. We see them act in consequence of the stimulus, and say they feel. The expression is only admissible figuratively, but as all figurative terms in physiology are continually accepted literally, and establish the most absurd notions, especially among the vulgar, it had much better be explained by a mere expression of the fact, by the word excitement. 8 It is said that the heart has the same repose as the brain, the auricles and ventricles acting in succession, and a pause occurring before their action is renewed. The function, however, of the heart as a whole organ, constantly goes on ; while that of the brain, at least if it is only an organ of the mind, entirely intemits in sound sleep. LIFE. 27 We thus find in every living system a class of functions, not in themselves dependent upon mind, as perfect in the vegetable as in the animal, and pervading every part of the system. In animals there further exist certain parts which, when endowed with the common life of other parts, — with the organic pro- perties, — are able to perform peculiar functions which give us the notion of mind: the organ of these functions is termed brain, and, by means of nerves and medullary prolongations, it maintains a correspondence with the whole machine, influenced by and in- fluencing the most distant parts. The ORGANIC FUNCTIONS depend on LIFE, in the proper accept- ation of the word. The word life should be regarded, like the word attraction or repulsion, as merely an expression of a fact. In this point of view it may be as easily defined as any other expression. By LIFE we generally mean the power of organised matter to pre- serve its particles in such chemical relations as to prevent other chemical relations from inducing disorganisation, or even to increase or decrease by internal appropriation and separation11; to produce peculiar matters for its own purposes ; to preserve, in some measure, a temperature distinct from that of the surrounding medium ; to move certain parts of itself sensibly (as muscles) or insensibly (as the capillaries) independently of mere impulse, attraction, or repulsion : or if not organised (as the fluid which becomes the embryo, the blood,) the power of matter produced by an organised body endowed with the properties above mentioned, to resist the ordinary chemical influences, and even directly form (as the embryotic fluid) an organised system so endowed, or directly become, (as the fibrin, when it is secreted from the blood or blood is effused, becoming vascular, and its new vessels inosculat- h So striking is this, that Stahl and his followers referred their notion of life to this antiseptic property, and while he said, " Life is formally nothing more than the preservation of the body in mixture, corruptible, indeed, but without the occurrence of corruption," Junker said, " What we call life is the opposite of putridity." Chemical affinities are not destroyed by life, but only so brought to play that decomposition is not their result. Without the operation of chemical affinities the composition of the body could not exist, nor many of its functions, as respir- ation, secretion, &c., take place. The physical properties of matter are equally indispensable. Cohesion, gravity, hardness, softness, and fluidity are essential, in different parts ; elasticity performs an important part in many functions, as in respiration and the rise of the epiglottis ; the laws of light and sound are indis- pensable to the functions of the eye and ear. 28 LIFE. ing with those of adjoining parts,) the organised substance of an already formed system so endowed. That fluids as well as solids are susceptible of life, I cannot doubt. There is no reason why they should not be so, although a person who has not thought upon the subject may be as unable to conceive the circumstance as a West Indian to conceive that water may by cold become solid. It is impossible to deny that the male or female genital fluid, or both, either alone or when united, are alive, because from their union, or from one when influenced by the other, a living being is produced which partakes of the vital qualities of each parent. Accordingly Blumenbach, in his Commentatio de vi vitali sanguini deneganda, grants both male and female genital fluids to be alive1, notwithstanding that he fancies his victory over the defenders of the blood's life so complete, that, like that of the unfortunate Carthaginian Dido, he says, " in ventos vita recessit." It is as easy to conceive the blood to be alive as the genital fluids. k Many facts adduced as arguments of its life are certainly expli- 1 In universum sane post omnia quae super hoc argumento sive meditando sive experiundo hactenus elicere licuit, nulli humorum nostri corporis genuina vis vitalis tribuenda videtur, si unice a genitali utriusque sexus latice discesseris, utpote cui jam ante quam uterino cavo exceptus et intime mixtus in foetus forma- tionem abit, vitales inhaerere vires formativas, praeter alia paterni vultus in nepotes propagata similitude, aliaque id genus phaenomena baud infitianda demonstrare videntur." Comment. Soc. Reg. Societ. Gotting. vol. ix. p. 12. k The doctrine of the life of the blood was maintained by Critias and his sect among the ancients (Aristotle, De anima, cap. 2.), Harvey (Exercit. L. De Generationis ordine, &c.), Glisson (De ventriculo et inteslinis), and Albinus. (Blu- menbach's Commentat. 1. c. ) I am surprised that Moses should have been adduced by Harvey as authority for this opinion. When he says (Leviticus, ch. xvii. 11. 14. ), " For the life of the flesh is in the blood," — " For it is the life of all flesh," — he can only mean, that, when it is withdrawn, life ceases, — that it is necessary to the life of animals. He also says, (v. 14.) " the blood of it is FOR the life thereof." The construction which would make Moses assert that the blood is alive, involves the absurd assertion that the blood only is alive. Indeed, before the time of Moses, the expression was used to Noah. In Genesis (ix. 4.) we read, " Flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat." The whole of the matter appears to be, that the Jews, like other neighbouring nations, were in the habit of tearing limbs and cutting flesh from living animals, and eating these portions raw. Saul's army after a battle did this. (\ Samuel, xiv. 32, 33.) To prevent this horrid cruelty, they were forbidden to eat flesh before the animal had been drained of its blood, and thus deprived of life ; and what is, in our own version of the Bible, rendered, « flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood LIFE. 2.9 cable without such a supposition. Its freedom from putrefaction while circulating may be owing to the constant renovation of its particles ; for the thinness of hybernating animals at the end of their torpid season shows it has received accessions even in tnem, and this from the absorption of fat. Its inability to coagulate after death from arsenic, opium, and some other narcotics, and from lightning and electricity (though Sir C. Scudamore found it to coagulate as usual in the latter case), from hard running, anger, or a blow on the stomach, all three of which deprive the muscles of their usual stiffness, may depend upon chemical changes. The admixture of opium with the blood has been said to prevent its coagulation, and this by destroying its life. But Sir C. Scudamore found that the admixture of prussic acid and belladonna, both strong poisons, has no such effect, and that many mere salts, as common salt, weaken or prevent its coagulation, and these are not likely to kill it, but to act chemically. Its accelerated coagulation by means of heat, when frozen by cold, and some other circum- stances, and the reverse, were believed to depend upon an affection of its vitality, but are, perhaps, referable to some chemical effect. Its earlier putridity when drawn from young than from old per- sons may arise from its inferior qualities. Parts die if deprived of a supply of blood ; yet, though necessary as a material and agent to maintain the life of parts, it is not, therefore, necessarily itself alive. But the circumstance of its freezing more readily, like eggs, frogs, snails, &c., when once previously frozen (which change may be supposed to have exhausted its powers !), is, if really the case, an argument in favour of its life, as these are certainly endowed with life. The organisation of extravasated blood m, and the inosculation of new vessels with those of surround- ing parts, shows n that the solidified lymph is now endowed with thereof," is said to be rendered by the best interpreters, " flesh or members torn from living animals having the blood in them." See Bruce, Travels to discover the Source of the Nile, vol. iii. p. 297. I Corrie, on the Vitality of the Blood, p. 45. m J. Hunter, Treatise on the Blood, $c. p. i. ch. 1. II Dr. John Thomson believes, that, when blood has been effused between divided surfaces, its coagulum is absorbed, and secreted lymph only coagulates and be- comes vascular. Lectures on Inflammation, p. 214. Yet at page 216. he does not deny the occurrence. 30 LIFE. life ; and one may more easily believe it to have been alive in the mass of blood, than that it should have acquired vitality after its effusion. Indeed Sir Everard Home declares that a coagulum of blood becomes vascular out of the body, and may be injected0; but if the vessels are formed by the mere extrication of carbonic acid gas, as he contends, their mere formation is no proof of life. John Hunter believes that the chyle is alive, and some that vivification commences in the stomach ; and Albinus grants life even to the excrement. But the excretions must be regarded as dead matter, useless and foreign to the system, and they all run with the greatest rapidity into decomposition. In operating for retention of urine, the surgeon finds this fluid abominably foetid; the faeces become so when not discharged in due time; and the neglect of washing the surface is the source of filth and disease. The essential nature of life is an impenetrable mystery, and no more a subject for philosophical enquiry than the essential nature of attraction or of heat. To attempt explaining the phenomena of life by a vital fluid is only increasing the intricacy of the subject by an unfounded hypothesis, and always reminds me of Mr. Dugald Stewart's remark, — " That there is even some reason for doubting, from the crude speculations on medical and chemical subjects which are daily offered to the public, whether it (the proper mode of studying nature) be yet understood so completely as is commonly imagined, and whether a fuller illustration of the rules of philosophising, than Bacon or his followers have given, might not be useful even to physical enquirers." p We see matter in a certain state possessed of a certain power which we term life, and the object of physiology is merely to observe its effects, just as it is the object of chemistry to observe the circumstances of the affinity of different bodies and of physics to observe other phenomena of matter, without vainly speculating on the essence of affinity or the essence of matter, to comprehend which our faculties are, in their nature, incompetent. By attributing life, the power of attraction, &c. to subtle and mobile fluids, we not only do not advance a single step, for we have still to explain what these fluids are, and how they obtain their powers, just as we had before in regard to common matter ; but we make the addi- 0 Phil. Trans, vol. cviii. p. 188. sq. p Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 8. LIFE. SI tional mysteries of their being united with ordinary matter, and so united that life appears a power possessed by it. The editors of a medical review have in vain searched John Hunter's works for such an hypothesis Q, and Mr. Lawrence has had no better success1", so that I apprehend his meaning has been misunderstood by those who constitute him its patron. 8 Granting for a moment that life depends upon a peculiar, fine fluid, we have still to ac- count for mind, because life is not mind, — a cabbage is as much gifted with life as the wisest man. Yet those whose faith makes life a subtle fluid strangely imagine that the doctrine of a soul is thereby advanced. The life of a brute requires a subtle fluid as much as the life of a man, and of a cabbage as much as the life of a brute. We have reason to believe that life never originates, but began at the creation, and is communicated to assimilated matter, and propagated from parent to offspring. It is the property of or- ganised systems, producing various effects by various kinds of organisation, but is not quite peculiar to organised matter, because capable of being possessed by matter in a fluid state.1 * Annah of Medicine and Surgery > 1817, p. 373. In the Treatise on the Blood, (p. 89. sq.) John Hunter says, " Life is a property (not a subtle fluid) we do not understand." This property he conceives to reside in a certain matter similar to the materials of the brain ; diffused through the body and even con- tained in the blood. " The brain," he adds, " is a mass of this matter, not diffused through any thing, for the purpose of that thing, but constituting an organ in itself." This materia vitas is, therefore, not subtle, but pretty solid, and no other than medullary matter ; and Vauquelin says he has discovered a fatty matter in the blood, and which M. Chevreuil thinks he proves to be the same as the substance of the brain and nerves. But the subtle-fl uidists would not tolerate gross fatty matter, and J. Hunter calls life a property. T Lectures on the Physiology, Zoology, and Natural History of Man, p. 84. 8 J. Abernethy, Lectures delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons. 1814. * As the fluids which form the embryo must be endowed with life, organisation cannot be the cause of life ; but in truth, organisation is the effect of life, although when produced it becomes an instrument of life. The erroneousness of the French doctrine, that " life is the result of organisation," was refuted in the Annah of Medicine and Surgery. (1816, Sept. pp. 346. 386.) The error appears to have arisen in some measure from the want of definition, — the word life being used sometimes properly for the power, sometimes improperly for the result. Even if the result of life, — the functions of a part, should be called its life, life could not be said to be the result of organisation, but of a power to which organis- ation is an instrument. The Greeks had distinct appellations for the cause and the result ; the former they termed tyvxh ; the latter, £(rij. 32 MIND. The ANIMAL FUNCTIONS demonstrate MIND. This is seated in the brain, to which the spinal marrow, nerves, and voluntary muscles are subservient. MIND is the functional power of the living brain. As I cannot conceive life any more than the power of attraction unless possessed by matter, so I cannot conceive mind unless possessed by a brain, or by some nervous organ, whatever name we may choose to give it, endowed with life. I speak of terrestrial or animal mind ; with angelic and divine na- ture we have nothing to do, and of them we know, in the same respects, nothing. To call the human mind positively a ray of the divinity, (Divinez particula aura *, Ex ipso Deo decerptus, Ex universa mente delibatus x,) appears to me absolute nonsense. Brutes are as really endowed with mind, — with a consciousness of personality, with feelings, desires, and will, — as man. * Every child is conscious that it thinks with its head, and common lan- guage designates this part as the seat of mind. z Observation shows that superiority of mind in the animal creation is exactly commensurate with superiority of brain * ; that activity of mind u Horace. x Cicero, De Senectute et Queest. Tuscul. J See Gall, 1. c. t. 1. p. 56. sqq. Aristotle no sooner asserts that a share of divinity is bestowed on man " only of all animals," than he is obliged to retract, and say, " or most of all animals," — fy }i6.\i(rra iravruv. Depart, animal. 1. ii. c. 10. z A stupid person is honoured with the expressions numb-set*//, thick-foarf, addle-pafed, shallow-pated, badly furnished in the upper story; a clever person with strong-headed, long-headed, having plenty of brains ; a madman is said to be wrong in the head, touched in the noddle, &c. A person whose memory or power of attention is impaired, says he has no head, &c. When a catarrh chiefly affects the head, we complain of stupidity, because " we have such a cold in the head," &c. A man is always said to have an idea in his head. a " The same progression which exists in the gradual perfection of animal organisation, as far as regards vegetable life only, is observed in the gradual perfection of the nervous system, and of animal life which depends upon it. Comparative anatomy has followed the gradual perfection of animals, from the most simple absorbent vessels to the most complicated apparatus of mastication, deglutition, and digestion, — to the most perfect circulation. With every fresh viscus, every fresh apparatus for sensation, is discovered a fresh function, and this function is more complicated in proportion as the organisation of the viscus or apparatus of sensation is more perfect. The stomach, kidneys, lungs, heart, eyes, ears, are the more complicated as their functions become so. " The same gradation may be demonstrated in the structure of the brains of the different species. I have demonstrated in the preceding chapter, that the exist- ence of each moral quality and intellectual faculty, depends solely upon the MIND. 35 and of brain are coequal ; and that, as long as the brain is en- dowed with life, and remains uninjured, it, like all other organs, can perform its functions, and mind continues; but, as in all presence of certain determinate cerebral parts, and not upon the whole mass of brain. It follows, that the number of the faculties is in direct proportion to the integrant parts of the brain. In insects, fish, and amphibia, the nervous mass contained in the cerebral reservoir, is still divided into several distinct masses. The greater part of these are not integrant parts of the brain, properly so called ; they are ganglia, from which arise the nerves of smell, hearing, sight, &c. The two hemispheres, properly so called, are placed behind the 'two ganglia of the olfactory nerves, and are the more complicated as the industrial instincts are more numerous; the cerebellum in these animals generally forms a hollow pouch, sometimes placed horizontally, sometimes folded together. " In birds, the two hemispheres are already more considerable, although distinct convolutions cannot be discerned. The cerebellum still consists merely of its middle or fundamental part; but already appears composed of many rings placed side by side. " In the small mammalia, the shrew-mouse, mouse, rat, squirrel, weasel, &c. convolutions are not yet discoverable. But as they are already distinctly found in other larger rodentia, the beaver, kangaroo, &c., we may suppose that they equally exist in them. " In the larger mammalia, the cat, polecat, marten, fox, dog, ape, the convolutions are more distinct and numerous, but their form varies according to the species. " In the dolphin, elephant, and man, they are more numerous and deep than in the beaver, kangaroo, cat, &c., and their form and direction vary completely ac- cording to the species. " In all the mammalia, the cerebellum possesses, besides the middle or funda- mental part, two lateral parts, which are more or less complicated, according to the species ; and as the soi-disant pons varolii, or the soi-disant cerebral ganglia, i. e. the transverse layers of nervous bands, are only the commissure or junction of the lateral parts of the cerebellum, they are found in all the mammalia, and in none of the ovipara. " The number of the integral parts, or of the convolutions of the brain, varies equally in the different species of mammalia; in some, the anterior lobes of the hemispheres are larger or more elevated ; in others, again, the inferior parts of the anterior lobes are nearly wanting. The middle lobes, and the other convolutions, present similar varieties. " In this way, the integrant parts of the brain augment in number and develope- ment, as we pass from a less perfec to a more perfect animal, till we arrive at the brain of man, who, in the anterior-superior, and in the superior region of the frontal bone, possesses several parts of which other animals are deprived, and by- means of which he is endowed with the most eminent qualities and faculties, with reason, and the feeling of religion and the existence of God." Gall, 34 MIND. other organs, when its life ceases, its power to perform its function ceases, and the mind ceases : when disease or mechanical injury affects it, the mind is affected, — inflammation of the stomach causes vomiting, of the brain delirium, a blow upon the loins suppres- sion or alteration of the urine, a blow upon the head stuns; if ori- ginally constituted defective, the mind is defective c ; if fully de- 1. c. t. ii. p. 364. sqq. " Some pretend to discover a striking resemblance between the brain of an orang-utan and that of man. But, in the first place, the difference of their volume is as five to one ; their convolutions differ considerably in number and structure ; the anterior lobes, especially, are contracted into a cone, flattened above, hollow below, &c. ; and the difference is still more remarkable in other simiae." t. vi. p. 298. c See Gall, 1. c. t. i. p. 196. sqq., and t. ii. p. 322. sqq. " Willis has described the brain of a young man imbecile from birth; its volume is scarcely ith part of that of an ordinary human brain. M. Bonn, professor at Amsterdam, has two little crania of idiots, and the brain of an imbecile who attained his twenty-fifth year, and was so stupid, that he was shown for money as an African savage," &c. " I have observed heads equally small in many living idiots from birth. All these crania and heads are 13 or 14 inches in circum- ference, and 11 or 12 inches from the root of the nose to the foramen occi- pitale." — "With from 14 to 17 inches in circumference; and about 10 or 12 from the root of the nose to the foramen occipitale, we have more or less stupidity, a more or less complete incapacity to fix the attention upon one object; uncertain and transitory feelings and passions; confusion of ideas," &c " Heads of 18 or 18^ inches in circumference are still small, although they permit a regular exer- cise of the faculties ; they possess but a sad mediocrity of talent, a spirit of servile imitation, &c. ; an extreme deficiency of seizing the relation between cause and effect ; a want of self-government, and often few desires. Still some qualities or faculties may be considerable, because particular organs may be greatly developed, forming a striking contrast with the mediocrity of the rest. But as we approach larger brains, we see intellectual faculties of greater magnitude, till we arrive at heads 21 or 22 inches in circumference, — the dimensions at which men obtain the height of intelligence." Gall means French inches, which are about ^g longer than the English. " The dimensions of the brain," says Dr. Magendie, " are proportioned to those of the head. In this respect there is a great difference in individuals. The volume of the brain is generally in direct proportion to the capacity of the mind."—" It is rarely found that a man distinguished by his mental faculties has not a large head." — Precis de Physiologic, t. i. p. 184. Dr. Marshall, an anatomical lecturer in London from two-and-forty to six- and-twenty years ago, taught that the brain was the organ of mind, its original defective conformation a source of idiocy, its disease the cause of insanity ; and gave many dissections of maniacs, and an excellent sketch of the varieties of the disease. Morbid Anatomy of the Brain, $c. collected from the papers of the late Andrew Marshall, M,D., by S. Sawrey, London, 1815. MIND. 35 veloped, and properly acted on, the mind is vigorous : accordingly, as it varies with age, in quality and bulk, is the mind also varied, — the mind of the child is weak and very excitable, of the adult vigorous and firm, and of the old man weak and dull, exactly like the body d ; and the character of the mind of an individual agrees d If of children it is said, " Inter se quas pro levibus noxiis iras gerunt? Quapropter? quia enim qui eos gubernat animus, infirmum gerunt." Terence, Hecyra. The old man, — " Res omnes timide gelideque ministrat, Dilator, spe longus, iners — " Horace, Ars Poetica. Or, in the plainer language of Shakspeare, " Old men have grey beards, their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum, and they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams." Hamlet, act 2. sc. 2. Mr. Dugald Stewart allows that " In the case of old men, it is generally found that a decline of the faculties keeps pace with the decay of bodily health and vigour. The few exceptions that occur to the universality of this fact, only prove that there are some diseases fatal to life, which do not injure those parts of the body with which the intellectual operations are more immediately connected." — Outlines of Moral Philosophy, p. 233. " Praeterea gigni pariter cum corpore, et una Crescere sentimus, pariterque senescere, mentem." Lucretius, lib. i. " In new-born children, it is difficult to discern, without maceration in spirits of wine, any traces of fibres in the great collections of grey, reddish substances, or the great cerebral ganglia, which supply, reinforce, and perfect, or which, ac- cording to the opinion of others, give activity to, the hemispheres. The nervous fibres are more visible in the middle and posterior lobes than in the anterior. The fibrous structure of the white substance of the cerebellum also becomes apparent gradually, and in proportion to its developement. All the nervous fibres are at this period still so involved in the more or less reddish and gelatinous substance, and in blood-vessels, that all the brain looks like a nervous pulp or jelly. " The only functions of the infant, at this age, are very imperfect, and are those of the five senses, of voluntary motion, hunger, the sensation of being comfortable or uncomfortable, and the want of sleep. " After some months, the parts of the brain situated near the anterior-superior region of the forehead, grow more rapidly than the other parts. The forehead, from being flat, becomes prominent, and the child begins to fix its attention upon external objects, to compare, and form abstract ideas, — to generalise. <* The whole brain is developed in succession, until, at the age of from twenty to forty, it has attained its full growth relatively to each individual. The cerebel- lum, likewise, which is smaller than the cerebrum in proportion as the subject is D 2 36 MIND. with the character of his body, being equally excitable, languid, or torpid, evidently because the brain is of the same character as the rest of the body to which it belongs, — the female mind ex- ceeds the male in excitability as much as her body6; the qualities of the mind are also hereditary f, which they could not be, unless they were, like our other qualities, corporeal conditions ; and the mind is often disordered upon the disappearance of a bodily com- plaint, just as other organs, besides the brain, are affected under similar circumstances, — the retrocession of an eruption may affect the lungs, causing asthma ; the bowels, causing enteritis ; or the brain, causing insanity, — phthisis and insanity sometimes alter- younger, is developed and perfectly formed towards the age of from eighteen to twenty. The youth, the young man, and the young girl, take an interest in each other ; and the talents and inclinations are exercised and perfected till they obtain maturity. From thirty or forty years of age, the cerebrum and cerebellum remain nearly stationary till the fiftieth or seventieth year, according to individual constitution. The same is the case with the moral and intellectual powers. Certain parts of the brain, however, especially those in the anterior- inferior region of the forehead, have at this time already begun to diminish ; the memory is less faithful, and the imagination less ardent, and hint to us the approach of old age, and the decline of our faculties. " At length all the cerebral mass gradually loses its nervous turgescence ; it diminishes, wastes, shrinks (' the convolutions lie farther from each other ; ' t. i. p. 192.) ; the consistence of its two substances undergoes alteration. The moral and intellectual powers sink in proportion ; the inclinations, the talents disappear, the affairs of the world assume a gloomy aspect, the past only is considered good ; and, at the age of decrepitude, there remains only imbecility, the weakness of a second childhood." Gall, 1. c. t. ii. p. 156. sqq. ; also t. iii. p. 28. sqq. Dr. Magendie allows that " the brain is almost liquid in the foetus, firmer in infancy, and still more so in manhood " (Precis de Physiologic) ; that above the age of seventy, the weight of the brain is on the average yyth less than in the prime of life ; and that the convolutions are then often distant half an inch from each other, and their surface very distant from the cranium, as Cotugno had observed. Journ. de Physiol. t. vii. p. 5. 87. e " Mulieres sunt, ferme tit pueri, levi sententia." — Terence, Hecyra. f " Parentibus liberi similes sunt non vultum modo et corporis formam, sed animi indolem, Bt virtutes, et vitia. — Claudia gens din Romas floruit impigra, ferox, superba : eadem illachrymabilem Tiberium, tristissimum tyrannum pro- duxit : tandem in immanem Caligulam et Claudium, et Agrippinam, ipsumque demum Neronem, post sexcentos annos desitura." — Gregory, Conspectus Medi- cinee Theoretics. So true is the verse " Et patrum in natos abeunt, cum semine, mores." MIND. 37 nate with each other, just like affections of other organs; the laws of the mind are precisely those of the functions of all other organs, — a certain degree of excitement strengthens it; too much exhausts it ; physical agents affect it, and some specifi- cally, as is the case with other functions, for example, narcotics. The argument of Bishop Butler, that the soul is immortal and independent of matter, because in fatal diseases the mind often remains vigorous to the last g, is perfectly groundless ; for any function will remain vigorous to the last, if the organ which per- forms it is not the seat of the disease, nor much connected by Sympathy, or in other modes, with the organ which is the seat of the disease — the stomach often calls regularly for food, and digests it vigorously, while the lungs are almost completely con- sumed by ulceration. All the cases that are adduced to prove the little dependence of the mind upon the brain, are adduced in opposition to the myriads of others that daily occur in the usual course of nature, and are evidently regarded as extraordinary by those who bring them forward. An exact parallel to each may be found in the affections of every other organ, and each admits of so easy an explanation, that it may be always truly said, '« Ex- ceptio probat regulam. "h s The Analugy of Religion, natural and revealed) to the Constitution and Course of Nature. By Joseph Buller, LL.D. Lord Bishop of Durham, p. 33. h I will not insult the understanding of my readers by showing that we have no authentic instance of the real absence of brain in the cranium of a being possessed of a mind. The records of medicine no less teem with wonders than those of theology. The miracles of the Fathers and of the Romish Church may be matched by cases not only of mind without brain, or some similar organ, but of human impregnation without males, or by males without testes, and of human foetuses nourished without communication with the mother. In most cases where the mind is said to have been vigorous when the state of the body at large, or of the brain alone, rendered the perfect performance of the cerebral functions improbable in the eyes of the relaters, I believe the mental power has been greatly over-rated, — that, because the individual merely talked collectedly, he was imagined sufficient for the exertions of his best health. The part of the brain affected by disease may have been one whose function is not intellectual, but merely relating to the feelings, or may have related to intellectual faculties whose state was not noticed by the narrators. In truth, the narrators give us no satisfactory account of the feelings and intellectual powers of the patients, nor of the exact portions of the brain affected ; nor could they, being unacquainted with phrenology ; and they also forget that the cerebral organs are all double. (See Gall, 1. c. t. ii. 188. sqq., 246. sqq. ; and a paper by Dr. Andrew D 3 38 MIND. I have placed the preceding arguments alone, but to them may be subjoined another equally demonstrative as any, — that the stength of the various intellectual powers and inclinations accords with the size of the various parts of the brain ; that exactly as the various parts of the brain are successively developed is the character developed, and as they shrink with age does the cha- racter again change. In contending that the mind is a power of the living brain, and the exercise of it the functions of that organ, I contend for merely a physical fact; and no Christian who has just conceptions of the Author of Nature will hesitate to look boldly at Nature as she is, lest he should discover facts opposite to the pronunciations of his revelation; for the word and the works of the Almighty cannot Combe, on the effects of injuries of the brain upon the manifestation of the mind, in the Transactions of the Phrenological Society, Edinb. 1824.) If after insanity no trace of disease is sometimes discoverable in the brain, let us remember that the same is sometimes the case after epilepsy and various un- doubted diseases of the brain, and sometimes with respect to the stomach after chronic dyspepsia. Diseases may be functional only. Nay, when our senses are not nice enough to discover structural affection of the brain in insanity, &c. we have generally strong presumptive evidence of its affection, in the thickening or excessive secretions of its membranes, — points more easily ascertained than equal changes in the delicate texture of the brain. Those who thus attempt to prove the substantial distinctness of the mind and brain, forget that their facts, or rather arguments, are equally strong against what they all admit, — the necessary connection of the mind and brain in this life ; and are therefore grounded on what, if true, were violations of the course of nature. There is a passage in Hippocrates, de Morbo Sacro, well worth quoting : — " Men ought to know, that from the brain only proceed pleasure and joy, and laughter and sport, as well as griefs, anxieties, sorrows, and weeping. By it we are wise especially, and understand, and see, and hear, and appreciate what is base and honourable, good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant, distinguishing them partly by habit, partly by their utility. By it we distinguish what is pleasurable, and what disagreeable, according to circumstances ; and, by it, the same things do not please us under all circumstances. By it we are insane and delirious ; expe- rience terrors and fears, partly by night, partly by day; and sleeplessness, and ill- timed errors, and groundless cares; do not recognise those who are with us; lose our habits, and forget our experience. And all this we suffer from the brain if it is not healthy, &c. : wherefore I say, that the brain is the messenger and inter- preter of intelligence and wisdom. But the praecordia have obtained the name of Qpevet among the Greeks, by custom, not from fact and nature ; and I know not what property they have of knowing and understanding, except that in sudden and great joy or sorrow they leap," &c. MIND. 39 contradict each other. Bacon accordingly, in a very memor- able part of his writings, directs the physical enquirer to be unin- fluenced by religious opinions1, as the more independently truth is pursued the sooner will it be gained, and the sooner will the real meaning of a divine statement of natural things, and the conformity of this to physical fact, be established. The assertion, however, that the mind is a power of the living brain, is not an assertion that is material ; for a power or property of matter cannot be matter. Neither is it an assertion that this power cannot be a something immortal, subtle, immaterial, diffused through and connected with the brain. A physical enquirer has to do with only what he observes. He finds this power, but attempts not to explain it. He simply says the living brain has this power, medullary matter though it be. Seeing that the brain thinks, and feels, and wills, as clearly as that the liver has the power of producing bile, and does produce it, and a salt the power of assuming a certain form, and does crystallise, he leaves others at liberty to fancy an hypothesis of its power being a subtle, immaterial, immortal substance, exactly as they fancy life to be a subtle fluid, or, perhaps, though very extraordinarily, the same subtle fluid (if subtlety is immateriality and immortality) k, elucidating the subject 1 Si quis animum diligentius advertat, non minus periculi naturali philosophise ex istiusmodi fallaci in iniquo foedere, quam ex apertis inimicitiis imminere. Tali enim foedere et societate accepta, in philosophia tantum comprehend!, aucta autem, vel audita, vel in melius mutata, etiam severius et pertinacius excludi. Denique versus incrementa et novas veluti eras et regiones philosophise, omnia ex parte religionis, pravarum suspicionum et impotentis fastidii plena esse. Alios siquidem simplicius subvereri, ne forte altior in naturam inquisitio ultra datum, et concessum sobrietatis terminum penetret, &c. &c. Quare satis constabat in hujusmodi opinionibus multum infirmitatis, quin et invidiae et fermenti non parum subesse," &c. — Cogitata et Visa, vol. ix. p. 167. 8vo edition. In the same para- graph he remarks, with regret, that no writers are more popular than those who pompously set forth the union of divinity and philosophy, i. e. faith and sense, as if it were not illegitimate. t( Haud alias opiniones et disputationes magis secundis ventis ferri reperies, quam eorum, qui, theologiae et philosophise conjugium, veluti legitimum, multa pompa et solemnitate celebrant, et grata rerum varietate animos hominum permulcentes, interim divina et humana inauspicato permiscent." k The hypothesis of a subtle mobile fluid is downright materialism — the doc- trine of Lucretius. . " Quoniam est animi natura re"perta MobUis egregie, perquam constare necesse est Corporibus parvis et Icevibus atque rotundis." Lib. iii. 204. D 4 40 MIND. no more than in the case of life, and equally increasing the number of its difficulties l ; as though we were not created beings, Bacon complained (1. c.) that the first attempts to explain thunder and tem- pests were accused of impiety by religious persons, who thought that religion demanded these phenomena to be referred to the immediate operation of the Deity. The lovers of subtle fluids and spirits, conversely and as strangely, think religion served by interposing a subtle fluid between common matter and the Deity. Van Helmont was remarkably fortunate, for, after severe meditation, he fell into an intellectual vision, and saw his own soul : " Magna mox quies me invasit, et incidi in somnium intellectuale satisque memorabile." It was very small, and had no organs of generation : " Vidi enim animam meam satis exiguam, specie humana, sexus tamen discrimine liberam." — Ortus Medicince, Coufessio auctoris, p. 13. He gave the soul, however, a close and dirty dwelling, for he placed it, not in the pineal gland, but in the stomach. 1 Locke (Second Reply to the Bishop of Worcester, p. 477. 8vo edition) in disparaging philosophical reasons for the immortality of the soul, says, " Dr. Cudworth affirms that there was never any of the ancients before Chris- tianity that held the soul's future permanency after death (f. e. from its inherent immortality), who did not likewise assert its pre-existence." If we necessarily shall exist to all eternity, we then must have existed from all eternity ; yet we are not aware of having been alive before our brains. Sterne's fine ridicule of the absurdities introduced by this hypothesis of a soul, and that independent of the brain, into the Romish church, is well known. A great French man-midwife acquaints us that he baptised a little abortion of the magnitude of a skinned mouse ; and on another occasion, when a woman was miscarrying in her fourth month, and the child's posteriors presented, that he sprinkled water upon them and baptized them, in case the little thing should turn out alive. (De la Motte, Traite complet des Accouchemens, p. 243. 246.) Dr. Foder£ in his noted Me- decine Legale, 1813, (vol. ii. p. 62.) gravely suggests that baptism may always be administered by a squirt, after the membranes are pierced, — " Quant au bap- teme, il me semble qu'il sera toujours facile de 1'administrer, apres avoir perc6 les membranes, par le moyen d'un seringue a injection." A good idea of what follows in its train may be collected from Dante's tiresome account of the intro- duction of the soul into the body, beginning, " Sangue perfetto che mai non si beve," &c. — Purgatorio, canto xxv. It is one parent of necromancy, of the belief in ghosts, and of all the popish " trumpery " respecting purgatory and the worship of dead people called saints, of the opinions held by many respecting our oc- cupations between death and doomsday, as if a future state began before; and old writers sicken one with their notions about the period at which the soul enters the body, when it first existed, how it was engaged before it united with the bod)', and how it employs itself after its separation till the day of judgment, &c. " Hierom, Austin, and other fathers of the church, hold that the soul is immortal, created of nothing, and so infused into the child or embryo in his mother's womb six months after the conception ; some say at three days, some six weeks, others otherwise." — Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy > p. 1. s. 1. m. 2 subs. 9. Where MIND. 41 or not altogether ignorant what matter is, or of what it is capable and incapable ; as though matter exhibited nothing but extension, impenetrability, attraction, and inertness ; and as though an Almighty could not, if it seemed good to him, have endowed it, as he most evidently has, with the superaddition of life, and even of feeling and will.™ Nor does this assertion imply that the resurrection from the dead is impossible, or even improbable. The physical enquirer, finding the mind a power of the brain, and abstaining from hypothesis, must conclude that, in the present order of things, when the brain ceases to live the power necessarily ceases, — that, in the language of scripture, Dust we are, and unto dust we all return, — that our being is utterly extinguished, and we go back to the insensibility of the earth whence we were taken. n Our the depot of souls is ; how they learn when a youth has impregnated an ovarian vesicle, and how they fly to and get into it ; how it happens that the qualities of the soul correspond with the brain, and are as hereditary as those of the body ; whether this depends upon souls varying, and, if so, how a soul finds a body just corresponding to itself; or upon the soul being obliged to conform to the cha- racter of the brain, and thus suffering by the brain's defects, we are not satisfac- torily informed. m « All the difficulties that are raised against the thinking of matter, from our ignorance or narrow conceptions, stand not at all in the way of the power of GOD, if he pleases to ordain it so." The faculties of brutes prove, " either that God can and doth give to some parcels of matter a power of perception and thinking, or that all animals have immaterial and consequently immortal souls as well as men ; and to say that fleas and mites, &c. have immortal souls as well as men, will possibly be looked on as going a great way to serve an hypothesis."— -Locke, Second Reply to the Bishop of Worcester, p. 466. 8vo edit. " Si quelqu'un de'montreroit jamais que 1'ame est mate'rielle," says the pious and benevolent Bonnet, " loin de s'en alarmer, il faudroit admirer la puissance qui auroit donn6 a la matiere la capacite" de penser." " In the ordinary derivation of plants and animals," says Paley, " from one another, a particle, in many cases minuter than all assignable, all conceivable dimensions ; an aura, an effluvium, an infinitesimal ; determines the organis- ation of a future body : does no less than fix, whether that which is about to be produced shall be a vegetable, a merely sentient, or a RATIONAL being; an oak, a frog, or a philosopher ; makes all these differences; gives to the future body its qualities, and nature, and species. And this particle, from which springs, and by which is determined, a whole future nature, itself proceeds from, and owes its con- stitution to, a prior body," &c. — Natural Theology, conclusion, p. 591. n Miscellaneous Tracts, $c. by Richard Watson, D. D. F. R. S. Lord Bishop of LlandafF. Sermon iii. p.- 399. sq. 42 MIND. consciousness of personality can afford no reason for imagining ourselves immortal and distinct from earth, more than brutes; for this the fly possesses equally with the philosopher about whose head it buzzes. • The moral government of the world, the sublime reach of our acuteness, the great improveableness of our characters, — « ... this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality, this secret dread and inward horror Of falling into nought," P have been thought to completely harmonise with a life hereafter, but certainly fall so short of proof as to have left the wisest of antiquity, — Solomon, Socrates, Cicero, &c. — in uncertainty q, when they saw how death reduces us to our pristine elements. The hope of immortality inspired by such reflections, assisted by the desire of explaining every thing in some way or other, first, I apprehend, made men attempt to find, in the imagined ethereal essence of the soul, a reason for our not totally perishing as our senses would lead us to suppose. But, because we refuse to listen to a mere hypothesis respecting spirit, we are not necessa- rily to deny the resurrection. For if a divine revelation pronounce that there shall be another order of things in which the mind shall exist again, we ought firmly to believe it, because neither our experience nor our reason can inform us what will be hereafter, and we must be senseless to start objections on a point beyond the penetration of our faculties. r — The scripture so pronounces, e Heathens have, very consistently with this reason for immortality, given it to the fancied souls of brutes : Ulysses is made by Homer to behold the shade of Orion — &f)pas 6{Ji.u fl\evvra, /car' acrQodeX'bi' Xet/tava Tovs avrbs KarfirfQvw Iv oloir6\ouriv optffffi. Odyss. A. 571. Dr. Thomas Brown believed, " that the metaphysical ARGUMENT which proves the immortality of man, extends with equal force to the other orders of earthly existence." Memoir of Thomas Brown, M.D., by the Rev. David Welsh. 1828, p. xxii. And " Bonnet promised brutes immortality." P Addison, Cato. See a full enumeration in Mr. Dugald Stewart's Outlines, &C. p. 235. sq. 9 Bishop Watson, 1. c. Sermon vi. p. 504. sq. * " Nor can we be obliged, where we have the clear and evident sentence of reason, to quit it for the contrary opinion, under a pretence that it is a matter of faith, which can have no authority against the plain dictates of reason. But MIND. 43 — not that we are naturally immortal, but that " in Adam (by nature) all die8, — have our being utterly extinguished4, and in another order of things, — when the fashion of this world shall have passed away and time shall be no more, that in Christ (by the free, additional, gift of God, granted through the obedience of Christ, but, consequently, by a miracle, not by our nature")— we shall all again be made alive. St. Paul declares the resurrec- there are many things wherein we have very imperfect notions, or none at all ; and other things, of whose past, present, or future existence, by the actual use of our faculties, we can have no knowledge : these, as being beyond the discovery of our natural faculties, and above reason, are, when revealed, the proper matter of faith. Thus, that part of the angels rebelled against God, and thereby lost their first happy state, and that the dead shall rise and live again : these and the like, being beyond the discovery of reason, are purely matters of faith, with which reason has nothing directly to do. " — Locke, Essay on Human Under- standing, iv. ch. 18. Reason's province is only to examine the proofs of the authenticity of a reve- lation, and faith should thus be founded on reason. But how few of the human race ever think, or are even capable, of carefully examining them ! And of those who do examine them, how few do not commence the examination with their minds unconsciously half made up ! And yet the greater number look down with a self-complacent and uncharitable feeling upon even good men, whose opinions differ in any respect from their own ; forgetting that good conduct is the only test of goodness, — that grapes cannot come from thorns, nor figs from thistles. The question of the authenticity of Scripture is altogether foreign to this work. s Bishop Watson, Apology for the Bible, Letter x. near the end. * Idem, Miscellan. Tracts, 1. c. — Dr. Law, Bishop of Carlisle, in his Theory of Religion, &c., which went through seven editions, asserts that the sentence of death passed upon Adam and Eve meant nothing less than a total destruction of existence ; and that the idea of its implying a continuation of consciousness and real existence in some other place than earth, is not sanctioned by Scripture, but is the philosophy of after-ages. — p. 345. He adds, that Bishop Tillotson, though a patron of this notion, confesses it is not found in the Bible : and, after a critical and elaborate examination of the words used in Scripture to denote soul and spirit, and their various applications, he sums up the enquiry thus : — " But neither do these words, nor any other, so far as I can find, ever stand for a purely immaterial principle in man, or a substance, whatever some imagine they mean by that word, wholly separable from, and independent of, the body." Bishop Sherlock employs strong expressions : — " Scholars may reason on the nature of the soul, and the condition of it when separated from the body: but the common hopes of nature receive no support from such enquiries. We die and moul- der to dust ; and in that state, what we are, or where we are, nature cannot say." Discourse ii. p. 85. and vol. iv. p. 79. M Bishop Watson, Apology, 1. c. 44 MIND. tion to be " a mystery .•" it must, in truth, be a miracle; and there- fore the enquiry, " how can these things be," altogether fruitless. The miracle of Christ's resurrection, to which the Scriptures refer us as the foundation of the hope of a future state, would not have been necessary to convince us of a necessary truth, discoverable by sense and reason. That the promises of the New Testament are the proper and only foundation of our hopes of immortality, was the opinion of the late Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, whose powerful intellect and sincere love of truth render his opinions weightier than the decrees of councils. " I have no hope of a future existence," says he, " except that which is grounded on the truth of Christianity. "* x Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Watson, D.D. F.R.S. late Lord Bishop of Llandaff. — Vol. i. p. 107. See also a very decisive passage, beginning — " As a Deist, I have little expectation ; as a Christian I have no doubt, of a future state," in his Apology for the Bible, Letter x. near the end. Bishop Jeremy Taylor, in his Doctrine of Original Sin, p. 24., assures us that the words — " Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead," and, " as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive," directly affirm that a resurrection, or being made alive again, is granted, assured, and executed by and in Christ alone ; and evidently suppose that the dead are not made alive till the resurrection, and that, had not a resurrection been provided, we should never, after death, have been made alive. Locke argues, " that all the great ends of religion and morality are secured barely by the immortality of the soul, without a necessary supposition that it is immaterial." — First Reply, p. 34. Mr. Dugald Stewart concedes that " the proper use of the doctrine of the immateriality of the soul is not to demonstrate that the soul is physically and necessarily immortal." 1. c. p. 227. Dr. Rush, of America, remarks upon this subject, " that the writers in favour of the immortality of the soul have done that truth great injury by connecting it necessarily with its immateriality. The immortality of the soul depends upon the will of the Deity, and not upon the supposed properties of spirit. Matter is in its own nature as immortal as spirit. It is resolvable by heat and moisture into a variety of forms ; but it requires the same almighty hand to annihilate it, that it did to create it. I know of no arguments to prove the immortality of the soul but such as we derive from the Christian revelation." — Medical Inquiries and Observations, vol. ii. p. 15. " I rather think," says Dr. Priestley, " that the whole of man is of some uni- form composition, and that the property of perception, as well as the other powers that are termed mental, is the result (whether necessary or not) of such an organised structure as the brain. Consequently, that the whole man becomes extinct at death, and that we have no hope of surviving the grave, but what is derived from the scheme of revelation." — First Introductory Essay to his Edition of Hartley, p. xxiii. sq. MIND. 45 While those are wrong who think there can be any thing like an argument against a future life in another order of things, if de- clared by a revelation, it is strange that others should think it necessary to attempt rendering the pronunciations of scripture more probable, and that by an hypothesis which is at best but the remains of unenlightened times y, and should require any as- y The more uninformed the age, the greater the disposition to explain every thing. The savage personifies the winds and the heavenly bodies ; the ancients fancied all matter endowed with a spirit — spiritus intus alit. Philo and Origen maintain that the stars are so many souls, incorruptible and immortal. In the older writings of the moderns, even in those of the father of experiment and observation — Lord Bacon, the properties of matter are referred to spirits : — " from them and their motions principally proceed rarefaction, colliquation, con- coction, maturation, putrefaction, vivification, and most of the effects of nature;" " for tangible parts in bodies are stupid things, and the spirits do, in effect, all." (Natural History, cent. i. 98.) — In fact, some authors believe in three souls — the vegetable, sensible, and natural — for vegetables, brutes, and man ; those which have the second having also the first, and those who have the third having all three. Paracelsus believed in four. These old writers, in providing a spirit for every thing, were more consistent than the moderns, who require it for only life and mind ; because a subtle fluid or spirit is quite as necessary to explain the <( arrangement of saline particles into the regular form, of a beautiful crystal. All these notions still exist among the vulgar ; and the last remaining among the better informed, though it too is rapidly dying away, relates to mind. Those who upbraid others for refusing their assent to this hypothesis, may recollect that Anaxagoras and many more were accused of atheism and impiety, because they denied that the heavenly bodies were animated and intelligent. Even in the last reign but one, the Newtonian doctrines were thought irreligious by the Hutchin- sonian sect, to which Bishop Home, the amiable writer on the Psalms, and Mr. Jones, the learned and ingenious writer in defence of the Trinity, belonged : and the Jesuits, in their edition of Newton, 1742, carefully disclaim all belief in his demonstration of the earth's motion, as this is decreed false by the Pope. Materialist is as good a word as any other for branding those from whom we differ; but materialism in its true acceptation signifies the doctrine of no first ' cause, or that all has been produced ex fortuita atomorum collisione. The whole tenor of scripture implies that we are bodies endowed with certain properties ; and those passages from which our having a distinct immaterial substance is inferred, may be easily explained by the figurative style of the Bible, by the necessary adoption of the language of the times, and by the influence of the national opinions and prejudices of the writers on their modes of expression. With- out due allowance, we might deem it impious to deny that " the round world cannot be moved;" that the sun " pursues its course" round the earth; ( Galileo was imprisoned for doing so, and yet, said the sage to himself while in prison, " the earth does move" — epur si muove .•) that Naaman's leprosy (a condition of body) was a real substance, because we read that it left him and 46 MIND. surance besides that of the gospel, which, they read, " has "clave unto Gehazi;" that Adam "surely" (more properly "utterly," "to- tally," or " entirely") died on the very day he tasted the forbidden fruit; that the winds possessed sense, because Christ said, " Peace, be still ;" that the earth is square, because we twice read of its four corners (/set. xi. Rev. vii. ) ; and that Saul's melancholy, and the cases of insanity and epilepsy related in the New Testament, were possessions by demons, which are pronounced by St. Paul to be " nothing in the world." (See the Rev. Hugh Farmer's original and admirable works, especially his Essays on the Demoniacs of the New Testament, and on Christ's Temptation.) Without due allowance, what absurdities might not be inferred from Christ's use of the word heart ? But the most enlightened divines allow us at present to follow Bacon's advice, and to read the Bible, not as a work of philosophical instruction, but of the revelation of religious matters beyond our knowledge, v. c. to learn from Genesis only how the world was created by God, and to study geology without reference to Moses. " The expressions of Moses are evidently accommodated to the first and familiar notions derived from the sensible appearances of the earth and heavens ; and the absurdity of supposing that the literal interpretation of terms in Scripture ought to interfere with the advancement of philosophical enquiry, would have been as generally forgotten as renounced, if the oppressors of Galileo had not found a place in history." A Treatise on the Records of the Creation, &c., by J. B. Sumner, M. A., Prebendary of Durham, &c. now Bishop of Chester, 3d edit. 1825, vol. i. p. 327. We may, therefore, learn the miracle of the resurrection from the gospels, and enjoy our own opinions respecting matter and spirit, body and soul, which, as relating to our nature, are objects of physical enquiry, and therefore not of revelation, any more than astronomy or geology. The writer of the celebrated Apology for the Bible says, " when I went to the University, I was of opinion, as most schoolboys are, that the soul was a substance distinct from the body, and that when a man died, he, in classical phrase, breathed out his soul, animam expiravit ; that it then went I knew not whither, as it had come into the body, from I knew not where nor when, and had dwelt in the body during life, but in what part of the body it had dwelt I knew not." — " This notion of the soul was, without doubt, the offspring of prejudice and ignorance." — " Believing as I do in the truth of the Christian religion, which teaches that men are accountable for their actions, I trouble not myself with dark disquisitions concerning necessity and liberty, matter and spirit ; hoping as I do for eternal life through Jesus Christ, I am not disturbed at my inability clearly to convince myself that the soul is or is not a substance distinct from the body." — Anecdotes of the Life of Bishop Watson, p. 14. sqq. " Well indeed is it for us," says a liberal writer in the Quarterly Review, on the subject of geology, " that the cause of revelation does not depend upon questions such as these ; for it is remarkable that in every instance the controversy has ended in a gradual surrender of those very points which were at one time represented as involving the vital interests of religion. Truth, it is certain, can- not be opposed to truth. How inconsiderate a risk, then, do those advocates run, who declare that the whole cause is at issue in a single dispute, and that the sub- MIND. 47 brought life and immortality to light. z They should reflect that the belief of an immaterial substance removes no imagined dif- ficulty, as it is the peculiar doctrine of scripture, in distinction to that of most heathen philosophers and people a, that the resurrec- tion will be positively of body, — that in our flesh we shall see God b, and that therefore our minds, according to the scripture doctrine, must appear as much a property of body hereafter as at present.0 Only this — the Christian — account of a future state is reason- stance of our faith hangs upon a thread — upon the literal interpretation of some word or phrase, against which fresh arguments are springing up from day to day ! " 1823, April, p. 163. The Theory of Religion, by the learned, able, and enlightened Bishop Law, already quoted, deserves to be read by every one, as proving that by the words soul and spirit, no immaterial, immortal principle in man is meant, but merely person, the superior and inferior mental faculties, living creature, &c. ; by death, a total cessation of existence ; by the life hereafter, a second bodily existence. It is to this admirable divine that Paley dedicates his Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, and says — " Your Lordship's researches have never lost sight of one purpose, namely, to recover the simplicity of the Gospel from beneath that load of unauthorised additions, which the ignorance of some, and the learning of others ; the superstition of weak, and the craft of designing men, have (unhappily for its interest) heaped upon it. And this purpose, I am convinced, was dictated by the purest motive ; by a firm, and, I think, a just opinion, " that whatever ren- ders religion more rational, renders it more credible : that he who, by a diligent and faithful examination of the original records, dismisses from the system one article which contradicts the apprehension, the experience, or the reasoning of mankind, does more towards recommending the belief, and, with the belief, the influence of Christianity, to the understandings and consciences of serious en- quirers, and through them to universal reception and authority, than can be effect- ed by a thousand contenders for creeds and ordinances of human establishment." For an account of all the hypotheses that have been taught upon life and mind, see An Enquiry into the Opinions, ancient and modern, concerning Life and Or- ganisation. By John Barclay, M.D., Edinb. 1822. z 2 Timothy, i. 10. a " Errant exsangues sine corpore et ossibus umbrae." — Ovid. Metam. iv. b Job. c It is the doctrine of the Church of England, that all men shall rise with their bodies* Enoch and Elijah are represented to have been translated bodily. Nay, our church has so little of this horror of matter, that it declares that Christ, " the very and eternal God" (Article ii.), ascended into heaven, and there sits, with " his body, vfithjlesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature. ' ' Article iv. 48 MIND. able. The heathen doctrine was grounded on the supposed in- herent immortality of a supposed substance distinct from the body. The Christian doctrine teaches the resurrection of what we obvi- ously are — bodies, and that through a miracle of the Almighty. d d Respecting a difficulty which may present itself to the conceptions of some Christians, but which the miraculousness of a future existence, I think, should re- move, I may quote Paley's sermon on the state after death. He concludes, " That it is a question by which we need not be at all disturbed, whether the bodies with which we shall arise be new bodies, or the same bodies under a new form: " For no alteration will hinder us from remaining the same, provided we are sensible, and conscious that we are so ; any more than the changes which our visible person undergoes even in this life, and which from infancy to manhood are un- doubtedly very great, hinder us from being the same, to ourselves and in ourselves, and to all intents and purposes whatsoever." — Sermons on several Subjects, by the late Rev. W. Paley, D.D. serm. 2. p. 96. These are a small system of divinity, and, having been bequeathed by him to his parishioners, probably contain his mature convictions. 4-9 II. SPECIAL PHYSIOLOGY. CHAP. I. HUNGER, THIRST, AND FOOD. THE solid and fluid substances, taken into the mouth to repair the losses of the system, are termed food and drink; or both are comprised under the word food. The desire for the former is called hunger or appetite, and for the latter, thirst. " Some ascribe hunger to an uneasiness arising in the stomach from its being empty and unoccupied ; others, to the mutual friction of its rugae ; others, not only to the stimulus of its fluids, now secreted in abundance, — of the saliva and gastric juice, but to an acrimony which they acquire when food is not taken in proper time." If hunger arise from merely a sense of vacuity in the stomach, why should it be increased by the application of cold to the sur- face, and instantly by the deglutition of cold liquids, &c. ? The explanation by friction of the rugae is equally unsatisfac- tory ; because the friction of these, if it does really occur, cannot be greater than the friction of the stomach against its contents immediately after a meal, when the organ is in great action, but at which time hunger does not exist. Nor can the presence of the gastric juice explain the matter: because, as every one knows, no sensation arises in any other organ, which is not excrementory, from the peculiar stimulus of its natural fluid, and I presume that this is the stimulus intended, for the mechanical stimulus, from the bulk of tfye gastric juice, occurs equally from the presence of food, which does not excite hunger ; because, if the hungry stomach is evacuated by vomiting, as in sea-sickness, the appetite, when the sickness has ceased, is even greater than before ; and because hunger often ceases after a time, though the gastric juice still remains in the stomach, and is probably more abundant than ever. E 50 HUNGER. The supposition of an acrimony generated in the gastric juice, &c. being a cause of hunger, is absurd. The fluid would be unfit for its purposes, and would be more likely to destroy than produce appetite. Hunger has been attributed by some to a sympathy of the sto- mach with a genera) feeling of want in the system. But hunger is removed immediately that a due quantity of food is swallowed, — long before the general system can have derived benefit from the meal : fowls are satisfied when their crops are filled, although their food is not even ground, preparatorily to digestion, till it has passed from the crop into the gizzard ; and ruminating animals leave off eating before they begin to chew the substances with which they have distended their stomachs. Again, persons unable to obtain food in sufficient quantity lessen their hunger by swallowing any innutritious and indigestible matter. The circumstance giving rise to this opinion is the continuance of hunger although food be taken in abundance, in cases of scirrhous pylorus and enlarged me- senteric glands. Here, it is urged, the hunger continues, because the body receives no nourishment. But, in scirrhus of the pylorus, vomiting generally soon follows the reception of food into the stomach; and therefore this organ is reduced to the condition in which it was previously, and the return of hunger is easily expli- cable : but I do not know that a continued hunger commonly occurs in cases of scirrhous pylorus. In diseases of the mesen- teric glands there is, in fact, no obstruction to the course of the chyle. They are found permeable, according to Dr. Boekker, a German anatomist, and the continued hunger appears rather a part of the diseased state of the chylopoietic viscera. Besides, many cases of imperfect nutrition, from various causes, occur, without any increase of appetite : — and where there is an in- crease of appetite, the process of digestion seems to proceed with unusual rapidity, so that the stomach becomes empty sooner than in health. — In continued abstinence, although the system is daily more in want, hunger usually ceases after a few days, whether from the stomach falling into a state of relaxation, becoming dis- tended with wind, or from other circumstances. If hunger arose from fatigue of the stomach, it should be greatest immediately after the laborious act of digestion, and gra- dually decrease ; but it on the contrary increases. Were irritation the cause, hunger should be greatest when the stomach is filled with food. HUNGER. 51 On the whole, hunger may perhaps be regarded as a sensation connected with the contracted state of the stomach. It occurs when the stomach, being empty, must be contracted, and is increased instantaneously by a draught of cold liquid, which cannot but contract the stomach, and corrugate its inner coat : acids, bitters, and astringents have the same effect, and from their nature they may be supposed to act in the same way. Cold air applied to the surface increases it, and, in all probability, by a similar operation ; for the impression of cold upon the skin excites an attempt at evacuation in the urinary bladder, and, when all other means fail to induce the intestines to expel their contents or the uterus to contract after delivery, the affusion of cold water so frequently succeeds, that the omission of the practice in obsti- nate cases is highly censurable. It is diminished by heat and every thing which relaxes. Again, it ceases immediately that the stomach is filled and thus the organ dilated and all corru- gation removed; and, the more the contents of the stomach are of a nature to be absorbed or passed into the duodenum, the sooner it recurs. Distension of the stomach is universally acknowledged to be incompatible with hunger; whence the proverb, — " a full belly loathes the honey-comb." The Otomacs during the periodical inundation of the rivers of South America, when the depth of the waters almost entirely pre- vents fishing, appease their hunger for two or three months by distending their stomach with prodigious quantities, a pound a day and upwards, of a fine unctuous, strong-smelling, yellowish-grey clay, slightly baked, and destitute of all organic substance, oily or farinaceous.* The savages of New Caledonia, in the Pacific Ocean, in times of scarcity, do the same by eating a friable lapis ollaris, consisting of equal parts of magnesia and silex, with a little oxide of copper. The wolves, rein-deer, and kids of Siberia, when pressed by hunger in winter, also devour clay or friable steatites. The Kamtschatkans sometimes appease their hunger by distending their stomach with sawdust, for want of something better. Being, in this view, a sensation connected with a local state of the stomach, it will be affected not only by whatever affects this state, but by whatever affects also the sensibility to this state, and a Humboldt, Tableaux de la Nature, t. i. They become so fond of it, that they take a little, even when well provided with sustenance, and are compelled to tie their children's hands to prevent them from geophagising. E 2 52 THIRST. therefore be subject to the common laws of sensation. Hence uncivilised tribes enable themselves to traverse large tracts with- out food by swallowing pills containing tobacco or opium. The pain of all excessive muscular contraction is lessened by pressure; whence the uneasiness of hunger is lessened by a belt fixed tightly over the stomach; and some Northern Asiatic tribes really place a band there, and lace it behind with cords drawn more tightly, according to the degree of the uneasiness. Thus, too, the state of the stomach remaining the same, hunger may diminish from the occurrence of other feelings which attract our attention more forcibly, by passions of the mind, &c.: as is exactly the case with all other sensations, even with those that are morbid. Under strong attention of the mind to pursuits of either intellect or passion, to delightful or painful sensation, all other feelings cease to be felt, although really violent; and frequently, from being unattended to, do not recur. Passions, however, and the narcotic pills of savages, may affect hunger, not only by increasing or di- minishing the sensibility to the state of the stomach, but by in- creasing or diminishing this state — the cause of the sensation. As hunger appears to depend upon the local condition of the stomach, so does thirst more evidently upon that of the mouth and fauces. Every consideration renders it probable that thirst is the sensation of the deficiency of moisture in the parts in which it is seated. Whatever produces this, either by causing the fluids of the mouth and fauces to be secreted in small quantity or of great viscidity, or by carrying off the fluid when secreted, pro- duces thirst ; and vice versa. To be dry means to be thirsty, be- cause the state is removed by directly wetting the parts, or by supplying the system with fluid, that they may be moistened by their own secretions. Being a sensation, the same may be re- peated in regard to it as was observed respecting hunger. Rage or terror dry up the mouth and throat, and cause violent thirst. Thirst is only momentarily assuaged by wetting the mouth and throat, because they presently grow dry again. Fluids must be swallowed to be effectual, that they may be absorbed and the part thus preserved moist by constant secretion. " The necessity of obeying those stimuli is greater or less, ac- cording to age, constitution, and especially according to habit, and nothing can therefore be affirmed positively respecting its ur- gency ; but a healthy adult, in whom all the calls of nature are STARVATION. 53 felt in their usual force b, cannot abstain from food a whole day without great prostration of strength, nor scarcely beyond eight days without danger to life." Hippocrates says that most of those who abstain from food for seven days, die within that period ; and, if they do not, and are even prevailed upon to eat and drink, that still they perish.0 Sir William Hamilton, however, saw a girl, sixteen years of age, appa- rently not in bad health, who was extricated from the ruins of a house at Oppido, in which she had remained eleven days without food : an infant in her arms, but a few months old, had died on the fourth day, as the young are never so able to endure absti- nence.d A moderate supply of water lengthens life astonishingly. Dr. Willan was called to a young gentleman who had voluntarily abstained from every thing but a little water, just flavoured with orange juice, for sixty days: death ensued a fortnight afterwards.6 Redi cruelly found that of a number of starved fowls deprived of water, none lived beyond the ninth day, whereas one indulged with water lived upwards of twenty. f If the water is not swal- lowed, but imbibed by the surface or lungs, it may also prolong life. Fodere mentions some workmen who were extricated alive at the end of fourteen days from a cold damp cavern in which they had been buried under a ruin, f In abstinence equally great imbecility of mind takes place as of body : extreme emaciation and oedema of the legs present a frightful spectacle ; urine may still be secreted, but the alvine discharge is greatly diminished, or suppressed altogether; the pain b " Consult, among innumerable writers on long fasting, James Barthol. Bec- carius, Commentar. Instituti Bononiens. t. ii. p. 1.; and Flor. J. Voltelen, Me- morab. Apositice Septennis Hist. Lug. Bat. 1777, 8vo." c De Carnibus. d Phil. Trans, vol. Ixxiii. p. 191. sq. e Medical Communications, vol. ii. f Osservaz. intorno agli anim. viventi. E Fodere, Medecine Legate, t. ii. p. 285. A hog, weighing about 160 Ibs., was buried in its sty, under thirty feet of the chalk of Dover Cliff, for 160 days. When dug out it weighed but 40 Ibs., and was extremely emaciated, clean, and white. There was neither food nor water in the sty when the chalk fell. It had nibbled the wood of the sty, and eaten some loose chalk, which from the appearance of the excrement had passed more than once through the body. (Linncean Transact. vol. xi. See London Med. Journ. vol. xxxv. 1816.) Pigs will not only eat coals, but keep in good condition upon them alone. Coals, however, are a vege- table substance. — Cuningham's Two Years in New South Wales, vol. i. p. 301. E 3 54? STARVATION. of hunger ceases in a few days11, probably from relaxation of the stomach through debility. But when hunger has ceased, though no food has been taken, weakness and sinking at the pit of the stomach are still felt. Life may be supported for a certain time by nutriment intro- duced into the intestines. I lately attended a lady who, through obstruction of the oesophagus, attended by suppuration, did not swallow a particle of solid or fluid for six weeks, at the end of which she died. Three injections of milk, eggs, and wine, were employed daily. She passed a feculent soft evacuation in every twenty-four hours, and never felt the sensation of hunger. A poor diet, even of vegetable matter, sometimes gives rise to symptoms of scurvy * ; and famine is soon attended by epidemic fever. The torment of thirst increases until drink is procured or mois- ture applied to the surface or inhaled : inflammation of the mouth and throat, and intense fever, at length erisue.k If abstinence is not forced upon the system, but is absolutely a part of disease, it may, like suspension of respiration in morbid states of insensibility !, and like immense doses of powerful medi- h Among many other accounts of starvation, some of these facts may be seen in Captain Franklin's Narrative of a Journey to the Polar Sea, p. 465. sq. 427. London, 1823 j where the dreadful force of hunger is too truly illustrated. Our countrymen devoured their old shoes, and any scraps of leather they possessed, (pp. 418. 429. 438. 479.). The putrid spinal marrow left in bones, picked clean by wolves and birds of prey, was esteemed a prize, though its acrimony excoriated the lips ; the bones were also eaten up after being burnt (p. 426.) ; great part of a putrid deer was devoured on the spot (p. 421.) ; and to destroy, skin, and cut up a cow, was the work of a few minutes, after which the contents of the stomach and the raw intestines were at once devoured and thought excellent, (p. 407.) In the siege of Jerusalem and other ancient cities, we read of women driven by hunger to devour their offspring ; and Captain Franklin was assured, near the Saskatchawan, that men and women were then living, who had destroyed and fed upon the bodies of their own families, to prevent starvation in very severe seasons, (p. 51.) 1 See Sir George Baker's account of two women, in the Transact, of the College of Physicians, vol. ii. k A horrid description of raging thirst will be found in the account of the black-hole of Calcutta. See Annual Register, 1758. 1 An example of the impunity with which a long exclusion of air may be borne, when the system is in a morbid nervous state, may appear to advantage by the side of similar illustrations of the deprivation of food. " The story of Ann Green," says the Rev. Mr. Derham, " executed at Oxford, Dec. 14. 1650, is still well STARVATION. 55 cines in various diseased states, be borne with wonderful indiffer- ence ; and this occurs chiefly among females. But the most extraordinary case that I recollect, stated upon unquestionable authority, is that of a young Scotchwoman, who laboured under an anomalous nervous affection, and, excepting that on two occa- sions she swallowed some water, received no nourishment what- ever for eight years. She passed urine enough twice a week to wet a shilling, and for three years had no intestinal evacuation.10 remembered among the seniors there : she was hang'd by the Neck near half an Hour, some of her Friends thumping her on the Breast, others hanging with all their Weight upon her Legs, sometimes lifting her up and then pulling her down again with a sudden Jirk, thereby the sooner to dispatch her out of her Pain, as the printed Account of her informs us. After she was in her Coffin, being ob- serv'd to breathe, a lusty Fellow stampt with all his Force on her Breast and Stomach, to put her out of Pain. But, by the Assistance of Dr. Peity, Dr. Willis, Dr. Bathurst, and Dr. Clark, she was again brought to Life. I myself saw her many Years after, between which Time and the Date of her Execution she had, as I am inform'd, borne several Children." (Physico- Theology, \>. 1 56.} Her nervous insensibility appears from another writer, who states, that '•' she neither remembered how the fetters were knocked off, how she went out of prison, when she was turned off the ladder, whether any psalm was sung or not, nor was she sensible of any pain that she could remember. What is most remarkable is, that she came to herself as if she had awakened out of a sleep, not recovering the use of her speech by slow degrees, but in a manner altogether, beginning to speak just where she left off on the gallows." (Plott's History of Oxford.) m Phil. Trans, vol. Ixvii. In a remarkable instance of imperfect abstinence during fifty years, the woman voided a little feculent matter like a piece of roll- tobacco, or a globule of sheep's dung, but once a year, and that always in March, for sixteen years. (Edinb. Med. and Phys. Essays, vol. vi.) It would be inter- esting to examine the changes induced in the air by the lungs and skin of such patients. Pouteau mentions the case of one of his patients, a young lady thirteen years of age, who was affected with convulsions and insensibility at a certain period, generally every day, sometimes not quite so often, and great irritability of stomach, lived eighteen months, and grew more than two inches and a half, on syrup of capillaire and cold water. Here, the abstinence was not part of the disease, but the extraordinary state of the system enabled it to bear the abstinence. (Euvrea Posthumes, t. i. p. 27. Still, many cases of abstinence have been impostures and exaggerations ; and I cannot illustrate this better than by quoting the case of Eue Fleigen, the Dutch prototype of our own Anne Moore of Tutbury. She contrived to deceive the world for fourteen years (from 1597 to 1611), pretending that she took no nourishment all that time, She had no nervous derangement to render food E 4 56 VORACITY. For every example of extraordinary abstinence among females we have a counterpart in voraciousness among males. When the appetite is so great, it is seldom nice; and not only all animals in all states are devoured, but glass, flints, metals, sand, wood, &c. A Frenchman, named Tarare, and described by Drs. Percy and Laurent, in some measure from their own observation n, will form a good contrast to the Scotch girl. When a lad, he once swal- lowed a large basket of apples, after some person had agreed to pay for them ; and at another time a quantity of flints, corks, and similar substances. The colic frequently compelled him to apply at the Hotel Dieu : he was no sooner relieved, however, than he began his tricks again, and once was but just prevented from swallowing the surgeon's watch, with its chain and seals. In 1789 he joined the mob, and obtained sufficient food without devouring for money. He was then about seventeen, weighing a hundred pounds, and would eat five-and-twenty pounds of beef a day. When the war broke out he entered into the army, and devoured his comrades' rations, as long as better supplies from other sources rendered them of little value. But when at length his comrades stood in need of them themselves, he was nearly famished, fell ill, and was admitted into the hopital ambulant at unnecessary ; yet the minister and magistrates of Meurs made trial of her for thirteen successive days without detecting her imposture. Over her picture in the Dutch original are these lines : — Muerae hsec quam cernis decies ter sexq ; peregit Annos, bis septem prorsus non vescitur annis Nee potat, sic sola sedet, sic pallida vitam Ducit, et exigui se oblectat floribus horti. Thus rendered in the English translation — This maide, of Meurs 36 yeares spent 14 of which she tooke no nourishment Thus pale, and wan she sits sad and alone A garden 's all shee loves to looke upon. An Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God. By George Hakewill. 1630. fol. Respecting Anne Moore, see Dr. Henderson's Examination, &c. * Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicates, art. Homophage; where the dissection of another polyphagus is given, whose stomach was found to have been made neither more nor less than a collection of marine stores. See also Percy's Memoire sur If Polyphage, in the Journal de Medecine, Brumaire, An xii. VORACITY. 57 Sultzer. He there ate not only a quadruple allowance, the broken food of the other patients, and the waste of the kitchen, but would swallow the poultices and any thing else that came in his way. He devoured so many dogs and cats alive that they fled at the sight of him. Large snakes he despatched with the greatest facility ; and once gobbled up in a few moments all the dinner that was provided for fifteen German labourers, viz. four bowls of curd, and two enormous dishes of dough boiled in water with salt and fat. At another time, he disposed of thirty pounds of raw liver and lights in the presence of some general officers, who, finding that he could swallow a large wooden lancet case, took the partitions out, enclosed a letter in it, and made him swallow it, and proceed to the enemy's quarters for the purpose of dis- charging it by stool, and delivering the letter to a French colonel who had fallen into the hands of the Prussians. This he contrived to do, enclosed the answer in it, swallowed it again, made his escape, discharged the case again from his bowels, washed it, and presented it to Beauharnois and the other officers. Having, however, been well drubbed by the enemy, he refused any further secret service, and was readmitted into the hospital to be cured of his hunger. Being no longer a novelty, he excited less in- terest, and felt it necessary to have recourse to sheepfolds, poultry-yards, private kitchens, slaughter-houses, and by-places, where he had to contend with dogs and wolves for their filthy food. He was detected drinking blood that had been taken from his fellow-patients, and eating bodies in the dead-house. The disappearance of a young child excited strong suspicions against him, and he was at length chased away and unheard of for four years, at the end of which time he applied at the Hospice de Ver- sailles, wasted, no longer voracious, and labouring under a puru- lent diarrhoea ; and he soon died, aged twenty-six. The body immediately became a mass of putridity. During his life he was always offensive, hot, and in a sweat, especially at intervals. His breath rolled off like steam, and his dejections were constantly very copious, and intolerably foetid. He was of the middle height, thin, and weak. All the abdominal viscera were found full of suppurations. His stomach was of immense size, and this has usually been the case in persons habitually gluttonous. A polyphagous idiot opened by the same writers displayed an enormous stomach, more resembling that of a horse than of a human being : the intestines 58 VORACITY. also formed several large pouches in succession, which appeared like additional stomachs. Cabrol dissected a glutton of Toulouse, and found the oesophagus terminating in an excessively large cavity, and the intestines running, without a single convolution, but with merely a gentle sigmoid flexure, to the anus. A large pylorus, or a very depending position of it, have been found in other cases. We thus learn the common causes of constitutional vora- ciousness, and obtain an additional reason for referring hunger to the want of distention of the stomach : — a great quantity of food is required to Jill these stomachs. If hunger were independent of the distention of this organ, and connected solely with the want of the system, an ordinary meal would suffice where the stomach is very large, as the extraordinary quantity of food can- not be demanded for nourishment, — when food enough for support is taken, hunger should cease. But hunger continues till the sto- mach is filled, and the prodigious collection in the case of Tarare was disposed of by abundant stools, sweating, and copious pul- monary exhalation. The large capacity of the stomach is generally ascribable to original conformation, but some account for it occasionally by repeated over-distention and the deglutition of indigestible sub- stances,— an opinion rather improbable, when we reflect that cor- poration gluttons, who give a very fair trial to the distensibility of their idol, never acquire such appetites and capaciousness of sto- mach as qualify them for a show. The power of deglutition may be very much increased by practice. We have all seen the Indian jugglers; and I frequently conversed with a poor man who had swallowed nineteen large clasp-knives at different times, having found in a drunken fit that he could get one down his throat for a wager0 : yet in him the appetite and capacity of stomach were not augmented. Knife and stone eaters are seen in all countries. Some great eaters are prodigies of strength; as Milo, who killed 0 Several pieces of the knives are preserved in the Museum of Guy's Hospital, and an account of the case may be found in the Med. Ckir. Trans, vol. xii. There is a collection of cases of extraordinary swallowing from Galen, Vesalius, Pare, &c.,in Shenkius, Observationes Medicce, lib. iii. A polyphagus at the Jardin des Plantes, who once ate a lion which had died there of some disease, and at last died himself of eating 8lbs. of new bread, most originally conceived, being all for the belly, that animals might be classed accord- ing to their excrement, and actually made a collection of such stores, upon which he would descant most eloquently. Diet, des Sc. Med., Cas. Rares, p. 199. VORACITY. 59 an ox with a blow of his fist, and devoured it; and the fellow mentioned in a thesis published at Wittemberg in 1757, who once, in the presence of the senate, ate up a sheep, a sucking-pig, and sixty pounds of plums, stones and all, and could carry four men a whole league upon his shoulders. Voracity is of course sometimes, like depraved appetite, as in chlorosis and pregnancy, but temporary, and referable to merely disordered function. Dr. Satterly details the case of a lad in whom, while labouring under typhus with marked inflammation in the head, the exacerbations of fever were accompanied by such hunger, that he ate every day four regular meals, each sufficient for the stoutest labourer's dinner, and many pounds of dry bread, biscuit, and fruit between them. He had no sooner finished a meal than he denied having tasted any thing, " cibus omnis in illo, Causa cibi est, seraperque locus fit inanis edendo," and would suck and bite the bed-clothes or his fingers? if refused more, cared nothing about the quality of what he ate, would pass six or seven large solid motions a day by means of physic, and ultimately recovered.*! The stomach here executed its office with excessive rapidity, and was too soon empty again. To show how some animals differ from us in the demand for food, I may mention that the ant-lion will exist without the smallest supply of food, apparently uninjured, for six months ; though, when he can get it, he will daily devour an insect of his own size. A spider has lived without food under a sealed glass for ten months, and at the end of that time appeared as vigorous as ever. Reptiles have often lived upwards of a century enclosed in trees or stones. On the other hand, herbivorous larvee, as caterpillars, (for in- sects are carnivorous, herbivorous, and omnivorous, like their superiors,) will eat twice their weight of food daily. r P Ovid's account of Erisichthon is verified in many histories of voracity : — " Ipse suos artus lacero divellere morsu Ccepit; et infelix minuendo corpus alebat." Metam. lib. viii, «' With molares of various sizes, adapted for grinding, and dif- a " I say generally : for, without alluding to particular examples of their obtuseness, I may remark that I have found the crown of the incisors thick and obtuse in the skulls of most mummies. And since the more remarkable for this variety have resembled, in their general figure and appearance, the singular and never-to-be-mistaken physiognomy of the ancient Egyptians, observable in the idols, sarcophagi, and statues of ancient Egypt, it is probable that this peculiar form of the teeth, whether owing to diet or whatever else, was peculiar to the ancient Egyptians, and may be regarded as a national mark, or even as a cha- racteristic by which true ancient mummies may be distinguished from those of late formation." " I have written at large on this subject in the Philos. Trans. 1794. P. II. p. 184." MASTICATION AND DEGLUTITION. 69 fering conspicuously from those of other mammalia, by possessing gibbous apices excessively obtuse. The four central teeth in both jaws are the incisores : the outer one on each side in both is the canine : the five outermost on each side in both are the molares. a, belly of the digastric arising at the root of the mastoid process of the tempo- ral bone : b, belly arising below the sym- physis of the lower jaw: c, tendon in which each ends : d, os hyoides, into which the tendon is inserted. If the os hyoides is fixed, the inner belly can lower the jaw : if the jaw is fixed, the os hy- oides can be raised, e, genio-hyoideus : f, mylo-hyoideus. " The lower jaw is connected with the skull by a remarkable articulation, which holds a middle rank between arthrodia and ginglymus; and, being supplied with two cartilaginous menisci of considerable strength, has easy motion in every direction." In other words, the condyles of the lower jaw are prevented from descending very deeply into the glenoid cavity ; and are con- fined to vertical movements, by a cartilage which is hollow on each surface, and moveable, and permits the condyle to move from the glenoid cavity to a tubercle which stands before this, and thus to acquire still greater mobility. a, outer part of the lower jaw : by its condyle, pulled down from the glenoid cavity to show the joints : c, inter- articular fibro-cartilage form- ing two menisci : rf, upper synovial membrane : e, lower synovial membrane : f, zygo- ma, : g, mastoid process : k, sty- loid process. The three other figures are a superior, an in- ferior, and a lateral, view of the interarticular cartilage. • £, The digaster, assisted somewhat by the genio-hyoidei and 70 MASTICATION AND DEGLUTITION. mylq-hyoidei muscles, draws the lower jaw down, when we open the mouth. " The masseters and temporal chiefly raise it again when we bite off any thing, and are most powerfully contracted when we break hard substances. , . ,. ..„ " Its lateral motions are accomplished by the internal and ex- ternal pterygoid. - " The latter can also draw it forwards. " Substances are retained, directed, and brought under the action of the teeth, by the buccinator, and by the tongue, which is very flexible and changeable in form. a, temporal muscle, inserted by a tendon into the coronoid process of the lower jaw : 6, masseter arising from the zygoma, and inserted into the angle of the lower jaw : c, buccinator, or great muscle of the cheek, the action of which is to lessen the cavity of the mouth, and draw the angle of the lips backwards. The mere inspection of the other muscles shows their action, d, the parotid gland : e, its duct : /, a portion of the sub-maxillary gland uniting with the parotid. a, external pterygoid, arising from the pterygoid process and zygomato-temporal sur- face of the sphenoid bone, and the tuberosity of the os palati, and inserted into the front of the neck of the condyle of the lower jaw, and interarticular cartilage. b, internal pterygoid, arising from the pterygoid fossa of the sphe- noid bone, and from the pterygoid processes of the palate bone, and inserted within the angle of the lower jaw. MASTICATION AND DEGLUTITION. 71' "During mastication, there occurs a flow of saliva b, which is a frothy fluid," consisting, according to Berzelius, of Water - .x+b: i.'>tf h; A peculiar animal matter i&jpHj ;/; MUCUS - - !{><»IC 'fO^iji B.^.-'i; ;,!>; «i . ; . • Alkaline muriates - vrt *,'_• ? ^ . *y *t *«•; Lactate of soda and animal matter >J«M Pure soda . '' -y* r:;.' .r*r: ' - - h'V« fiQisfc; 1000.0C What Berzelius calls mucus, Dr. Thomas Thomson and Dr. Bos- tock regard as albumen. This mucus is insoluble in water, and, when incinerated, but not before, yields a large .portion of phos- phate of lime.d According to an examination by Tiedemann and Gmelin, saliva, mixed with more or less mucus, consists of — A peculiar matter termed salivary; osmazome; mucus; — all essential to its composition : Sometimes a little albumen : A little fatty matter, united with phosphorus : Potass, united with acetic, phosphoric, sulphuric, hydro-chloric, and sulpho-cyanic acid ; — all soluble salts : A large quantity of phosphate, and a smaller of carbonate, of lime ; a minute quantity of magnesia ; - — all three insoluble. The solid contents amount to about -fa per cent. The alkaline properties of saliva were before ascribed to a free alkali, and that alkali was supposed to be soda. In the dog the alkali is soda, very little potass being discoverable.6 *M. Rastail remarks, that whatever other" persons examine the saliva will have still other results, as different substances are mixed in it at different times, and names are given to the mixture the elements of which are not determined. He discovers that the b " J. Earth. Siebold, Historia Systematis Salivalis. Jen. 1797. 4to." c J. Berzelius, Medico- Chirurgical Transactions, vol. iii. p. 242. d The tartar of the teeth arises from its gradual decomposition upon them, and consists, according to Berzelius, of Earthy phosphates - ' - 79.0 Undecomposed mucus - - 12.5 Peculiar salivary matter - \-, - 1-0 Animal matter soluble in muriatic acid - 7.5 «' • 100.0 * Die Verdauung nach Versuchcn, &c. By Fred. Tiedemann and Leopold Gmelin, Professors in the University of Heidelberg. 72 MASTICATION AND DEGLUTITION. mucous membranes are constantly shedding and renewing, like the epidermis, from their ceils successively shrivelling ; and that saliva taken before breakfast, and examined with the microscope, presents such membranous particles, which are the animal matter mentioned by chemists, and soluble only in hydrochloric (muriatic) acid. He adds, that, besides muriate of soda, it contains muriate of ammonia; and as to the lactates, he proves that lactic acid is only a combination of albumen and acetic acid. The quantity of ammonia, salts, and membranous particles varies, and is much greater before breakfast. He considers the saliva to be an albu- minous solution, mixed with membranous fragments and salts, which affect its solubility in water/ " The saliva flows from three orders of conglomerate glands, placed laterally and interiorly with respect to the lower jaw. " The parotids^ are the largest, -and pour forth the saliva behind the middle molares of the upper jaw, through the Stenonian ducts :h " The submaxillary *, through the Whartonian : k " The sublingual l, — the smallest, through the numerous Ri- vinian. m a, parotid gland : b, parotid duct : c, submaxillary gland : d, submax- illary duct : e, sublingual gland. f 1. c., p. 454. sq. 8 '* See De Courcelles, Icones Musculorum Capttis, tab. i. g. h." h " Stenonis, Observationes Anqtomic(£, p. 20." 1 " De Courcelles, 1. c. tab. n. 1. 1." * " Wharton, Adenographia, p. 12O." 1 " De Courcelles, tab. v. g. g. g." ln " Rivinus, De Dyspepsia. Lips. 1 678. 4to. Aug. Fr. Walther, De Lingua Humana, ib. 1724. 4to." MASTICATION AND DEGLUTITION. 73 " The excretion of saliva, amounting, according to the arbi- trary statement of Nuck «, to a pound in twelve hours, is aug- mented by stimuli and by mechanical pressure, or, if the term may be allowed, emulsion. .-,^ " The latter cause, greatly favoured by the situation of the parotids, at the articulation of the jaws, occurs when we chew hard substances, which thus become softened. " The former occurs when acrid substances are taken into the mouth, which are thus properly diluted ; or arises from ima- gination, as when the mouth waters during the desire for food. " The mucus of the labial and buccal glands °, and of the Inner part of lips. a a, labial glands : 6, buc- cal glands : c c, parotid ducts : d d, their orifices. tongue, as well as the moisture which transudes from the soft parts of the mouth, is mixed with the saliva. " The mixture of these fluids with a substance which we are chewing, renders it not only a pultaceous and easily swallowed bolus, but likewise prepares it for further digestion and for assi- milation. " The mechanism p of deglutition, although very compli- cated, and performed by the united powers of many very different parts, amounts to this : — the tongue being drawn towards its root, swelling and growing rigid, receives the bolus of food upon its dorsum, which is drawn into a hollow form. The bolus is then rolled into the isthmus of the fauces, and caught with a curious and rather violent effort by the infundibulum of the pharynx, which is enlarged and in some measure drawn for- ward to receive it. The three constrictores -r^nr-ir: ad'! d " B. S. Albinus, Dissert, de arteriis et venis intestin. hominis, with coloured plates. LB. 1736. 4to. Also his Annotat. Acad. L. iii. tab. i. ii." e " Kerkring, Spicilegium anatomicum, tab. xiv. fig. 1, 2." f " He estimated their number, in the small intestines of an adult, to be about 500,000." 8 " Defabrica et actions vulorum intestinor. tenuium hominis. LB. 1745. 4to. J. Bleuland, Descriptio vasculorum in intestinorum tenuium tunicis. Ultraj. 1797. 4to. R. A. Hedwig, Disquisitio ampullarum Lieburkiihnii. Lips. 1797. 4to. C. A. Rudolphi, Anatomisch-physiologische Abhandlungen. Berlin. 1802. 8vo. p. 39." h " J. Conr. a Brunn, Glanduke duodeni s. pancreas secundarium. Francof. 1715. 4to. fig. 1." 1 « J. Conr. Peyer, De Glandittis intestinorum. Scafhus. 1677. 8vo. especially fig. 3." OF THE INTESTINES. 115 kiihnian, the smallest, said to be distributed in the proportion of about eight to each villus.k The two former orders are so in- constant, that I am inclined to consider the view given of them in the plates alluded to, as morbid 1 ; for I have more than once been unable to discover the slightest trace of fungous papillae with a single pore, in the small intestines of healthy adults; while, on the contrary, in apJithous subjects, I have found nearly the whole intestinal tube beset with them in infinite numbers, both solitary and aggregated.1" " As the gastric juice is poured into the stomach, so an enteric or intestinal Jluid is poured into the small intestines, demon- strated, among other ways, by the common experiment, first, we believe, instituted by Pechlin n," of including a portion of intes- tine between two ligatures, so that the fluid secreted into it may be collected. " An accurate investigation of it is a physiological desideratum. We can say nothing respecting its quantity, but Haller's estimate — eight pounds in the twenty -four hours — is certainly excessive. " The intestines agree with the stomach in this particular, that they have a similar, and, indeed, a more unquestionable, or, at least, a more lively, peristaltic action0, which occurs principally when the chymous pulp enters them. This it agitates by an un- dulatory constriction of different parts of the canal, and propels from the duodenum towards the large intestines. Although the existence of an antiperistaltic motion, causing a retrograde course to their contents, cannot be disproved, it is in health much weaker, and less common and important, than the former. " By these moving powers, and by these solvents which are afforded by means of secretion, the chyme undergoes remark- able changes." P k " Lieberkiihn, 1. c. p. 17. tab. iii." 1 " The eminent Rudolphi thinks differently, 1. c. p. 212." m " These intestinal aphthae exactly resemble those tubercles which Sheldon, in a work which we shall presently quote, exhibits (Tab. 1.) as small ampulhe full of chyle." n " J)e purgantium medicamenlor.facultat. p. 509. — tab. iv." 0 " Benj. Schwartz, De vomitu et motu intestinorum. LB. 1745. 4to. J. Foelix, De motu peristallico intestinorum. Trevir. 1750. 4to." P " Consult the excellent observations and experiments of A. E. Ferd. Emmert, Archivfiir die Physiologic, t. viii. p. 145." I 4 116 THE FUNCTION Albumen and albuminous substances, which are the source of the chyle and so abundant in the duodenum and jejunum, gra- dually disappear, so that a great part of the chyle is generally formed and absorbed before the digested mass reaches the ileum.. traces of sulphuretted hydrogen J Azote - - - 51-03 10000 Oxygen - - *.} 0*00 Carbonic acid - 70*00 Hydrogen and pure carburetted 1 .. , og hydrogen - -J Azote /* " - 18-04? 100-00 The gas of the caecum and rectum of the third was examined separately. Caecum,— Oxygen - O'OO Carbonic acid nV'*' °r^ 12-50 Pure hydrogen >j.-V> - 7-50 Carburetted hydrogen 9 • ^ 12-50 Azote $!P 'J 67-50 100-00 Rectum, — Oxygen Carbonic acid Carburetted hydrogen Azote 100-00 Some traces of sulphuretted hydrogen appeared upon the mer- cury before the last analysis was commenced. Berzelius finds human excrement to consist of Water - - 73-3 Remains of vegetable and animal 1 ,. Q matter - - -J Bile - - 0-9 Albumen - 0-9 122 THE FUNCTION OF THE INTESTINES. Peculiar extractive matter 2*7 Matter composed of altered bile, 1 ^ . Q resin, animal matter, &c. - J Salts b*#s 1'2 100-0 * Besides the gases disengaged from the contents of the canal, at least the stomach contains a portion of air that has been swallowed with the food, and many persons can easily swallow air by itself. Air is perhaps generated occasionally in the womb, and is undoubtedly generated by serous membranes. Emphysema has occurred without any wound of the lungs. I believe, with John Hunter6, that the alimentary canal also often secretes gaseous fluids. For mental emotion will suddenly cause extreme discharges of air from the stomach, and the intestines to swell with wind. Want of food fills the stomach with wind. In many diseases the same will occur, although no fermentation or unusual change is discernible in the contents of the canal. Air in the serous membranes, or in the cellular, even when introduced, is known to be absorbed. f Every one knows that the intestines are usually relieved once in twenty-four hours, but that some little variety occurs in this respect. In cases of extreme abstinence, they of course discharge their contents very rarely, as I mentioned formerly. Heberden, however, mentions a person who naturally had a motion once a month only, and another who had twelve motions every day during thirty years, and then seven every day for seven years, and rather grew fat than otherwise, s Habit has the greatest influence upon defecation. Pouteau's young lady, mentioned at page 55., had no stool, he says, for upwards of eight years, although during the last year she ate abundantly of fruit, and drank coffee, milk, and tea, and broth with yolks of eggs : but she had copious greasy sweats. d Traitd de Chimie, torn. vii. Traduit par M. Esslinger. e Observations on certain Parts of the minimal Economy. f See Dr. Baillie in Transact, of Society for Improvement of Med. and Surg. Knowledge, vol. i. 6 Commentarii, p. 14. 123 CHAP. IX. THE FUNCTION OF THE ABSORBENT VESSELS. » " THE course of the chyle b from the intestines to the blood is through a part of the absorbent system." "This is divided into four parts — lacteal and lymphatic vessels, conglobate glands," (or ganglia, as they are now often termed,) " and the thoracic duct. Each of these will be now considered. " The lacteals originate among the villi of the internal coat of the intestines ;" but most writers have been unable to detect their origin. Lieberkiihn and Cruikshank, however, appear to have been successful. The former says, that each villus is a lacteal with valves, swelling into a bulb or ampulla at its termin- ation, on the summit of which is an orifice. The latter opened a woman who had died suddenly of convulsions after taking a hearty supper in perfect health. " Many of the villi," he says, " were so full of chyle that I saw nothing of the ramifications of the arteries and veins; the whole appeared as one white vesicle, without any red lines, pores, or orifices whatever. Others of the villi contained chyle, but in a small proportion; and the ramifications of the veins were numerous, and prevailed by their redness over the whiteness of the villi. In some hun- dred villi I saw the trunk of a lacteal forming a beginning by radiated branches. The orifices of these radii were very distinct on the surface of the villus, as well as the radii them- selves seen through the external surface, passing into the trunk of the lacteal : they were full of a white fluid. There was but one of these trunks on each villus. The orifices in the villi of the jejunum, as Dr. Hunter himself said, (when I asked him, as he viewed them in the microscope, how many he a " A very copious list of writers upon the absorbents will be found in Som- merring's work, De morbis vasorum absorbentium corporis humani. Francof. 1795. 8vo." b " Ant. Muller, Experimenta circa ehylurn. Heidelb. 1819. 8vo." 124? THE FUNCTION thought there might be,) were about fifteen or twenty in each villus ; and in some, I saw them still more numerous." c M. Cruveilhier opened a man who had died with scrofulous disease of the mesenteric ganglia and coats of the lacteals and intestines, the latter being ulcerated. The lacteals were dis- tended with both a cheeselike substance and another like cream. This circumstance displayed them fully. From the floating margin of the valvulae conniventes, innumerable lacteals ran straight and parallel to each other; their numbers were such, that the cellular membrane between the layers of the mucous membrane almost seemed to consist of them. They, few or more, united, and terminated, sometimes at nearly right angles, in long vessels, which ran pretty much in the direction of the valvulae conniventes at their fixed margin, and each of these passed a considerable way under the peritoneal coat without connection, not forming a network, as is usually represented. M. Cruveilhier states, that some papillae of the intestines have black summits, and in these he could never detect a lacteal: that others have yellow summits, and in the centre of such he has found a lacteal, thread-like, conical, or bulbous, according to its degree of distention. The papillae, each with its lacteal, project and float about in water like the fibres of roots. He has never detected the orifices/1 " The trunks just mentioned run some inches along the surface of the intestines, under the external coat, sometimes meandering in an angular course, before they reach the mesentery." The lacteals are abundantly supplied with valves. " In their course through the mesentery they run into the mesenteric glands" (or ganglia,) " of which there are two series. c Anatomy of the Absorbing Vessels, p. 59. d Anatomie Pathologique du Corps Humain. Deuxieme livraison, p. 1. sqq. Paris, 1830. OF THE ABSORBENT VESSELS. 125 The one nearer the intestines, dispersed, small, and resembling beans in shape; the other, nearer the receptaculum chyli, large and aggregated." b a, Small intestine, so pushed aside as to display the lacteal vessels running from them to their glands or ganglia in the mesen- tery. b, The thoracic duct, ascend- ing in front of the spine. c, The aorta cut short. If a gland is well injected, the numerous ramifications of the absorbents prevent cells from appearing, and it seems only a closely compacted collection of lacteals ; but, if injected less minutely, cells are very evident, and distinct from the convolu- tions and ramifications of vessels. e " If an absorbent gland of a horse is filled with quicksilver and dried, and then carefully slit open, the cells will be seen of a large size, and bristles may with ease be passed through the openings by which they com- municate." It is imagined that the vasa inferentia (or vessels running into a gland) pour their contents into these cells, and that the efferentia (or the vessels running from a gland) afterwards absorb it from them. The inferentia are fewer, in general, than the efferentia of the same gland. " It has been enquired whether lacteals exist also in the large intestines, and their existence has been advocated, from the effects of particular injections, nutrient, inebriating, &c., and also from the circumstance that the faeces, if retained for any length e Wilson, Lectures on the Blood, and that neither he nor the veterinary surgeon Flandrin ever found any thing but chyle enter the lacteals. Lister's experiment » of making puppies swallow indigo, and finding the contents of the lacteals blue, has succeeded with Musgrave, Haller, Blumen- bach k, John Hunter, Fordyce *, and numerous others ; and J. Hunter, in the presence of several persons, poured milk into the intestines of a dog, and they all observed it quickly to fill the lacteals. Among other insignificant objections, Dr. Magen- die urges that J. Hunter should have first noticed whether the vessels contained chyle, whereas it is expressly mentioned that, before the milk was poured into the intestine, the lacteals were seen distended by a nearly colourless and pellucid fluid."1 Tiedemann and Gmelin, however, have made an abundance of these experiments with the same result as Magendie, though in some few instances the substance introduced into the canal was discovered in the chyle. Fiscinus and Seilar n say exactly the same as Tiedemann and Gmelin. They occasionally could detect metallic salts, and even turmeric and madder, in the chyle. Fran- chini ° says, that, when the contents of the lacteals look blue, f " Mascagni, tab. xvi." E " See Nuck, De inventis novis ep. Anatomica, p. 146. sq." h Precis Elemental™, &c. t. ii. p. 178. sq. 1 Phil. Trans. No. 143. compared with No. 275. k Instil. Physiol. § 422. 1 On the Digestion of the Food, p. 122. m Medical Com'/nentaries. n Dresden. Republished in the Journ. CompUmentaire du Dictionnaire des Sc. Med. 0 Bologna. J823. OF THE ABSORBENT VESSELS. 127 they prove limpid on being let out ; and that when red substances have been swallowed, and they look red, this arises from the abstinence, which always causes the fluid of both lacteals and lymphatics to become red. " The ultimate trunks of the lacteals, arising, like the lympha- tics, from the combination of a great number of small twigs P, unite into the receptaculum or cisterna chyli, — the appellation by which the lower and larger part of the thoracic or PECQUETIAN duct is distinguished. " This duct is q a membranous canal," consisting of an external fibrous, and a smooth inner serous coat, " slender, strong, more or less tortuous, subject to great varieties in its course and division1", and possessing here and there valves. At about the lowest cer- vical vertebra, after passing the subclavian vein, it turns back again s, and is inserted into this, being furnished with a peculiar valve at the point of insertion. a, receptaculum chyli. b, upper end of the thoracic duct, which bends behind c, the internal jugular vein, and terminates in d, the angle of the jugular and sub- clavian veins. e, vena azygos. P " Sheldon, I.e. tab. v." i " See Haller, Observations de ductu thoracico in theatro Gottingensi factec. Getting. 1741. 4to. B. S. Albinus, Tabula vasis chyliferi. LB. 1757. large folio. Mascagni, tab. xix." r " See v. c. J. C. Bohl, Vies lactece. c. h. historia naturalis. Regiom.1741. 4to. Sommerring, Commentat. Soc. Scient. Gottingens. t.xiii. p. 111." s " v. Haller, Opera, Minora, vol. i. tab. xii," K 2 128 THE FUNCTION " The motion of the chyle throughout its course is to be ascribed to the contractility of its containing vessels, to their valves, and to the vis-a-tergo." The force of their contraction is shown by the rupture of the thoracic duct from over-distention when a ligature is passed around it. l Tiedemann and Gmelin saw the thoracic duct con- tract from exposure to air. " The use of the valve placed at the opening of the thoracic duct is probably not so much to prevent the influx of blood, as to modify the entrance of the chyle into the vein, — to cause it to enter by drops. " By this contrivance, fresh chyle is prevented from having ac- cess to the blood so rapidly as to stimulate the cavities of the heart too violently and be imperfectly and difficultly assimilated. " These lymphatics", which constitute the third part of the ab- sorbent system, and resemble the lacteals in their structure and function, are much more, and perhaps, indeed, universally, dif- fused.31 They arise principally from the cellular membrane, which we may call the grand bond of connection between the sanguifer- ous and absorbing system ; but in great numbers likewise from the external common integuments y, from the fauces, oesophagus," and all mucous membranes, " the pleura, peritonaeum," and all serous membranes, from all excretory ducts, from arteries35, and * Sir Astley Cooper, Med. Pecords and Researches. A ligature of the thoracic duct does not necessarily deprive the body of nourishment, because there are sometimes two ducts, and sometimes one or more small trunks which unite with it or have a different termination in the venous system. Dr. Magendie observed in the dog, that the contents of the thoracic duct flow but slowly ; though more quickly during compression of the abdominal viscera. On wounding it after a meal, he obtained half an ounce in five minutes, and they flowed for some time. u " Consult, among others already and hereafter quoted, J. F. Meckel, De vasis lymphaticis glandulisque conglobatis- Berol. 1757. 4to. And Al. Monro, filius, De venis lymphaticis valvulosis. Ib. same year. 8vo." * Dr. W. Hunter, Medical Commentaries^ P. i. p. 5. sq. y " J.Elliotson has adduced new arguments showing that cutaneous absorption has been doubted of late without good reason, in his notes to the English trans- lation of these Institutions, p. 129. 3d edit. 1820." z Lymphatics may be injected from arteries. Lippi says that he finds many arise from arteries; and they probably originate from them as they do from every other part of the body. But to imagine they arise from arteries only is incorrect ; and to imagine their sole function to be absorption from arteries, absurd. Dr. Magendie, however, attempts to revive the old opinion of lymphatics arising from arteries only and being destined to convey lymph from them. OF THE ABSORBENT VESSELS. J 29 from the substance of the " thoracic and abdominal viscera," in short, from every part, at least, where there is moisture. a " Their origin is similar to that of the lacteals in the intestines, so that the radicle of each lymphatic absorbs the fluid from the surrounding spot, as from its territory, and propels it onwards. " The serum is a peculiar fluid, the chief cause of the viscidity of the blood, and easily separable by art into different constituent principles. If subjected to a temperature of 150° Fahr., a por- tion is converted into a white scissile substance, resembling boiled white of egg," and is in truth albumen; the watery por- tion which remains was termed serosity by Cullen, and contains various substances. If mixed with six parts of cold water, serum does not coagulate by heat. Under the influence of the galvanic pile, soda collects at the negative wire, and the albumen coagulates at the positive, on account, M. Raspail says, probably, of the decomposition of the salts and also of the water, and the consequent oxygenation of every thing at the positive pole, where the oxygen collects ; and small dog, with only temporary inconvenience, and subsequently three drams of expired air even without much temporary disturbance. (Med. C/iir. Trans. 1818, p. 65. sq.) Nysten has established that many gases soluble in the blood, as oxygen and and carbonic acid, may be thrown into the circulating system in very large quantity without serious inconvenience ; while danger often ensues upon the introduction of those which are sparingly or not at all soluble in the blood. (Magendie, 1. c.) In the same way, if about 15 grains of bile are rapidly introduced into the crural vein of an animal, instant death occurs ; but, if slowly, no inconvenience results. This quantity may be even rapidly injected into the vena portee without injury, and so likewise may atmospheric air, probably because the extreme sub- division of the vessel acts like slowness of introduction, — causes the complete diffusion and dilution of the bile, and solution of the air, before it reaches the heart. If warm water is introduced (an equal quantity of blood being first removed, to prevent over distension) mere debility ensues, proportionate to the quantity ; but if oils, or mucilages, or an inert impalpable powder, are injected, life is at once destroyed by the obstruction of the minute ramifications of the pulmonary artery. (Magendie, Journal de Physiologic, t, i., and 1. c. t. ii. p. 260.) Poisons act powerfully if injected into the veins ; and, as will presently be mentioned, medicines, thus introduced, exert their specific powers on the different organs. THE BLOOD. 147 of the increase of temperature attending the decomposition of organised bodies. l M. Le Canu gives the following analysis of serum : — 1st Analysis. 2d Analysis. Water 906-00 901-00 Albumen - 78-00 81-20 Animal matter soluble in water and al- cohol - 1-69 2-05 Albumen combined with soda 2-00 2-55 Crystallisable fatty matter 1-20 2-10 Oily matter .... 1-00 1-30 Muco-extractive matter — Extractive matter soluble in alcohol and acetate of soda ... — Hydrochlorate of soda and potash 6-00 5-32 Sub-carbonate and phosphate of soda and sulphate of potass - 2-10 2-00 Phosphate of lime, magnesia, and iron, with sub-carbonate of lime and magnesia 0-91 0-87 Loss - - - - 1-00 1-61 1000-00 1000-00 The cruor consists of globules ; and Mr. Hewson asserts that they have a nucleus and an enveloping coloured portion."1 The nucleus is said to be colourless : perhaps about 3^^- of an inch in diameter, and the whole globule nearly one fourth larger.** M. Raspail says, that, though the form and dimensions of the par- ticles are different in different species, and nearly the same in the same individual, they still vary within very narrow limits in in- dividuals, and the dimensions in even the same drop of blood, especially if not examined immediately that the blood is taken from the vessels. In man, he says, they are from T-J^ to ¥^ of a millimetre, flat and circular. MM. Prevost and Dumas believe ° that the internal portion is spherical, but the outer or vesicular, as Hewson noticed P, flattened. The inner part, according to these 1 l. c. 202. m Experimental Inquiries, part. 3. p. 16. 1777. n On these measurements consult Phil. Trans. 1818. Dr. Young's Medical Literature, p. 571. sqq. Prevost and Dumas, Annales de Chimie, Nov. 1821. Hodgkin and Lister, Ph. Mag. Aug. 1827. Particularly M. Raspail. 0 1. c. Hodgkin and Lister find no nucleus. P 1. c. p. 8. sq. Hewson says, that dilution with water, or a change towards L 4 148 THE BLOOD. enquirers, rolls in the outer, and, in the frog's web and bat's wing, at least, the whole particle is carried, steadily balanced, in the current of blood, sometimes flat, sometimes oblique, sometimes gently turning upon itself, and lengthening if driven into a vessel of diameter hardly sufficient for its admission ; the old assertion of Reichel Hewson, Experimental Enquiries into the J3lood and the Lymphatic System, P. 1. p. 45. sq. r Scudamore, 1. c. THE BLOOD. 155 generally co-exist. But the rapidity of the stream greatly affects the rate of coagulation, so that one portion of the same blood coagulates slowly that is drawn quickly, and another quickly that is drawn slowly. The appearance of the buffy coat does not arise from the slow coagulation, though increased by it ; because, of two por- tions of the same blood, one has afforded no buffy coat, although it remained fluid at least ten minutes after the buffy coat began to be formed on the others, proving, too, if the buffy coat arise from thinness of the fibrin, as appears from Mr. Hewson's ex- periments, the red particles continuing of their usual weight, that slow coagulation is not altogether dependent on mere thinness of the blood, though generally connected and proportional with it. Yet rapid coagulation, by means of a slow stream when the blood is thin, may prevent the buffy coat, by not allowing time for the difference in the weight of the fibrin and red particles to have effect. Stirring such blood, or receiving it into a shallow vessel, has the same consequence, and the slower the coagulation of thin blood, occasioned, for instance, by rapid bleeding, the greater will be the buffy coat. If one portion of the same blood is received into a shallow, and another into a deep vessel, the coagulum of the former is looser and spongy, and the quantity of separated serum less. The different cups of blood drawn in an inflammatory disease may vary as to the buffy coat, according to accidental variations in the stream ; but generally it is the first cup that abounds in buff, and the last frequently has none. This occurs when there is no difference in the stream.1 Therefore, if the buff arise from thinness of the fibrin, we must conclude with Hewsonu that its qualities may be changed even during bleeding. Sir C. Scuda- more finds much more fibrin in buffy blood ; and, consequently, that not merely the thinness, as Hewson observed, but the quan- tity, of fibrin may vary during the flow of blood. x The greater the strength of the patient and the intensity of the inflammation, the firmer is the coagulum of fibrin and the more cupped its appearance. Sir C. Scudamore did not find a buffy coat in blood drawn im- mediately after violent exercise. s Hewson, 1. c. p, 90^ l 1. c. p. 52. sqq. u 1. C. p. 56. sqq. x 1. c. p. 96. 156 THE BLOOD. Fibrin is inodorous and tasteless, whitish, insoluble in alcohol and acids, slightly soluble in boiling water long applied; coagu- lates, as already said, when separated from the body ; dries hard, brittle, and semitransparent. Albumen is inodorous, tasteless, colourless, soluble in water, and coagulates by a temperature of 150°, by pure potass, the mineral acids, tannin, and many metallic salts, especially by bi- chloride of mercury, and by prussiate of potass if a little dilute acid is previously mixed with it. Acetic and some other acids dissolve it, and even render it to a certain point soluble in alco- hol and boiling water, according to M.Raspail; who also, under the microscope, discovers albumen to consist of two substances, the one an insoluble and organised tissue, the other a fluid con- tained in the cells of this, y The insoluble portion, however, forms gradually only, and in fresh eggs can scarcely be distin- guished from the soluble; just as is the case with the woody fibres of vegetables, that gradually form from a gum. Dr. Wol- laston stated, that the soda of albumen prevents it from all coagu- lating by heat, and the addition of an acid, by neutralizing the alcali, renders it completely coagulable.2 Raspail says*, " alcaline solutions, even alcaline carbonates," prevent heat from coagulat- ing albumen. Mr. Brande thinks it liquid only through alcali.b Chemists all allow that fibrin, albumen, and colouring matter afford, on decomposition, the same saline and gaseous products. Berzelius views them all three as modifications of the same sub- stance. Albumen contains a greater proportion of oxygen than fibrin, and has sulphur for a constituent part, which, however, cannot be detected while the albumen is entire, any more than the iron while the cruor is entire. The chief differences between the colouring matter and fibrin are, colour ; the spontaneous co- agulation of fibrin at all temperatures, while the colouring matter may be dried without losing its solubility in water and becomes insoluble only at a certain temperature ; and the peculiarity in the latter of not diminishing in volume like fibrin during exsic- cation. According to most chemists, albumen is intermediate between the two ; and its only character of distinction from fibrin is, that it does not coagulate spontaneously, but requires a high temperature or some chemical agent. M. Raspail maintains that albumen and fibrin are identical; and that the slight differences y Hewson, 1. c. p. 191. sqq. z Ph. Tr. 1811. *^Hewson, 1. c. p. 198. b P/i. Tr. 1809. Tin; BLOOD. 157 between the two are referable to the natural and adventitious salts of albumen, varying according to the organs from which it is obtained. The following results are given c by Gay-Lussac and Thenard, in regard to them and gelatine : — Carbon. Hydrogen. Oxygen. Nitrogen. Gelatine 1.'1 ^ i'ij - 47-881 7-924 27-207 16-998 Albumen - >;**HhiU 52-883 7-540 23-872 15-705 Fibrin - ^ir/{j - 53-360 7-021 12-685 19-934 Besides which, they, as well as the colouring matter of the blood, contain a very minute portion of the earthy phosphates. We formerly saw that Dr. Prout is of opinion, at present, that when oxygen and hydrogen exist united, it is in the form of actual water, as an essential constituent of unazotised vegetable bodies, one atom of carbon being united with one of water. Now M. Raspail makes it highly probable, that the nitrogen of vegetable gluten, of albumen, fibrin, gelatine, and other animal matters, exists combined with another portion of hydrogen in the form of ammonia, which again is combined, as a base, with some acid, making an ammoniacal salt. The remaining small quantity of the hydrogen, not united with oxygen into water, is united with carbon into carburetted hydrogen ; so that sub- stances called azotised are really not azotised. He shows that the numbers given by Thenard are such as will give so much water, ammonia, and carburetted hydrogen, with pure carbon. Vegetable substances have been hitherto considered as ternary compounds of oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon: animal substances, and vegetable gluten, quaternary compounds of oxygen, hydro- gen, carbon, and nitrogen; for most animal substances usually afford nitrogen, and but few vegetable substances excepting gluten. In M. Raspail's views, organised bodies consist of water, ammonia, carbon, and salts. And here I must remark, that the alcaline, earthy, and other substances, found in minute quantities in animal and vegetable compounds, and which have usually been regarded as foreign and unimportant, are, with great reason, con- sidered by Dr. Prout as integrants in the compounds, and chiefly productive of the striking differences observed in substances having otherwise the same essential composition. The importance of minute quantities of matter is shown, he remarks, in the expe- riments of Sir John Herschel, who found that a power not less 0 Rtcherchcs Fhysico-Chimiques, t.ii. M 158 THE BLOOD. than 50,000 times greater than the power of gravity, is constantly generated (under the galvanic influence, for example) by the alloy of mercury with a millionth part of its weight of sodium. Dr. Prout regards these incidental particles as in a state of mutual repulsion, because, instead of being equally diffused as they are, they would otherwise be collected into a mass or crystal.d I may mention, that Dr. Prout says perhaps it may be stated as a general law, that no substance, entering into the com- position of a living plant or animal, is so pure as to be capable of assuming a regularly crystallised form. Instead, therefore, of being defined by straight lines and angles, all solid organised substances are more or less rounded, and their intimate structure is any thing but crystallised. The composition of organised fluids is equally heterogeneous ; and, though the basis of nearly every one of such fluids is water, many of them contain a variety of other matters. M. Raspail remarks further, that the constituents of organic solids or fluids are not combined in definite proportions, like those of inanimate bodies, but are ever variable, so that the varieties of each compound are infinite. e d Bridgewater Treatise, p. 425. sq. e 1. c. p. 78. sq. " The idea of succession and developement leads to the conclusion, that, if the products are examined at a certain period, they will be found chemically more or less heterogeneous, and more or less mixed. In some, the combined water and carbon are not yet combined with a base, or at the utmost are mixed with one ; then we have gum. In others, the carbon is mixed with hydrogen only, or at the utmost with a small quantity of water : that this may assume the charac- ters of a substance fit for organisation, it must obtain sufficient oxygen aspired by the cellular apparatus, to transform all the hydrogen into water ; till then the compound was an oil, or resin. Finally, the carbonic acid absorbed, instead of uniting with a quantity of hydrogen sufficient to convert the oxygen of the acid into water, may unite with a fresh quantity of water or other substances, even with a quantity of salts insufficient to neutralise them, and then, becoming an acid of a new form, it will serve as a brute unorganised body for the elabo- ration or the decomposition of the salts which are necessary for the developement of the tissues." Most cold-blooded animals, as fishes and the amphibia, have a much smaller proportion of blood and fewer blood-vessels than those with warm blood, though a much greater number of colourless vessels arising from the arteries. In an experiment which Blumenbach made on this subject, he " obtained from twenty- THE BLOOD. 159 four adult water-newts (lacerta palustris), which had been just caught, and weighed each an ounce and a half, 9 iijss. of blood. The proportion to the weight of the body was as 2^ to 36, while in healthy adult men it is as 1 to 5." (Compar. Anatomy, ch. xii. ed. i. p. 245. Translated by Mr. Lawrence.) The blood of different brutes coagulates in different times. Mr. Thackrah imagines the rapidity to be inversely as the strength and size. Thus, while in health, human blood coagulates in from 3 or 4 to 7 minutes, that of the Horse, in from 2 to 15 Ox, 2 to 10 Dog, $ to 3 Sheep, hog, rabbit i to 1§ Lamb, 5 to 1 Fowls, ^ to li Mice, in a moment. Fish, according to Hunter (1. c. p. 211.), also in a moment. The blood of brutes has the same general character as our own, and Rouelle obtained the same ingredients, though in different proportions, from the blood of a great variety of them. Berzelius finds a larger proportion of nitrogen in that of the ox, and analogy would lead us to suppose there is a peculiarity in the blood of every species. Muscles look pretty much alike in various animals, yet when cooked they disclose the greatest diversities. Transfusion, or pouring the blood of one system into another, satisfies us, that the blood, whether arterial or venous, of one individual, agrees well enough with another of the same species ; but some late experiments of Dr. Leacock (Medico- Chirurgical Jour- nal, 1817, p. 276.), and subsequently of Dr. James Blundel (Medico- Chirurgical Transactions, 1818), render it unlikely, contrary to the opinion of former ex- perimentalists, that the blood of one sjwcies suits the system of another. Dr. Young found the large outer globules of the skate to be somewhat almond- shaped, and Hewson found them of different shapes in different animals, and Rudolphi observed them to be more or less oval in the common fowl and many amphibia. (Grundnss der Physiologie, 159.) MM. Prevost and Dumas have noticed, in their microscopic experiments, a great difference in the blood of different animals as to the globules, and in this way explain the impossibility of transfusing the blood of some animals to others without danger to life. They assert that the quantity of the particles is proportionate to the temperature of the animal, and that, consequently, most exist in the blood of birds : that the size and shape also vary, although the size of the central portion is the same in animals in which they are spherical, and is about t^fa of an inch in diameter : and that the shape of the external part is circular in the mammalia, and elliptical in birds (M. Raspail says, in oviparous quadrupeds also) and cold-blooded animals, thus confirming and generalising the observations of others, for Hew- son observed the difference of their size in different animals, and that this bore no relation to the difference in the size of the animal (1. c. part iii. p. 10. sqq.) : and they find the shape of the central portion correspondent with that of the external, — spherical when the latter is circular, oval when elliptical. They assert that, if the blood of two animals of different species, the blood of one of which was transfused into the other, differed in the size only of the globules, M 2 160 THE BLOOD. temporary restoration of energy took place; but that, if it differed in their shape, convulsions and death were the result. They also find a larger propor- tion of fibrin and red globules in warm than in cold blooded animals, and a larger in the former according to the height of the temperature — (of 10,000 parts by weight; in pigeons, 1557; man, 1292; frogs, 690); — a smaller, also, accordingly as animals are bled ; it thus appearing that bleeding promotes the absorption of watery fluid. (Annales de Chimie, t. xviii. xxiii. 1821 and 1823.) The colour of the particles differs in different animals: hence red and white blooded animals. Hewson (1. c. part iii. p. 39. ) saw the red particles of the blood of the fetal chicken and viper larger than those of the adult animal : and Prevost and Dumas have observed the red particles of the foetal goat to be as large again as those of the adult ; and those of the chicken to be circular, till about the sixth day, when some elliptic ones are first seen ; and on the ninth, from their progres- sive multiplication, none but elliptic ones can be detected. (Annales des Sciences NatureOes, 1824, 1825.) In the frog the particles are ^ and in the salamander even ,J5, of a millimetre, — the largest known. The blood of invertebral animals is colourless, but has not been analysed. The temperature of the blood, in general, varies with that of the animal. The sap of vegetables is different, accordingly as it is examined when ascending from the roots, or descending again. The ascending sap is chiefly a watery solu- tion of alcaline, earthy, and even metallic matters, and the proportion of water is very large, on account of the little solubility of many of these ; the descending, or returning sap, is the same concentrated by exhalation from the leaves, and loaded with carbon, obtained in them from the atmosphere. The former may be compared to chyle, the latter to blood ; and this is more and more elaborated and converted into various organic substances, so as to be saccharine, fecular, glutinous or milky, oily, resinous, gum-resinous, and oleo-glutinous. All vegetable principles are divided by Dr. Prout (Sridgewater Treatise, p. 454. ) into three great classes — those in which oxygen and hydrogen are com- bined in the proportions which form water — the saccharine ; those in which hy- drogen, or rather carbon and hydrogen, predominate — the oily; and those in which oxygen predominates— the acid. Some contain azote also, like animal principles, from which, indeed, it is never absent ; and some, weak alcaline powers, as quinine, morphine, &c. About forty years after the discovery of the circulation of the blood, trans- fusion was practised upon brutes, and at length upon the human subject, though some contend that the operation was known tb the ancients. Experiments were made upon the effects of injecting medicated liquids into the blood, first by Wahrendorf, in Germany. It was ascertained that they exert their specific powers exactly as when swallowed, — cathartics, v. c. purging, and emetics emptying the stomach. Among other liquids, Dr. Christopher Wren proposed that blood should be injected, and Dr. Lower first put this into practice. It THE BLOOD. 161 was found that if an animal was drained of its blood, and lay faint and almost lifeless, and the blood of another was transfused into its circulating system, it soon revived, stood up, and presently ran about as before, apparently none the worse for the operation. If too much was poured in, the animal became drowsy, breathed with difficulty, and died of plethora. Au idea of curing diseases in this way, by substituting the blood of the healthy for that of the diseased, was immediately entertained when the possibility of the operation was proved. But the first case of human transfusion proved fatal, and the unfortunate results of some careless trials caused the Pope and the King of France to pro- hibit the practice. The extravagant hopes of curing diseases and restoring youth, at first enter- tained in France, were disappointed, and the operation fell into complete neglect, notwithstanding that Denys, in France, was declared to have made a fool clever by a supply of lamb's blood; a Mr. Cox, in England, to have cured an old mongrel of the mange with the blood of a young spaniel ; and a M. Gayant to have made a blind old dog frisk with juvenile bound, which before could hardly stir ; till Dr. Leacock brought it again into notice a few years ago, and Dr. James Blundel prosecuted this gentleman's researches. Dr. James Blundel conceived it might be rationally expected to be of benefit in cases of dangerous haemorrhage, and he soon proved it to be void of danger in the human subject, if properly performed. Many women, who would probably otherv/ise have perished from uterine haemorrhage, now owe their lives to his disinterested zeal in establishing the practice. I should think it applicable to many cases of exhaustion, besides those arising from haemorrhage. The original history of transfusion will be found in the early numbers of the Philosophical Transactions : the successful cases of its employment as a remedy, in the late English journals. The double pump employed for emptying the stomach, or a common syringe, capable of holding four or six ounces, answers very well. But Dr. Blundel at present, when he has able assistants, sometimes receives the blood from the blood-vessel into a funnel, the tube of which is very long, and inserted in the vein of the subject supplied, so that the blood enters by its gravity only. Very lately salts of potass and soda, dissolved in various quantities of water, have been injected into the veins of persons exhausted by the Asiatic epidemic, improperly called Cholera. The effect is often astonishing. The patient, apparently almost lifeless, often revives, sits up, speaks, and takes nourishment. The improvement is transient, but frequently recurs on repeating the injection, and sometimes life has probably been saved by the measure. Many pints of saline fluid have thus sometimes been introduced in a few hours. Oc- casionally, oppression of the head has been induced ; but generally a greatly increased discharge of fluid from the alimentary canal occurred. M 3 162 CHAP. XL THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. ' THE blood, to whose great and multifarious importance in the system we have slightly alluded, is conveyed, with a few ex- ceptions, into the most internal and extreme recesses. This is proved by the minute injection of the vessels, and by the well- known fact of blood issuing from almost every part on the smallest scratch. " This red fluid does not, like an Euripus, ebb and flow in the same vessels, as the ancients imagined, but pursues a circular course ; so that, being propelled from the heart into the arteries, it is distributed throughout the body, and returns again to the heart through the veins. a " We shall, therefore, say something at present of the vessels which contain the blood, and afterwards of the powers by which they propel and receive it. " The vessels which receive the blood from the heart, and dis- tribute it throughout the body, are termed arteries. " These are, upon the whole, less capacious than the veins ; but in adult, and advanced age especially, of a texture far more solid and compact, very elastic and strong. " The arteries consist of three coats b : — " I. The exterior, called, by Haller, the TUNICA CELLULOSA PROPRIA ; by others, the nervous, cartilaginous, tendinous, &c. It is composed of condensed cellular membrane, externally more lax, internally more and more compact : blood-vessels are seen a " Among warm-blooded animals, the egg, especially at the fourth and fifth day of incubation, if placed under a simple microscope, such as the Lyonetian, is most adapted for the demonstration of the circulation. Among frogs, the most proper is the equuleus of Lieberkiihn, described in the Mdm. del'Acad. de Berlin, 1745." b " For the various opinions respecting the number and differences of the arterial coats, consult, among others, Vine. Malacarne, Delia Osservat. in Chirurgia. Turin, t. ii. p. 103. And C. Mondini, Opiiscoli sdentifici, t. i. Bologna, 1817. 4to. p. 161." THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. 163 creeping upon it c ; it gives very great tone and elasticity to the arteries. " II. The middle coat consists of transverse fibres d, lunated or falciform, and almost of a fleshy nature : hence this has the name of muscular coat, and appears to be the chief seat of the vital powers of the arteries. " III. The inner coat lining the cavity of the arteries is highly polished and smooth," and is called the serous coat. It is brittle, so as to be cracked by a blow, a ligature fixed around the whole artery, or torsion of the vessel, while the external coat remains entire. The middle coat may give way at the same time, but frequently lacerates, through the pressure of the blood, by degrees only ; and the external coat will remain entire, merely dilated into a pouch, for a length of time, — a state called false aneurysm. Dr. Hales found the carotid of a dog burst at once by the pressure of a column of water less than 190 feet high.6 " This is much more distinct in the trunks and larger branches than in the smaller vessels. " Every artery originates, either " From the pulmonary artery (the vena arteriosa of the ancients), which proceeds from the anterior ventricle of the heart, and goes to the lungs ; " Or from the aorta, which proceeds from the posterior ven- tricle, and is distributed throughout the rest of the system. " These trunks divide into branches, and these again into twigs, &c. " According to the commonly received opinion, the united capacity of the branches, in any part of the sanguiferous system, is greater than that of the trunk from which they arise. But I fear that this is too general an assertion, and even that the measure of the diameter has been sometimes improperly con- founded with that of the area. I myself have never been able to verify it, although my experiments have been frequently repeated, and made, not on vessels injected with wax, after the e *' Fr. Ruysch, Respons. ad ep. problematicam. iii. Also his Thesaur, Anat. iv. tab. 3." d « B. S. Albinus, Annot. Academ. Uiv. tab. 5. fig. 1." e Hamastatics. M 4 164- THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. bad example of some illustrious physiologists, but on the undis- turbed vessels of recent subjects, v. c. on the innominata and its two branches — the right carotid and subclavian, on the brachial and its two branches — the radial and ulnar.f " The inconstancy of the proportion between the capacity of the branches and that of the trunks is clearly shown by the various sizes of the vessels under different circumstances, v. c. by the relative capacity of the inferior thyreoid artery in the infant and the adult ; of the epigastric artery in the virgin and the mother near her delivery ; and also of the uterine vessels in the virgin and the pregnant woman ; of the omental vessels during the repletion and vacuity of the stomach. g " The arteries, after innumerable divisions and important anastomoses11 connecting different neighbouring branches, termi- nate at length in the beginning of the veins. By this means the blood is conveyed back again to the heart. The distinction between artery and vein, at the point of union, is lost." Some arteries terminate in cells ; for instance, many of the penis and spleen. ** Another description of vessels arise universally from the arteries, and are called colourless, from not containing pure blood, either on account of their minuteness, or of their specific irrita- bility, which causes them to reject that fluid." " The blood conveyed from the heart throughout the body by the arteries is carried back by the veins.* 11 These are very different in function and structure from the arteries, excepting, however, the minutest of both systems, which are indistinguishable. " The veins, except the pulmonary, are universally more capacious than the arteries ; more ramified ; much more irregu- f " See also J. Theod. Van Der Kemp, De Vita. Edin. 1782. 8vo. p. 51. And Seerp Brouwer, Qutestiones Medic, varii argum. Lugd. Batav. 1816. 4to. p. 8." 6 " This is remarkably observable in the adult stag, by comparing the areas of the external carotid and its branches, during the spring, just before the horns have attained their full growth, and when they are still covered with their downy integuments (called in German, der Bast), with such as they are after this cover- ing has fallen off." h " Ant. Scarpa, Sulf Aneurisma, Pav. 1804. fol. cap. 4." ' " H. Marx, diatr. prtemio ornatat de structura atqiie vita venantw. Carlsr. 1819. 8vo." THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. 165 lar in their course and division ; In adult age, softer and far less elastic, but still very firm and remarkably expansile. " Their coats are so much thinner that the blood appears through them. They are likewise less in number, being solely a cellular external, somewhat resembling the nervous of the arteries ; and a very polished internal, also nearly agreeing with that of the arteries. " A muscular coat exists only in the trunks nearest the heart. " The interior coat forms, in nearly all veins of more than a line in diameter, very beautiful valves of easy play, resembling bags, generally single, frequently double, and sometimes triple, placed with their fundus towards the origin of the vein, and their edge towards the heart. " These valves are not found in some parts : not in the brain, heart, lungs, secundines, nor in the system of the vena portse. " The twigs, or, more properly, the radicles, of the veins, unite into branches, and these again into six principal trunks : viz. — " Into the two cavae, superior and inferior ; " And the four trunks of the pulmonary vein (the arteria venosa of the ancients). " The vena portse is peculiar in this, that, having entered the liver, it ramifies like an artery, and its extreme twigs pass into the radicles of the inferior cava, thus coalescing into a trunk. " That the blood may be properly distributed and circulated through the arteries and veins, nature has provided the heart k , in which the main trunks of all the blood-vessels unite, and which is the grand agent and mover of the whole human machine, — supporting this — the chief of the vital functions, with a constant and truly wonderful power, from the second or third week after conception to the last moment of existence." The heart is essentially a muscular organ, conical, with four cavities, placed in the left half of the chest, not quite vertically, but rather obliquely to the left, and from behind forward. Its size is usually about that of the closed fist of the individual. " It is loosely contained in the pericardium l, which is a mem- branous sac," consisting of two layers : the one fibrous and of the k " W. Cowper, Myotomia Reformata. (Posth.) Lond. 1724. fol. max. Tab. xxxvi — xl." 1 " Haller, Elemenla Physiol. t. i. tab.i. ' Nicliolls, Pfiilos. Trans, vol. lii. P. i. p. 272." 166 THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. a, lungs. d, pulmonary veins. g, left auricle. b, trachea. e, aorta. A, right ventricle. c, pulmonary artery. f, right auricle. i, left ventricle. same nature as the dura mater, though thinner ; the other a true serous membrane, lining the inside of this, closely enveloping the substance of the heart, and " very firm, accommodated to the figure of the heart, and moistened internally by an exhalation.'* It lies between the two pleurae, and behind the anterior, and before the posterior, mediastinum. " Its importance is evinced by its existence being, in red-blooded animals, as general as that of the heart ; and by our having but two instances on record of its absence in the human subject. m " The heart alternately receives and propels the blood. Receiv- ing it from the whole body by means of the superior and inferior vena cava, and from its own substance through the common orifice of the coronary veins, that is supplied with a peculiar valve n, it conveys that fluid into the anterior sinus and auricle, and thence into the corresponding ventricle, which, as well as the auricle, communicates with both orders of the heart's own vessels by the openings of Thebesius.0 171 " Consult, v. c. Littre, Hist de C Academic des Sc. de Paris. 1712. p. 37. Baillie, Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Medical and Chirurgical Knowledge, t. i. p. 91." n " Gasp. Fr. Wolff on the origin of the large coronary vein, Act. Acad. Scient. Petropol. 1777. P. i. Petr. Tabarrani on the same subject, Atti di Siena, vol. vi." 0 " Respecting these openings, consult, among others, J. Abernethy, Philos. Trans. 1798. p. 103." THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. J6? a, sinus of right au- ricle. b, appendix of right auricle. c, original seat of the foramen ovale. d, tricuspid valve. e, right ventricle. "From this anterior, or, in reference to the heart of some animals, right, ventricle, the blood is impelled through the pulmo- nary artery into the lungs: returning from which, it enters the a, right ventricle. bt semilunar valves of pulmonary ar- tery. c, pulmonary artery : the aperture is the commencement of its right branch. 168 THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. four pulmonary veins, and proceeds into their common sinus and the left, or, as it is now more properly termed, posterior, auricle. P a, left auricle. />, mitral valve. c, left ventricle : a probe is passed through its opening into the aorta. " The blood flows next into the corresponding ventricle ; and a, left ventricle. b, semilunar valves of aorta, c, aorta. « James Penada, Memorie della^ocieta Italiana, t. xi. p. 555." THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. 169 then, passing into the aorta, is distributed through the arterial system of the body in general and the coronary vessels of the heart itself, i " Having proceeded from the extreme twigs of the general arterial system into the radicles of the veins, and from the coronary arteries into the coronary veins, it finally is poured into the two venae cavae, and then again pursues the same circular course. " The regularity of this circular and the successive motion through the cavities of the heart is secured, and any retrograde motion prevented, by valves, which are placed at the principal openings, viz. at the openings of the auricles into the ventricles, and of the ventricles into the pulmonary artery and aorta." " Thus the ring, or venous tendon, which forms the limit , of the anterior auricle and ventricle, descending into the latter cavity, becomes these tendinous valves. r These were formerly said to have three apices, and were, therefore, called triglochine or tricuspid: they adhere to the fleshy pillars, or, in common language, the papillary muscles. " In a similar manner, the limits of the posterior auricle and ventricle are defined by a ring of the same kind, forming two valves, which, from their form, have obtained the appellation of mitral." 8 They are duplicatures of the lining membrane, with the addition of intervening fibrous membrane. "At the opening of the pulmonary artery1 and aorta u are found the triple semilunar or sigmoid valves x, fleshy and elegant, but of less circumference than the mitral." These are merely duplicatures of the lining membrane. " It is obvious how these differently formed valves must pre- vent the retrocession of the blood into the cavities which it has left. They readily permit the blood to pass on, but are expanded, q " Consult Achil. Mieg, Specimen «. ObservationumBotanicarum, &c. Basil, 1776. 4to. p. 12. sq." r " Eustachius, tab. viii. fig. 6. — tab. xvi. fig. 3. — Santorini. Tab. Posth. ix. fig. 1." * " Eustachius, tab. xvi. fig. 6." * " Eustachius, tab. xvi. fig. 4." u " Eustachius, tab. xvi. fig. 5. — Morgagni, .Adversar. Anat. i. tab. iv. fig. 3. Santorini, 1. c." x " Consult Hunter, -who treats very minutely of the mechanism of these valves in his work On the JBlood, p. 159." 170 THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. like a sail, against it, by any attempt at retrograde movement, and thus close the openings." The mere attempt at retrocession by the blood closes the semilunar valves : but the contraction of the muscular bands attached by tendons to the edges of the tricuspid and mitral valves during the systole of the ventricles will assist in closing the auriculo-ventricular openings. " The texture of the heart is peculiar : fleshy, indeed, but very dense and compact, far different from common muscularity. y " It is composed of fasciculi of fibres, more or less oblique, here and there singularly branching out, variously and curiously con- torted and vorticose in their direction, lying upon each other in strata, closely interwoven between the cavities, and bound by four cartilaginous bands at the basis of the ventricles, which thus are, as it were, supported, and are distinguished from the fibres of the auricles."* The heart was shown by Dr. Alexander Stewart a, about the beginning of the last century, to be resolvable by boiling water into a semicircular muscle, with all its fibres running parallel to the base. Being rolled round in a funnel form, the left ventricle is produced with the apex, which thus belongs entirely to it ; and the second turn produces the fight ventricle, by the space between it and the first layer. The walls of the left ventricle, except the septum, are strengthened by another turn, which the right ven- tricle has not ; so that the left ventricle is thicker than the right. The auricles are distinct, and by boiling drop off from the ven- tricles. They are very thin. The interior of the heart is lined by the same membrane which forms the inner coat of the arteries and veins, being firmer and more opake in the left or arterial cavities, which are continuous with the arteries, than in the right or venous cavities, which are continuous with the venae cavae. M. Gerdy has arranged the fibres of the ventricles into three orders — the one running from the heart's apex towards its base, and ending in tendons which are attached to the tricuspid * " Leop. M.A. Caldani, Memorie lette neW Acad. di Padova. 1814. 4to. p. 67." z « Casp. Fr. Wolff, Act. Acad. Sdentiar. Petropol. for the year 1780. sq., especially for 1781. P. i. p. 211. sq., on the cartilaginous structure of the heart, or on the cartilagineo-osseous bands, and their distribution at the base of the heart." * Phil. Trans, vol. ix. abridg. THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. 171 and mitral valves ; the second detached in their centre, and fixed in the substance of the heart by their two extremities only ; and the third fixed altogether in the substance of the organ.b " The fleshy fibres are supplied with very delicate nerves c, and an immense number of blood-vessels, which arise from the coronary arteries, and are so infinitely ramified d, that Ruysch described the whole structure of the heart as composed of them."6 " By this structure the heart is adapted for its perpetual and equable motions, which are an alternate systole and diastole, or contraction and relaxation, of the auricles and ventricles in suc- cession. " The systole of the ventricles is performed in such a way that their external portions are drawn towards their septum, and the apex of the heart towards the base.f This at first sight seems disproved by the circumstance of the apex striking against the left nipple, and, consequently, appearing elongated, — a circumstance, however, to be attributed to the double impetus of the blood flowing into the auricles and expelled from the ven- tricles, by which double impetus the heart must be driven against that part of the ribs." Dr.W. Hunter accounted for it thus in 1746: — " The systole and diastole of the heart, simply, could not pro- duce such an effect ; nor could it have been produced, if it had thrown the blood into a straight tube, in the direction of the axis of the left ventricle, as is the case with fish, and some other classes of animals : but by throwing the blood into a curved tube, viz. the aorta, that artery, at its curve, endeavours to throw itself into a straight line, to increase its capacity ; but the aorta being the fixed point against the back, and the heart in some degree loose and pendulous, the influence of its own action is thrown upon itself, and it is tilted forwards against the inside of the chest." s b Manuel d'Anatomie descriptive. Par Jules Cloquet. Paris, 1825. c " Scarpa, Tabulae Neurologicce ad ittust. Hist. Anat. cardiac, nervor. tab. iii. iv. v. vi." d « Ruysch, Thesaur. Anat. iv. tab. iii. fig. 1, 2." c " Brandis has proposed an ingenious hypothesis to explain the use of so great an apparatus of coronary vessels. Versuch iiber die Lebenskraft, p. 84." f " Consult Ant. Portal, Memoires sur la Nature $ le Traitement Maladies, t. ii. 1800. p. 281." 8 Treatise on the Blood, &c., by John Hunter, p. 146. Note. Dr. Barclay has the following passage on this point : — 172 THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. Though this is generally allowed, Haller remarks that in the frog also, which has a straight aorta, the apex of the heart moves forwards during the contraction11; and, in opposition to Blumen- bach's explanation, some say that while the heart of a dog, rabbit, &c., continues to palpitate, after being extracted from the chest, the apex is lifted up at each contraction of the empty ventricles.' The occurrence is ascribable likewise, in some measure, to the distension of the auricles ; for Haller found the apex give the usual stroke at the nipple, on his distending the left auricle with airk, and Senac1 has shown a similar influence from the right auricle also. When the ventricles are contracting, no blood can leave the auricles, which must, therefore, become distended by its accumulation. It is equally evident, that, when the ventricles dilate again, the blood must rush into them from the auricles. These considerations show, without experiment, that the auri- cles and ventricles are always in opposite states, — that, when the ventricles are in systole, the auricles are in diastole, and vice versa. On applying the ear or a stethoscope to the region of the heart, two successive sounds may be distinctly perceived. At the mo- ment of the stroke of the heart against the ribs (which stroke may be felt more strongly if the person lies on the left side), and " When the blood is forced into the arteries, their curvatures, near where they issue from the ventricles, are from their distension lengthened and extended to- wards straight lines ; and, causing the heart to participate in their motions, com- pel it to describe the segment of a circle, when the apex moving atlantad and sinistrad, is made to strike against the left side. The same kind of motion hav- ing also been observed by the celebrated Haller, in distending the left or sys- temic auricle, it must follow, that the stroke which is given to the side, may be the effect of two distinct causes, either acting separately, or in combination : but acting on a heart obliquely situated, as ours is, in the cavity of the thorax, where the aspect of the base is atlantad and dextrad, and that of the apex sinistrad and sacrad. In combination, as the first of the two, by removing the pressure, will facilitate the influx of the venous blood into the left or systemic auricle, which is situated dorsad ; so the second, by the influx of blood into the auricle, will con- tribute in its turn to facilitate the circular motion of the heart, proceeding from the arteries." The Muscular Motions of the Human Body, p. 567. h El. PhysioL t. i. p. 394. 1 Professor Mayo, Outlines of Human Physiology. 1827. p. 68. Dr. Hope, &c. k 1. c. ibid, where he refers to Senac and Ferrein. 1 Traite du Cocur, p. 357. THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. 173 at the moment of the pulse of the arteries, at least of those nearest the* heart, is heard a dull sound ; and immediately after- wards, without any interval, a clearer sound, similar to the noise of a valve or to the licking of a dog. The first sound occupies about | of the whole time; the second sound £ or ^, and then a pause occurs of about another J. This is termed the rhythm of the heart's action.™ The sounds of the heart are ordinarily heard in health between the cartilages of the fourth and seventh left ribs, and under the inferior part of the sternum ; those of the left side of the heart in the former situation, and those of the right in the latter. The first sound is usually loudest at the lower part of the heart's region; the second, at the higher part, in the situation of the auricles. Whatever may be the cause of these sounds, the first occurs at the moment the ventricles contract : for it occurs at the instant the aorta receives blood from the left ventricle; and we know that both ventricles contract simultaneously. We might presume that the second sound occurs at the moment the auricles contract, and that therefore the auricles part with their blood immedi- ately after the action of the ventricles. Again, when we reflect that the moment the ventricles have contracted, they relax, as is proved by our feeling and seeing the walls of the chest instantly recover their position after being forced outwards by the stroke of the heart, and as their relaxation is the production of a cavity for the blood of the auricles, we may hence be certain that the auricles discharge their blood into the ventricles instantly after the ventricles have discharged theirs. In truth, those who open living animals assert that they see the apex of the heart recede from the walls of the chest, and the ventricles expand, instantaneously after their contraction, and that, at this moment of expansion, the blood rushes into them from the auricles, and a retractile motion of the auricles occurs most observable at the sinus." It requires no vivisection to show that this must be the case. m See the lamented Dr. Laennec's immortal Work, Traite de V Auscultation Mediate, et des Maladies des Poumons et du Cceur. (Edit. 1. 1819.) Edit. 3. The force and extent of the sounds and shock, and the rhythm of the heart's action, are variously altered in disease, and other sounds superadded, resembling that of a bellows, a file, a saw, a drum, a dove, &c. , all highly interesting to a phi- losophic mind, and indispensable to be known to all practitioners but empirics. n Dr. Hope's Treatise on the Diseases of the Heart and Great Vessels, London, 1832. p. 40. N 174? THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. Dr. Whytt, and all old writers, declare, that, on opening living animals, they saw the auricles (that is, the appendix of the auricles) contract the first ; and this is the modern experience of many. I have seen this in an ass stupified with prussic acid, opened by the desire of Dr. Hope. But in the same ass I re- peatedly saw the appendices of the auricles contract many times to one contraction of the ventricles, resembling the tongue in the act of lapping, and repeatedly saw them contract after the ventricles. Whytt, though in experimenting upon a frog he saw the contraction of the auricle regularly precede that of the ven- tricle, says that the auricle continued to beat long after the ventricle had ceased : in an experiment upon a rabbit by Dr. Stevens, presently to be mentioned, it contracted for nearly three hours, though the ventricle was almost motionless. Sir B. Brodie, in all his experiments on dogs, rabbits, &c. never saw " any regular systole of the auricles corresponding to, and alternating with, that of the ventricles, and often used to observe several slight contractions of the auricle, especially of the appendix of the auricle, for one of the ventricle."0 The contraction of the appendices of the auricles is allowed to be very slight?, and can hardly have much share in the circu- lation. The sinuses are always charged with blood, as reservoirs, and the appendices are probably intended only to enlarge the space by yielding under congestion. The contraction of the appendices is perhaps partly to prevent the blood from coagu- lating in them, as it might do, from their being blind pouches, were it not continually expelled. The sinuses of the auricles must part with some of their blood whenever the ventricles ex- pand ; and this period, — the moment after the contraction of the ventricles, — is the period at which the systole of the auricles must occur. When the ventricles are nearly filled, and still more when con- tracting, the blood must accumulate in the auricles, and the stop- page be felt even in the large veins ; for which reason, just before, or rather at, the moment of the systole of the ventricles, we some- times see the jugulars swells Some have adduced the swelling of the jugulars before the stroke of the heart, as a proof that the auricles contract before the ventricles ; but I have always found Dr. Hope's work, p. 37. sq. P Dr. Hope, 1. c. p. 39. * See my Lumleyan Lectures on the recent Improvements in the Art of distin- guishing the various Diseases of the Heart, p. 1 6. folio, with copperplates. London, 1830. THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. 1*75 it occur at the same moment with their stroke r; and the impos- sibility of passage into the ventricle explains the fact. Indeed, not only, according to my experience, does the swelling of the jugulars occur after the moment assigned by these writers to the contraction of the auricles, but, as, at the moment the auricles lose their blood, the ventricles are relaxed or expanding, there can be no reason for the blood moving at all backwards when the auricles contract. The object of the appendix of each auricle usually contract- ing later than the sinus, that is, just before the ventricle, if it really does, is probably, by pouring its blood into the sinus which has just parted with much of its own to the ventricle, and by lessening the space for the blood streaming to the auricles from the veins, to bring the distension of the ventricle, which is already in diastole, to the highest pitch ; or, if the expansion of the ventricle is spontaneous, to thus cause it to be supplied with blood in proportion to its expansion. Many hypotheses have been invented to explain the two sounds; and the periods of the action of the auricles and ventricles relative to each other and to the arterial pulse been strangely misrepre- sented. But Laennec was right in asserting that the first sound occurs when the ventricles part with their blood, and the second ivhen the auricles part with theirs ; for the first occurs when the heart strikes against the ribs and the aorta receives a fresh quantity of blood from the heart, and the second, when the ventricles expand and the blood must rush from the auricles : the first is loudest in the ventricular region, the second in the auricular : and, when the appendices of the auricles were contracting with all sorts of irregularity, — with no relation to the contraction of the ventricles in the ass, T heard, by means of the stethoscope, the two usual sounds occur with the greatest regularity. We may therefore presume that the first arises from the rush of blood from the ventricles, and the second from the rush of blood from the sinuses of the auricles. " The impulse imparted by the heart to the blood is com- municated to the arteries, so that every systole of the heart is very clearly manifested in those arteries which can be explored by the fingers and exceed -J of an inch in the diameter of their r I have at this time a patient whose external jugulars are enormously dis- tended, and immediately above the clavicles, the most frequent spot, their puls- ation may be seen and felt exactly synchronous with the radial pulse. N 2 176 THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. canal, and in those also whose pulsation can be otherwise dis- covered, as in the eye and ear. The effect upon the arteries has been called their diastole, and is perfectly correspondent and synchronous with the systole of the heart," in vessels not distant from it ; but, in distant arteries, the pulse has long been ob- served sometimes a very little later than the systole of the heart. If an artery of tolerable size is divided, the blood escapes in jerks ; if of smaller dimensions, it flows continuously, but is pro- jected further at the moment of the pulse ; and if the artery is very small, it flows in an uniform stream. " The quickness of the heart's pulsations during health varies indefinitely; chiefly from age, but also from other conditions which at all ages form the peculiar constitution of an individual, so that we can lay down no rule on this point. I may, however, be permitted to mention the varieties which I have generally found in our climate8 at different ages, beginning with the new-born infant, in which, while placidly sleeping, it is about 140 in a minute. Towards the end of the first year, about 124? second year 110 . third and fourth year - 96 When the first teeth begin to drop out 86 At puberty about - 80 At manhood about - - 75 About sixty - 60 " In those more advanced, I have scarcely twice found it alike." Like many others, I have counted it distinctly before birth, by applying the stethoscope to one side of the mother's abdomen. My observations have been made near the end of pregnancy, and I have counted 128 pulsations in a minute, while the mother's pulse was but about 80. " The pulse is, caeteris paribus, more frequent in women than in men, and in short than in tall persons. A more constant fact, however, is its greater slowness in the inhabitants of cold climates. l " Its greater frequency after meals and the discharge of semen, during continued watchfulness, exercise, or mental excitement, is universally known." 8 " My observations differ but little from those made by W. Heberden in England, Med. Trans, vol. ii. p. 21. sq." * " J. H. Schonheyder, De Resolutions el Impotentia motus Muscularis. Hafn. 1768. p. 15. With which work compare the observations of F. Gabr. Sulzer, Naturgesch. des Hamsters, p. 169." THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. 177 It is commonly believed that the pulse [of every person is quicker in the evening than in the morning, and some have sup- posed an increase of quickness also at noon. Upon these suppo- sitions Dr. Cullen builds his explanation of the noon and evening paroxysms of hectic feveru, as others had theirs of the evening ex- acerbations of all fevers v, regarding them as merely aggravations of natural exacerbations. The existence of the noon paroxysms is doubtful, and the evening one cannot be so explained, if Dr.R. Knox is correct w, though he is opposed to Haller, &c. His ob- servations make the pulse to be slower in the evening, and quicker in the morning. Dr. Heberden saw a woman fifty years of age, who had always an intermitting pulse, yet an able anatomist could discover nothing unusual after death ; and two persons whose pulse was always irregular in strength and frequency when they were well, and be- came quite regular when they were ill.* " The heart rather than the arteries is to be regarded as the source of these varieties, which we have, therefore, detailed here. " Its action continues in this manner till death, and then all its parts do not at once cease to act; but the right portion, for a short period, survives the left, y " For, since the collapsed state of the lungs after the last ex- piration impedes the course of the blood from the right side, and the veins must be turgid with the blood just driven into them from the arteries, it cannot but happen that this blood, driving against the right auricle, must excite it to resistance for some time after the death of the left portion of the heart. " This congestion on the right side of the heart, during the agony of death, affords an explanation of the small quantity of blood found in the large branches of the aorta. u Practice of Physic. v Haller, El. Physiol. t. ii. p. 263. w Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal. 1815. x Transactions of the Cottege of Physicians. London, vol. ii. p. 31. Similar cases are mentioned by Shenkius, De Haen, Monro, Rasori, and Andral. y " Stenonis, Act. Hafniens. t. ii. p. 142. Sometimes, though rarely, it happens that the right portion of the heart, oppressed with too much blood, becomes, contrarily to what usually takes place, paralysed before the left. This I have more than once observed on opening living mammalia, particularly rabbits." N 3 178 THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. " Weiss2, and after him Sabatiera, ascribe to this cause like- wise the comparatively larger sizeb of the right auricle and ven- tricle after death, especially in the adult subject. " The motion of the blood is performed by these two orders of vessels in conjunction with the heart. Its celerity in health cannot be determined ; for this varies not only in different per- sons, but in different parts of the same person. " Generally, the blood moves more slowly in the veins than in the arteries, and in the small vessels than in the large trunks, although these differences have been overrated by physiologists. " The mean velocity of the blood flowing into the aorta is usually estimated at eight inches for each pulsation, or about fifty feet in a minute. " Some have affirmed that the globules of the cruor move more in the axes of the vessels, and with greater rapidity, than the other constituents of the blood. I know not whether this rests upon any satisfactory experiment, or upon an improper applica- tion of the laws of hydraulics ; improper, because it is absurd to refer the motion of the blood through living canals to the mere mechanical laws of water moving in an hydraulic machine. I have never been able to observe this peculiarity of the globules. " My persuasion is still more certain that the globules pass on with the other constituents of the blood, and are not rotated around their own axis; — that besides the progressive, there is no intestine motion in the blood, although indeed there can be no doubt that the elements of this fluid are occasionally divided, — where they are variously impelled, according to the different di- rection, division, and anastomoses of the vessels. " The moving potvers of the sanguiferous system are now to be examined: first, those of the heart, by far the greatest of all; afterwards, those which are only subsidiary, though indeed highly useful. " That the powers of the heart cannot be accurately calculated is clear, upon reflecting that neither the volume of blood pro- jected at each pulsation, nor the celerity nor distance of its z " J. N. Weiss, De Dextro Cordis Ventriculo POST MORTEM ampliori. Altorf, 1767. 4to." a " Ant. Chaum. Sabatier, E. in vim Animdibus Ventriculorum Cordis eadem Capacitas. Paris, 1772. 4to." b " Sam. Aurivilius, De Vasorum Pulmonal. % Cavitat. Cordis inequdi AmpH- tudine. Getting. 1750. 4to." THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. 179 projection, much less the obstacles to the powers of the heart, can be accurately determined, &c. " A rough calculation may be made by taking every probable conjecture together : v. c., if the mean mass of the blood is con- sidered as 10 pounds, or 120 ounces; the pulsations 75 in a minute, or 4500 in an hour ; and the quantity of blood expelled from the left ventricle at each contraction, as 2 ounces ; it follows that all the blood must pass through the heart 75 times every hour. " The impetus of the blood passing from the heart may be conceived by the violence and altitude of the stream projected from a large wounded artery situated near it. I have seen the blood driven at first to the distance of above five feet from the carotid of an adult and robust man.0 " This wonderful, and, while life remains, constant, strength of the heart, is universally allowed to depend upon its irritability, in which it very far surpasses, especially as to duration^, every other muscular part.6 " That the parietes of the cavities are excited to contraction by the stimulus of the blood, is proved by the experiment of Haller, who lengthened, at pleasure, the motion of either side of the heart, by affording it the stimulus of the blood for a longer period than the other." f c " The experiments of Hales, in which the blood was received into very long glass tubes fixed to the arteries of living animals, and the length of its projection measured, are indeed beautiful, like every thing done by this philosopher, who was calculated by nature for such enquiries. But, if the force of the heart is to be estimated in this way, we must take into account the pressure of the column of blood contained in the tube and gravitating upon the left ventricle. " The result of Hales's calculations was, that, the blood being projected from the human carotid to the height of seven feet and a half, and the surface of the left ventricle being fifteen square inches, a column of blood, weighing 51 -5 Ibs. was incumbent upon the ventricle, and overcome by its systole. Statical JEssays, vol. ii. p. 40. London, 1733. 8vo." d " Thus, to say nothing of the phenomena so frequently observed in the cold- blooded amphibia and fishes, I lately found the heart of the chick to beat for twelve hours, in an egg, on the fourth day of incubation." e " Consult Fontana, who treats of this prerogative of the heart minutely in his Ricerche sopra la Fisica animate, and limits it too much. Haller answered him in the Literary Index of Gottingen." f " See Haller on the motion of the heart from stimulus. Comment. Soc. Scient. Gottingens. torn. i. G. E. Remus, Experimenta circa circulat. sanguin, instituta. Gotting. 17£ 4to. p. 14." N 4 180 THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. The heart, however, of frogs, for instance, contracts and relaxes alternately, for a length of time, when out of the body and des- titute of blood. Sir B. Brodie divided the great vessels in rabbits, and found the action of the heart " apparently unaltered, for at least two minutes after that viscus and the great blood-vessels were empty of blood." s But the quantity of blood greatly influences the action of the heart. " Since a supply of nerves and blood is requisite to the action of the voluntary muscles, it has been enquired whether these, both or either, are requisite to the heart also. h " The great influence of the nerves over the heart, is demon- strated by the size of the cardiac nerves, and by the great sym- pathy between the heart and most functions, however different. A convincing proof of this is, the momentary sympathy of the heart during the most perfect health l with all the passions, and with the primes vice in various disorders. " The great importance of the blood to the irritability of the heart is evident from the great abundance of vessels in its mus- cular substance. " Besides these powers of the heart, there is another which is mechanical, dependent on structure, and contributing greatly, in all probability, to sustain the circulation. For, when the blood is expelled from the contracted cavities, a vacuum takes place, into which, according to the common laws of derivation, the blood from the venous trunks must rush, being prevented, by means of the valves, from regurgitating." k e Dr. Cooke, A Treatise on Nervous Diseases, vol. i. p. 63. h " On this dispute consult v. c. R. Forsten, Question, select. Pkysiol. Lugd. Bat. 1774. 4to. J. B. J. Behrends, Dissert, qua demonstratur Cor Nervis carere, Mogunt. 1792. 4to. And on the other side, J. Munniks, Observations varies. Groning. 1805. 4to. Lucae, Obs. circa Nervos Arterias adeuntes. Francof. 1810. p. 37. tab. ii." 1 " And how much more so when the heart is diseased, is shown v. c. in Caleb Hillier Parry's Inquiry into the Symptoms and Causes of the SYNCOPE ANGINOSA, commonly called ANGINA PECTORIS. Bath, 1799. p. 114." k " Andr. Wilson, Inquiry into the moving Powers employed in the Circulation of the Blood. Lond. 1784. 8vo. p. 35. sq. And at great length in J. Carson's Inquiry into the Causes of the Motion of tfte Blood. Ibid. 1815. 8vo." Second edition, 1833, THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. 181 The influence of a vacuum, pointed out by Rudiger1, enlarged upon by Dr. Andrew Wilson, and mentioned as probable by Hallerm, John Hunter0, &c., has been very ably displayed by Dr. Carson of Liverpool. The quantity of the blood, the length of its course, and the various obstacles opposed to its progress, render, in his opinion, the mere propulsive power of the heart insufficient to maintain the circulation perpetually. But assistance must be given by the vacuum which takes place in all the cavities of the organ, when the contraction of the muscular fibres is over. The blood is thus drawn into each relaxed cavity, and the heart performs the double office of a forcing and a suction pump. The situation of the valves of the heart is thus explained. There are valves at the mouths of the two great arteries, because behind each of these openings is a cavity of the heart, alternately dilating and affording a va- cuum, into which, were there no valves, the blood would be drawn retrograde. There are valves between the auricles and ventricles, because the contraction of the ventricles tends to impel the blood back into the auricles, as well as into the pulmonary artery and aorta. At the venous openings of the auricles no valves exist, because they do not open from a part ever experiencing a va- cuum and the blood does not appear to leave the sinuses of the auricles so much by their contraction, which would impel it in all directions, like the ventricles, as by the vacuum offered it in the dilated ventricle ; and therefore the blood of the auricles will not move retrograde, but will necessarily pass forwards into the ventricles, which are offering a vacuum. The inferior elasticity and irritability of the veins are also explained. If veins were capable 1 Quoted by Haller, El. Physiol. t. ii. lib. vi. p. 325. m His words are — " Sanguinem in auriculam dextram, tanquam in vacuum cas- tellum approperare, ne id quidem videtur absque specie veri dici." 1. c. An idea of the same kind appears to have been entertained before the time of Rudiger, whose work, De Regressu Sanguinis per Venas mechanico, was published at Leipsig in 1 704. For in Pecquet's Experimenta nova Anatomica, published in 1 651, argu- ments are adduced against those who conceived that the diastole sucked the blood towards the heart, (" num, ut quibusdam placuit, ATTRAHENDO pelliciat EXUGATVE, investigandum." Chap. vii. sqq.) At that time suction was not generally known to be merely a means of removing or diminishing the resistance to the pressure of air, but supposed to be an occult principle. He details experiments to show its true nature, but urges nothing against suction in the proper acceptation of the term, and his adversaries were right in their fact, though ignorant of its true nature. n A Treatise on the Blood, &c. p. 185. 182 THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. of contracting equally with arteries, on the diminution of their contents, the suction influence of the heart would constantly re- duce their cavities to a smaller capacity than is compatible with their functions. The collapse of the veins by pressure, during the suction of the heart, is prevented by the fresh supply of blood afforded by the vis a tergo, which does exist, although it is not considered by him as of itself adequate to convey the blood back to the right auricle. All allow that when the heart is relaxed its cavities enlarge, though some ascribe this to its elasticity, and others regard it as a necessary consequence of the arrangement of its fibres. Ex- periment proves the same. Dr. Carson extracted the hearts of some frogs, and immediately put them into water, blood-warm. They were thrown into violent action, and, upon some occasions, projected a small stream of a bloody colour through the trans- parent fluid. The water could not have been projected unless previously imbibed. It was thought that a stream of the same kind continued to be projected at every succeeding contraction; but that, after the first or second, it ceased to be observable, in consequence of the liquid supposed to be imbibed and projected losing its bloody tinge and becoming transparent, or of the same colour with the fluid in which the heart was immersed. The organ was felt to expand forcibly during relaxation, — a fact stated long ago by Pechlin0, and subsequently by many others. Indeed, some consider the expansion of the heart as a change equally active with its contraction : conceiving, perhaps, that different fibres may act alternately, and produce expansion and contraction, just as the tongue may be retracted and protruded, and the iris lessened or enlarged. Dr. Carson accounts, however, for the full dilatation of the heart upon another principle, upon the consideration of which it will be impossible to enter before the next section, where the subject will therefore be prosecuted. " We must now enquire what powers are exerted by other organs in assisting the circulation. The existence of some secondary powers, and their ability to assist, or even in some cases to compensate for, the action of the heart, are proved by several arguments : v. c. the blood moves, according to many persons," in some parts to which the influence of the heart cannot reach, 0 De Corde. THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD. 183 — in the vena portae and placenta; not to mention instances of the absence of the heart. P " The principal of these powers is the function of the arteries, not easy indeed to be clearly understood and demonstrated. 1. It is well known, that they have a peculiar coat, which is all but muscular. 2. That they are irritable, has been proved by re- peated experiments. &c. t. f. P. i. and ii." P " Consult, besides, Priestley and others, especially C.H.Peaff, ib. t. iv. P. ii." 1 " To discover how frequently an animal could breathe the same portion of the different kinds of air that we have mentioned, I took three dogs equal in size and strength, and to the trachea of the first, by means of a tube, I tied a bladder, containing about 20 cubic inches of oxygen gas. He died in 40 minutes. For the second, the bladder was filled with atmospheric air. He died in six minutes. For the third, I employed the carbonised air last expired by the second dog. He died in four minutes. The air of the bladder, upon subsequent examination, gave the common signs of carbonic acid gas. The instruments which I employed are described and illustrated by a plate in the Medic. Biblioth. vol. i. p. 174. sq. tab. 1." T " J. A. De Luc, Idees sur la Me'teorologie, torn. ii. pp. 67. 229." RESPIRATION. 217 the lungs, trachea, throat, and mouth, may be about 20 oz. in 24- hours. s It is probably derived from the chyle, and by the sepa- ration of so much water, the weak and delicate albumen of the chyle is converted into the strong and perfect albumen of the blood, t " There is, consequently, no doubt that the carbonic acid of the expired air is derived from the venous blood carried to the lungs from the right side of the heart. u But it has been of late dis- puted, whether the inspired oxygen goes wholly to form carbonic acid in the bronchial cells v, or whether it is in part united with the arterial blood and distributed through the arterial system. x Many weighty arguments seem to favour the latter opinion, as well as the phenomena of both kinds of blood in the living body y, compared with the changes which this fluid experiences when ex- posed to these two kinds of air/' After much uncertainty, it was thought ascertained by the ex- periments of Messrs. Allen and Pepys that no oxygen is ab- sorbed in ordinary respiration, but that what disappears goes entirely to unite with the carbon of the blood and produce car- bonic acid, the latter being exactly equal in bulk to the oxygen which disappears, — about 27^- cubic inches per minute, or 39,534? in twenty-four hours, according to the experiments of these gentlemen, — a quantity containing about 11 oz. troy of solid carbon, more than equal to the carbon contained in 6 Ibs. of beef z, and, perhaps, about double the average result of most other experiments. 8 See Hales. See also chapter on Perspiration. * Dr. Prout, 1. c. p. 525. u " Rob. Menzies, De Respiratione. Edinb. 1790. 8vo. H. G. Rouppe, on the same subject. Lugd. Batav. 1791. 4to. J. Bostock, Versuch iiber das Athemhden. iibers. von A. F.Nolde. Erf. 1809. 8vo." v « W. Allen and W. H. Pepys, Phil. Trans. 1808, p. 249. and 1809, p. 404. But how various the quantity of carbonic acid gas expired is, at different times of the day, and under different circumstances, is shown by the experiments of W. Prout, in Thomson's Annals of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 328." x " Nasse, in J. F. Meckel's Archiv.fiir die Physiol. vol. ii. p. 200. And G. Wedmeyer, Physiologische Untersuchungen iiber das Nervensystem und die Respiration. Hanov. 1817. 8vo. p. 175." y " J. Andr. Scherer, Beweis, dass J. Mayow vor 100 Jahren den Grund zur antiphlogistischen Chemie und Physiologic gelegt hat, p, 104. Edm. Goodwyn, Connexion of Life with Respiration. Lond. 17&8. Svo. J. Hunter, On the Blood, p. 68. J. A. Albers, Beytragen zur Anat. und Physiol. der Thiere, P. 1. p. 1O8." z Dr. Prout, 1. c. p. 526. 218 RESPIRATION. But Dr. Edwards has since shown that, however correct were these results, it was erroneous to generalise from them; that more oxygen is continually consumed by brutes than goes to the form- ation of carbonic acid ; and that this excess varies from above \ of the volume of the latter to almost nothing.* The variation de- pends not only upon the species, but upon the developement re- lative to the age, and upon individual differences in adults. He therefore finds that the bulk of the air is not unaffected by respiration, but that generally a diminution takes place. Dr. Le Gallois b and Dr. Delaroche c also found that oxygen disappeared in greater quantity than carbonic acid was formed. Allen and Pepys observed that, if the same air was breathed repeatedly, some oxygen was absorbed and some azote discharged, and that, if nearly pure oxygen was employed in the case of guinea-pigs, carbonic acid was produced and a portion of the oxy- gen replaced by azote, this portion decreasing, however, as the experiment proceeded. Dr. Edwards ascertained that respiration causes sometimes an increase of azote, sometimes a diminution, and sometimes no im- portant difference in its quantity. He thinks that it is always being absorbed and discharged, and that the proportion of these pro- cesses differs under different circumstances. Its discharge exceeds at all times in very young animals, as seen in guinea-pigs ; and in spring and summer; while its absorption exceeds in autumn and winter, as far as his experiments upon adult sparrows and yellow- hammers go; though occasional exceptions occurred from unappre- ciated circumstances, powerful enough to overbalance the effect of season. d The difference in the proportion of the inspired and expired azote never equalled the greatest differences observed between the oxygen which disappeared and the carbonic acid formed. Cold-blooded quadrupeds were shown by Spallanzani e to absorb azote, and fish by Humboldt and Provencal. f Sir Humphry Davy had already ascertained the absorption of azote in his own person. Dr. Edwards's reasons for believing azote to be constantly both absorbed and discharged are : — a De V Influence des Agens Physiques sur la Vie. Paris, 1824. p. 410. sqq. b Annales de Chimie et Physique, t. iv. p. 115. sq. e Journal de Physique, t. 77. d 1. c. p. 420. sqq. 461. sqq. e Memoires sur la Respiration, pp. 184. 258. f Mtmoires d 'Arcueil, t. ii. RESPIRATION. 219 1. That if an animal is made to breathe oxygen mixed with ^ of azote, azote is discharged in abundance, as was found by Allen and Pepys, so that, when there is little or no azote to be absorbed, its exhalation at once shows itself; and we may conclude that in common respiration its exhalation may be as great, but not ob- servable, because nearly an equal quantity is absorbed : 2. When a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen was employed by those chemists, and pure hydrogen by Dr. Edwards, not only was a large quantity (much exceeding the bulk of the animal) given out, but a considerable quantity of hydrogen was absorbed, in Dr. Edwards's experiment equal to the azote given oute, proving that exhalation and absorption can proceed together : and he asks why, if hydrogen is absorbed, not much more so azote, which is more fit for respiration and the support of life ? and concludes that its absorption may be as great in common respiration, but not observable because a nearly equal quantity is discharged. h Carbonic acid itself is shown by Spallanzani and Dr. Edwards » to be exhaled from the lungs independently of the operation of oxygen ; when snails, frogs, fish, or very young kittens, are im- mersed in hydrogen. It is satisfactory that Messrs. Allen and Pepys were induced, without any knowledge of Dr. Edwards's researches, to repeat their enquiries, and their results no longer disagree with those of Dr. Edwards. On making birds breathe in atmospheric air, they still found the loss of oxygen equal to the addition of carbonic acid, and the nitrogen unchanged; if in air with an excess of oxygen, a quantity was absorbed beyond what was replaced by carbonic acid, and in its room appeared an equal quantity of nitrogen ; if in a mixture of oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, the oxygen being in the same proportion as in atmo- spheric air, there was no loss of oxygen, but of hydrogen, which was exactly replaced by nitrogen. k Mr. Ellis1 contends that the carbon is excreted by^the pulmo- nary vessels, and unites with the oxygen externally, and Dr. Prout thought this opinion corroborated by the factm, — that, when phosphorus dissolved in oil is injected into the blood-vessels, e 1. c. p. 462. h 1. c. 429. sqq. 1 1. c. p. 437. sqq. k PhU. Tran*. 1829. 1 An Enquiry into the Changes induced in Atmospheric Air. 1807. Further Enquiries, $c. 1816 01 Dr. Orfila, Toxicologie Generate, t. i. p. 531. sq. Dr. Magendie had pre- viously found the same result in injecting the solution into the pleura.— ~ sur la Transpiration, p. 1 9. 220 RESPIRATION. vapours of phosphorous acid stream from the mouth and nostrils, — what would hardly have occurred if the acid had been formed in the vessels, as it would probably have remained in solution in the blood, not being volatile. The phosphorus was probably excreted from the vessels in minute subdivision, and united with the oxygen of the atmosphere upon coming in contact with it, producing phosphorous acid ; and the same may be imagined re- specting the carbonic. n There can be no reason to adopt this hypothesis on account of the supposed difficulty of the air and blood acting upon each other through the vessels, because we saw in p. 149. that they do so, through moistened bladder, out of the body. The well-known secretion and absorption of air in membranes, shown by the existence of air in the air-bladder of fish, the sudden formation of air in the alimentary canal in disease, the absorp- tion of air in emphysema, and the occurrence of emphysema without injury of the lungs ° ; the separation of azote and carbonic acid from the lungs when hydrogen is breathed, and the absorp- tion of azote and of oxygen, in the experiments of Dr. Edwards, prove the possibility of the oxygen being absorbed, and the car- bonic acid secreted. Lavoisier at one time, and La Grange and Hassenfratz long ago, contended that the carbonic acid is generated in the cir- culation, and given off in the lungs, and the oxygen absorbed. Dr. Edwards also argues that, since so much carbonic acid is given out from the blood in the respiration of pure hydrogen, and that, since the quantity given out in hydrogen is as great as is observed in common air, there can be no reason to doubt that, in common air, the carbonic acid proceeds from the same source as in hydrogen, viz. — passes from the blood ; more especially as carbonic acid exists largely in the blood : and that the oxygen, therefore, must pass into the blood. These arguments are, in my mind, irresistible. But whether mere carbon leaves the blood and forms carbonic acid with the oxygen externally to the vessels, as in the former theory, or the oxygen unites with, and the car- bonic acid separates from, the blood, as in the latter, much of the affair would appear chemical, — neither all the carbon nor all the carbonic acid gas to be secreted; because it has long been known, n Dr. Thomson's Annals of Philosophy. 1819. o See a case related by Dr. Bail He, in the Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Medical and Chemical Knowledge , vol. i. RESPIRATION. 221 that, when venous blood is exposed to oxygen out of the body, even although covered by a moistened membrane, it becomes florid, and oxygen disappears and is replaced by carbonic acid. Since the publication of Dr. Edwards's work, numerous facts have been ascertained, which cause his opinions on these points to be generally received, by proving the possibility of the transfer of oxygen to the blood, and of carbonic acid to the air, even on chemical principles. My friend Dr. Stevens discovered that oxygen and carbonic acid attract each other ; so that, if car- bonic acid is placed at the lower part of a tube, and oxygen above, the acid, though heavier, will ascend and the oxygen descend. Nay, if a vessel filled with carbonic acid be com- pletely closed with bladder, the acid will escape and the bladder be forced in ; while, if it be filled with air and placed in car- bonic acid, the latter will pass through and distend the bladder till it nearly bursts. The tendency to diffusion is universally as the square root of the specific gravity. The subject has been prosecuted by Drs. Mitchel and Faust P ; and they have ascer- tained that both living and dead membranes, and even caoutchouc, P American Journ. of the Medical Sciences, No. xiii. 1830. They do not men- tion Dr. Stevens's name, but he had made his observations in the West Indies in 1827 and committed them to paper, and shewn them in England in 1828, in France in 1829, and in America in the summer of 1830, when he mentioned them to the very editor of the Journal of Medical Sciences, who took part in Dr. Mitchel's experiments, which were soon afterwards begun and published before the end of the year. In 1833, also, M. Saigay published (in the Annales des Sc. d'Observat. t. iii. p. 452.) an explanation of the interchange of gases through fluids and porous substances; that each gas maintains an equilibrium outside and inside; so that, when there is less without, it passes forth ; and, when more with- out, it passes in. In this way M. Raspail conceives that the appearance and dis- appearance of all the various gases in respiration, under different circumstances, may be accounted for. (1. c. p. 258. ) There must be, however, a relation be- tween different gases, or nitrogen would be exchanged, as well as oxygen, for carbonic acid, in ordinary respiration. M. Dutrochet stated that, if a dense fluid is enclosed in an animal membrane, it attracts a thin fluid placed around the exterior. The passage of the external fluid he called endosmose. If the dense fluid is placed externally, and the thin inside, then the thin fluid passes outwards. This passage he termed exosmose. M. Raspail soon adduced exceptions to this, and showed that the phenomena were merely those of ordinary imbibition : that, if the fluid on one side was of a kind to pass through membrane, and the fluid on the other was not, and the two were of a kind to unite, then the one fluid of course soaked into the membrane and, having soaked into it, united with the other fluid, as soon as the other side of the membrane was reached ; and more followed in its place. (1. c .p. 80* sqq.) Q 222 RESPIRATION. as well as water and other liquids, are freely permeable to the different gases. They have also discovered that gases pass through with different rapidity : carbonic acid, for instance, very quickly ; nitrogen, very slowly : whence the different state of the bladder just mentioned, accordingly as carbonic acid is introduced into the vessel in common air, or common air intro- duced into the vessel in carbonic acid. The appearance of car- bonic acid outside a bladder tied over a vessel of venous blood or water impregnated with carbonic acid, and the disappearance at the same time of a portion of the oxygen outside the bladder tied over venous blood, is no less than what occurs to the blood of the lungs in respiration, and the blood in both cases becomes florid. The lungs thus seem to serve the purpose, in this respect, of merely exposing an immense surface of blood to the air. Blood could not be so near the air on the exterior of the body without constant injury of the innumerable delicate vessels, nor could the vascular surface be preserved in a moist state, which is neces- sary to the permeability of those vessels. Besides which, suc- cession of air to each point could not be secured. The Creator has therefore wonderfully provided an immense surface within, of the very finest texture, secure from external injury and supplied with constant moisture, and continually exposed not only to the external air, but to successive draughts of it. The changes of the blood in respiration are therefore purely chemical, and just the same as occur to venous blood out of the body, in contact with air or separated from it by merely a moistened bladder, and are detailed at page 149. Oxygen unites with the blood ; carbonic acid proportionately escapes. The blood, thus liberated from the cause of its blackness, re-acquires the florid hue occasioned by its salts, but which are not naturally in sufficient quantity to brighten it when much carbonic acid is present. Dr. Crawford observed that less carbonic acid was evolved in proportion to the height of the temperature n> therefore, albuminous substances very extensively support a reducing process, lose their carbon, to become gelatinous, and as this process must occur in . the minutest vessels, their blood is charged with carbon, which, how- ever, instantly finds oxygen (probably in solution in the water of the blood), and unites with it into carbonic acid.1 It is thus that respiration assists assimilation, and not by discharging carbon from the chyle, as many have imagined. They forget that more carbonic acid is not found after every meal, nor less during fast- ing, till this proceeds to the length of debility : and that many animals sleep after feeding, yet in sleep less is produced. Some suppose that respiration is very instrumental in prevent- i ng the putrefaction of the living body ; and this by carrying off its carbon, — the substance which, in the spontaneous decomposi- tion of animals, is the first rejected, and unites with the oxygen? of the atmosphere ; and, indeed, Spallanzani found, that the dead h 1. c. P. 1. c. i. sect. 2. ' Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 519. 524. sq. 535. sq* RESPIRATION. 227 bodies of animals deoxidated the air after death, and often as much as during life, before decomposition was perceptible.k He says also, that torpid animals, whose respiration had entirely ceased, also carbonated it. As the latter fact cannot be ascribed to the separation of carbon in the lungs, nor to the mere chemical changes of decomposition, it probably arises from the functions of the skin. The delicate surface of the lungs, and, indeed, of the whole air- passages, is a great source of absorption from without, as well as of impressions from gaseous and imponderable substances. Many poi- sons affect the system by its means. It is also a great organ of elimi- nation. Camphor, phosphorus, ether, diluted alcohol, gases, and va- rious odorous substances, when introduced into the system, escape in a great measure by the lungs : whence they are perceived in the breath, and, perhaps for some time, long after they have left the stomach. Dr. G. Breschet and Dr. Milne Edwards, conceiv- ing that in the dilatation of the lungs by inspiration, the enlarged space would cause not only the air to rush in, but the exhalation from the surface of the air-cells and pleura to increase and ex- ceed that from other parts, have made several experiments which prove this to be the case. On injecting a small quantity of oil of turpentine into the crural vein, the breath instantly smelt strongly of it, and the pleura on being cut open did the same ; while no odour of it arose on exposing the peritonaeum. If a larger quan- tity was employed, it impregnated every part. If, instead of na- tural respiration, artificial was instituted, in which the air does not enter the lungs by the formation of a vacuum on the expan- sion of the chest, but is forced into them and itself expands the chest, no more exhalation of odorous substances took place from the lungs than from other parts; and, indeed, if a cupping-glass was applied over another denuded part, the odorous substance was given out there, while the lungs afforded no sign of it.1 " The perpetual change of elements occurring in respiration after birth, we shall show to be very differently accomplished in the foetus, viz. by means of the connection of the gravid uterus with the placenta. " But, when the child is born and capable of volition, the congestion of blood that takes place in the aorta, from the ob- struction in the umbilical arteries ; the danger of suffocation from k MSm. sur la Respiration. See Dr. Bostock, 1. c. vol. ii. p. 184. sqq. 1 Rfcherches Exptrimentales sur f Exhalation Pulmonaire. Paris, 1826. Q 4 228 RESPIRATION. the cessation of those changes of the blood, in regard to oxygen and carbon, hitherto produced in the uterine placenta ; the novel im- pression of that element into which the child, hitherto an aquatic being, is conveyed; the cooler temperature to which it is now exposed ; and the many new stimuli which are now applied, seem to induce new motions in the body, especially the dilatation of the chest and the first inspiration. " The lungs, being for the first time dilated by inspiration, open a new channel to the blood, so that, being obstructed in the umbilical arteries, it is derived to the chest. " Since the inspired air becomes hurtful and unpleasant to the lungs by the decomposition which it experiences, I should ascribe to the most simple corrective powers of nature, the subsequent motion by which the poisonous mephitis, as it may be called, is expelled and exchanged for a fresh supply. " The consideration of all these circumstances, especially if the importance of respiration to circulation, demonstrated by the well-known experiment of Hooke m, be remembered, will, in my opinion, explain the celebrated problem of Harvey n, better ° than most other attempts of physiologists. P m " It has the epithet Hookian,*because it was most varied by Rob. Hooke. See Th. Sprat, History of the Royal Society. Lond. 1667. 4to. p. 232. But it was before instituted by Vesalius, and very much praised for its beauty. De c. h. Fabrica, p. 284." The experiment consisted in laying the lungs completely bare, and reviving the animal by artificial respiration. Hooke varied it by pricking the surface of the lungs, and forcing a continued stream of air through them. n " Wm. Harvey, De circulat. sanguin. ad J. Riolan. p. 258. Glasgov. 1751. 12mo." These are the words of Harvey : — " It would appear that the use of expir- ation is to purify and ventilate the blood, by separating from it these noxious and fuliginous vapours." We must not, however, forget the words of Servetus, seventy years before, and already quoted at p. 195. — exjriratione Juligine expur- gatur. " And especially his Exerc. de gener. Animalium. p. 263. Lond. 1651. 4 to." 0 " See Theod. C. Aug. Roose, uber das Ersticken neugeborner Kinder, in his Physiologisch. Untersuchungen. Brunsw. 1796. 8vo. J. D. Herholdt, De vita, imprimis feetus Immani, ejusque morte sub partu. Havn. 1802. 8vo." P « Consult, for example, Petr. J. Daoustenc, De Respiratione. Lugd. 1743. 4to. p. 54. sqq. Rob. Whytt, On the Vital and other Involuntary Motions of Animals, p. 222. Edinb. 1751. 8vo," RESPIRATION. 229 Fish and Crustacea purify their blood by the air contained in the water which they draw over their gills. They perish if the water is deprived of air ; and in this case, as well as when the water is aerated but limited in quantity, and whether it is exposed to the air or in close vessels, they perish sooner as the temperature is higher. (Dr. Edwards, 1. c. P. ii. ch. 2.) And the younger and smaller they are, when there is too little air in the water, the more they come to breathe at the surface, and the sooner die if prevented, (p. 118.) Fish die in the air by drying and wasting, (p. 126.) The syren lacertina sindproteus anguina have both gills and lungs. Insects have no lungs, but openings on the surface of the body leading to air-vessels which are distributed in the interior. Dr. M. Hall has shown that, in the lungs of at least the toad, frog, and salamander, the blood-vessels sub- divide into capillaries suddenly, so as to subdivide as much blood as possible, and cause it to present the largest possible surface. (1. c. p. 36. sqq.) All the experiments of naturalists made it appear that no animal could live without oxygen, but M. Biot has asserted that what are called blaps and tenebrions remain in as good a vacuum as can be formed for any length of time without apparent inconvenience. Animals found in many parts of the bodies of others can hardly be thought to have access to gaseous oxygen. In regard to the frequency of respiration in cold-blooded animals, Dr. Stevens incidentally mentions that he observed it no more than three or four times in a minute in an alligator, which he once lield in his hand, and in which it was probably quick from the animal being young and agitated. (1. c. p. 35.) In the light, vegetables produce changes in the air opposite to those produced by animals. They decompose carbonic acid, retain the carbon, and leave the oxygen. It is the green substance of the living leaf which effects the decom- position. In the dark, the leaves absorb oxygen ; a tendency which, indeed, the flowers, roots, and other parts, always have. This oxygen unites with the carbon of the sap ; and, although some of the carbonic acid formed is said to be exhaled, the greater portion combines with the fluids of the sap, and parts with its oxygen again in the leaves when daylight comes. Carbon obtained in the state in which it exists at the moment of its separation from carbonic acid appears the object. While animals, therefore, increase the carbonic acid of the atmosphere and lessen its oxygen, vegetables increase its oxygen and lessen its carbonic acid, at least during the light ; and the functions of vegetables are the most active at that period of the year when the days are much longer than the nights. 230 CHAP. XIII. ANIMAL HEAT. "MAN, other mammalia, and birds, are distinguished from the rest of animals by the natural temperature a of their bodies greatly exceeding that of the medium in which they are accus- tomed to exist. Man is again distinguished from these classes of animals by possessing a much lower temperature than they ; so that in this climate it is about 96° of Fahr., while in them, and especially in birds, it is considerably higher." b But all animals, as far as can be ascertained, and even vege- tables, have a tendency to preserve a temperature more or less distinct from that of the surrounding medium ; yet the difference among them in this respect is so great, that they have been di- vided into warm and cold-blooded. To the former belong the more complicated, those whose pulmonary apparatus is most ela- borate,— man and mammiferous quadrupeds and birds: to the second, oviparous quadrupeds, fish, and most of the invertebrate. Birds have the highest temperature, 107° to 110°; mammiferous quadrupeds, 100° to 101°; man, 96° to 98J°. There is some va- riety, not only in individuals, but according to age, season, and climate. It is less in the young, according to Dr. Edwards and Despretz c : the former states the human temperature in infancy to be 94?£° ; the latter asserts, that, while in birds it is 105° in winter, it is nearly 111° in summer, gradually increasing in spring and decreasing in autumn. In the high temperature to which we a " W. B. Johnson, History of Animal Chemistry, vol. iii. p. 79." b " The torpid state of some animals, during winter, is of course an exception to this. During it most of the functions cease or languish considerably, and the animal heat is reduced nearly to coolness. This well-known circumstance pre- vents me from acceding to the opinion of the very acute J. Hunter, — that the animals which we call warm-blooded should rather be called animals of a per- manent heat under all temperatures. On the Blood, p. 15." c De V Influence des Agens Physiques. Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol. iv. p. 1 85. J. Hunter states that the temperature of the ass is one degree higher in the evening than the morning. - On the Blood, p« 298. ANIMAL HEAT. shall see Dr. Fordyce and his friends were exposed, the temper- ature of the body rose two or three degrees, and Dr. Delaroche, in a vapour-bath at near 120°, found the heat under his tongue increased about five degrees at the end of seventeen minutes. d In sparrows and yellow-hammers, Dr. Edwards found it five or six degrees higher in summer than in winter ; and Dr. Davy one or two degrees higher in Ceylon than in England. e In disease it will fall, and on the other hand rise; in fever it has been noted at 107°, in tetanus at 1100f, and probably, on some occasions, it rises still higher, at least locally. I have myself found it 107° under the tongue, in even acute rheumatism, and seen inflamed parts show this temperature, when the bulb of the thermometer was placed upon them and covered up. When a function is going on vigor- ously, the temperature of the individual part rises: as we observe in the genitals during sexual excitement. Certain parts of some animals are naturally of a lower temperature than the rest, v. c. the dog's nose. Disease will have the same effect. In affections of the stomach, its temperature will fall : so that the patient will not only complain of its coldness, but discharge fluid from it into the mouth that strikes cold immediately. In cancer of the bladder, I once saw a man complain greatly of the constant coldness of his glans penis. In old age it is not so high as in the age of full vigour ; nor in remote parts as in those nearer the heart, s John Hunter made observations on the heat of cold- blooded animals. h The thermometer in the stomach and under the skin of the abdomen of the frog and toad stood at 4-0°, when the atmosphere was 36° ; in the lungs of snails at 35°, 36°, 37°, 38°, when the atmosphere was 28°, 30°, 30°, and 34-° ; the heat of earth-worms was 58|°, when the atmosphere was 56°. Fish are not above two degrees warmer than the water. * Cold- blooded animals placed in an elevated temperature are much more influenced by surrounding media than the warm-blooded. Yet frogs are but at 80° or 82° in a medium of 110° or 115°. k The heat of insects when congregated is considerable : J. Hunter found the thermometer rise to 93° or 98° in a hive of bees in d Exp. sur les effets qitune forte ckaleur produit sur Feconomie. Paris, 1 805» e Edwards, 1. c. p. 489. f Dr. Prevost. See Dr. Edwards, 1. c. p. 490. s Dr. Davy, Phil. Transact., 1814. h 1. c. 298. sqq. 1 Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol. iv. k Dr. De la Roche, Journal de la Physique, t. Ixiii. 232 ANIMAL HEAT. spring ; to 104° in summer ; to be at 82° when the air was at 40° ; arid at 73° in winter. The same tendency in vegetables is shown by the greater dif- ficulty with which the juices in their stems and branches are frozen than lifeless fluids ; by ice thawing when roots shoot into it l ; and by snow upon the leaves or stems of plants thawing sooner than that which lies on surrounding inanimate bodies. J. Hunter observed a branch of growing fir and a bean leaf thaw the part of the surface of a freezing mixture on which it was placed, and the fir subsequently another to which it was removed."1 When the sheath of the arum maculatum and cordifolium is burst- ing, and the cylindrical body just peeping forth, it is said, by Sennebier, to be so hot for some hours as to seem burning n; and twelve of them placed round the bulb of a thermometer to have raised the mercury from 79° to 143°. Even eggs are cooled and frozen with more difficulty than equal masses of inanimate matter ; although, when once frozen and their life destroyed, they freeze readily. ° " This natural temperature in man is so constant, equable P, and perpetual, that, excepting slight differences from variety of constitution, it varies but a few degrees in the coldest climate and under the torrid zone. For the opinion of Boerhaave, — that man cannot live in a temperature exceeding his own, has been refuted, since the admirable observations q of H. Ellis, the celebrated traveller, and formerly the governor of Georgia, by the remarkable experiments r of many excellent physiologists."8 Dr, Fordyce, 1 American Medical and Philosophical Register, vol. iii. p. 19. 1814. m Phil. Trans., 1775. n An Introduction to Physiological and Systematic Botany. By Sir J. E. Smith, M.D. p. 92. 1 J. Hunter, 1. c. p. 79. P " J; B. Van Mons, Journal de Physique, t. Ixviii. 1809, p. 121." i " Philos. Trans, vol. i. p. ii. 1758. Arn. Duntze had previously made the observation in regard to brutes. Expert calorem animalem specfantia. Lugd. Bat. ] 754, 4to. Consult also Benj. Franklin, Experiments and Observations on Electricity. Lond. 1769, 4to. p. 365." T " Duhamel and Tillet, Mtm. de VAcad. des Scienc. de Paris, 1704. Blagden and Dobson, Philos. Trans. 1775." s " The heat of the weather, even in Europe, occasionally exceeds our natural temperature. This was the case on the 3d of August, 1783, at noon, when I was on the Lucerne Alps, in company with the excellent Schnyder of Wartensee. ANIMAL HEAT. 233 one of the most eminent of my predecessors at St. Thomas's Hos- pital, went successively into rooms heated to 90°, 110°, and 120°. In the first temperature he staid five minutes, and sweated gently. In the second, he sweated more profusely, and remained ten minutes. In the third, after remaining twenty minutes, the ther- mometer under the tongue and exposed to the urine was at 100°, the pulse was 145; the veins of the surface were enlarged, and the skin red. He afterwards entered a room heated to 130°, and staid 15 minutes: the thermometer under the tongue, in the hand, and exposed to the urine, was at 100°. Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Charles Blagden, and Dr. Solander, went, subsequently into rooms heated to between 196° and 211°, — about the temperature of boiling water, — and remained several minutes. If they breathed on the thermometer, it sunk several degrees, and every expiration felt cold to the scorched nostrils : the thermo- meter under the tongue was 98°, and the body felt cold to the touch, though at 98°. Sir C. Blagden remained eight minutes in an apartment heated to 260°. The air felt hot, and for seven minutes the breathing was natural, but anxiety and oppression then came on ; the sensible heat of the body varied but little. Dr. Dobson went into a room heated to 224?°, and felt no op- pressive heat, though every metal about him speedily became hot. A bitch of moderate size was subjected to a heat of 220°. In ten minutes the only sign of distress was that of holding out the tongue, and when taken out at the ^end of half an hour, the temperature being at 236°, the bottom of the basket was found wetted with saliva. The thermometer applied to her flank was only 1 10°, f. e. 9° above the natural standard. In these rooms, eggs on a tin plate were roasted hard in twenty minutes ; beef-steaks cooked in thirty-three minutes ; and, if the air was impelled upon them in a stream, they were cooked dry in about thirteen minutes. Tillet and Duhamel relate that the young female servant of a baker at Rochefoucault went habitually into ovens heated to 276°, and remained without great inconvenience for twelve minutes, taking care not to touch the oven. These gentlemen themselves bore a heat of 290° for nearly five minutes. Dr. Delaroche and The thermometer in the shade stood above 100° Fahr., and, when applied to the body, invariably sunk to near 97°." 234 ANIMAL HEAT. Dr. Berger found various warm and cold-blooded animals support from 108° to 113° for an hour and a half in heated dry air; but an elevation of about 30° beyond this killed them all, except a frog, in from half an hour to two hours. They themselves expe- rienced a sense of scalding in a vapour-bath ot 122°, and could not bear it more than about ten minutes; while M. Lemonnier could not bear a water-bath of 113° above eight minutes.4 Hence, at the very same high temperature of the surrounding medium, there is more secretion by the skin in a vapour-bath than in dry air, and more in a water-bath than in a vapour-bath. " The striking prerogative of man, in respect of bearing a variety of temperatures, is evinced by his being restricted to no climate, but inhabiting every part of the earth, from Hudson's Bay, where mercury freezes, and from Nova Zembla, to the scorching shores of Senegal." At Sierra Leone, the mean temperature is 84°, and Watt and "Winterbottom frequently saw it 100° and even 103° in the shade. At Senegal, it has been 108 J°, and even 11 7|°. During the sirocco, it is 112° in Sicily; Humboldt saw it 110° and 115° near Oronoco, in South America. On the other hand, at Nova Zembla the cold is so intense that, when the sun sinks below the horizon, the polar bear is no longer seen, the white fox only en- during the cold. Yet the Dutch, who wintered there under Hemskerk (76° N. L.), withstood the cold, if moving about and previously in good health. When some of our countrymen were on Churchill River, in Hudson's Bay, lakes ten or twelve feet deep were frozen to the bottom, and brandy froze in their rooms, though provided with fires. They suspended in their rooms red-hot twenty-four pounders, and kept an immense fire : but, if these went down, the walls and beds were covered with ice three inches thick." Yet in Hudson's Bay the Canadians and Esquimaux live and hunt in the coldest weather. Gmelin, sen. witnessed at Jeniseisk, in 1735, a cold of — 20°, that froze mer- cury and killed all the sparrows and jays.x Captain Parry once observed a temperature of 52° below zero. When the air was at — 49°, the party used to walk on the shore. It was usually at — 32°. The temperature of eleven out of sixteen foxes was from 100° to 106 j°, of four about 100°, and of one only 98°, although the 1 Dr. Edwards, 1. c. p. 374., and indeed, see p. 4. ch. xiv« u Philosophical Transactions, abridged, vol. Hi. p. 470. * Flora Sibirica. Preface. ANIMAL HEAT. 235 air was from — 3° to — 32°. No relation was observable be- tween the temperature of the body and of the atmosphere y; it thus appearing that the temperature is more steady under cold than heat. I may here remark that, if an animal is drowned in hot water, a puppy or kitten, for example, in water at 90° or 120°, the action of its heart irrecoverably ceases sooner than if it is drowned in cold water.2 Under the want of respiration the heat is too exhausting for the powers of the system. When animals recover, they regain their warmth slowly, even more slowly, Mr. Nunnelly says, than after immersion in cold water. Oxygen also excites so much, that it exhausts and lowers the temperature. Another wonderful circumstance is the impunity with which great changes of temperature are borne by persons in good health, and under neither mental nor corporeal accidental de- pression at the moment. The Russian, while in a vapour-bath of perhaps 167°, has several large vessels of cold water poured upon him : and the Finnish peasant passes reeking from it, and rolls in the snow, with exquisite delight. Sir Joseph Banks and the rest of the party passed from the high temperature mentioned into the cold air, and even staid some minutes before they dressed, without the least injury. During an unnaturally high temperature, the sudden application of cold is very agreeable. No phenomenon in living bodies is more remarkable than their peculiar temperature, and no one was of more difficult explan- ation before the modern progress of chemistry. Dr. Mayow had indeed advanced, that it depended on respiration, and that this was a process similar to combustion, and, so far from cooling the blood, as others believed, supplied it with heat. If two different bodies are placed in a temperature higher or lower than their own for a certain length of time, they will, at the end of the period, be found, not of the same, but of differ- ent temperatures. That which has the higher temperature is said to have a smaller capacity for caloric ; that which has the lower, a greater capacity. To raise the former to a given tem- perature, therefore, requires less caloric than to raise the latter to the same degree. y Journal of a Second Voyage, p. 157. 2 Experiments by Sir Astley Cooper, in 1790, published from his MS. ; by Dr. Hodgkin, in the translation of Dr. Edwards's work, p. 472. sqq. Similar results are there related by Mr. Nunnelly. 236 ANIMAL HEAT. The temperature of solids is more easily affected by a given quantity of caloric, than that of fluids, and the temperature of fluids than that of aeriform bodies; or, in other words, solids have a smaller capacity for caloric than fluids; and fluids than aeriform bodies. If, therefore, a solid becomes fluid, or a fluid aeriform, it absorbs a great quantity of caloric, notwithstanding its temperature remain precisely the same. And the converse holds equally good : — if an aeriform substance becomes liquid, or a liquid solid, the caloric which it before contained is now, from its diminished capa- city, much more than sufficient for the temperature which before existed, and the temperature of the body accordingly rises. In respiration, the dark blood of the pulmonary artery parts with a portion of its carbon, and acquires a florid hue. Oxygen disappears, and carbonic acid is expired with the other consti- tuent of the atmosphere — nitrogen or azote, which seems usually to have experienced little or no change from inspiration. The celebrated Dr. Crawford of St. Thomas's Hospital appeared to prove, by his experiments, that the arterial blood has a larger capacity for caloric than the venous, and common air than car- bonic acid gas. He therefore argued thus : — when the carbonic acid appears in the lungs, the smaller capacity of this than of common air for caloric, must cause an increase of temperature ; but the blood, having changed from venous to arterial, has acquired a greater capacity than before, and absorbs the heat given out by the carbonic acid. The blood, of course, does not become warmer, because the caloric is not more than sufficient to render its temperature equal to what it was previously ; and, indeed, according to some, it is not quite sufficient for this, since the temperature of the florid blood of the pulmonary veins has appeared two degrees lower than that of the pulmonary artery to some experimenters, although the greater number have found it a degree or two higher than the dark blood. The body in this way acquires a fund of caloric, and yet the lungs, in which it is acquired, do not experience any elevation of temperature ; or, if they do, this is very inconsiderable. The arterial blood, charged with much caloric, which, as it circulates through the small vessels, is not sensible, becomes venous, — acquires a dark hue, and its capacity for caloric is diminished ; consequently its temperature rises, — the caloric which was previously latent is, from the decrease of capacity, sufficient to raise its temperature, and is evolved. In this mode, ANIMAL HEAT. 237 the loss of caloric which occurs from the inferior temperature of the medium in which we live, is compensated. The fresh supply is taken in at the lungs, and brought into use in the minute vessels. Dr. Crawford's theory afterwards fell into some discredit. All experiments upon the capacities of bodies for heat are very delicate and liable to error; and the conclusions of Dr. Crawford on this point have been denied by Drs. Delaroche and Berard, with respect to gases, and by Dr. Davy, with respect to arterial and venous blood. a The experiments of these chemists have led them to believe the difference of capacity less than Crawford supposed, and in- sufficient to account for animal temperature. With respect to the gases, Dr. Bostock5 justly remarks, that the objection does not apply more to the doctrine of animal heat, than to the theory of combustion in general. Whenever carbon unites with oxy- gen, and carbonic acid is produced, caloric is liberated, whether in fermentation, or combustion, &c. With respect to the blood, he declares, and Dr. Bostock's reputation for accuracy and soundness in chemical matters is not little, that, "after attentively perusing the experiments of Crawford, and comparing them with those that have been performed with a contrary result, he con- fesses that the balance of evidence appears to him to be greatly in favour of the former, though he acknowledges that they are of so delicate a nature as not to be entitled to implicit confidence, and that it would be extremely desirable to have them carefully repeated." If, however, it were true that Dr. Crawford's statement of the relative capacities is incorrect, still the fact of heat being necessarily evolved on the disappearance of oxygen in the lungs, and the appearance of carbonic acid, provided they unite there, would stand unaffected, and we should only be obliged to adopt the doctrine of Mayow, that the lungs are the focus of the heat of the body. This was relinquished, on the objection that the lungs should then be hotter than other parts. But, when we con- sider that the blood is incessantly streaming to the lungs from all parts and again leaving them, we may, I think, presume that the blood will always convey away their heat, and prevent their tem- perature from rising above that of other parts. The heat of all parts is, caeteris paribus, commensurate with the quantity of blood circulating through them, and this is equally explicable on the 8 PhUos. Trans. 1814. b 1. C. vol. ii. p. 263. 238 ANIMAL HEAT. supposition that the carbonic acid is formed in the lungs, or in the extreme vessels of all parts. If their heat is derived from the heat of the blood conveyed to them, the more blood streams through them, the hotter will they be ; if from chemical changes in the blood while in them, the more blood streams through the extreme vessels the greater will be the amount of chemical change, and the greater the extrication of caloric. The quantity of blood, unless constantly renewed, is inefficient, on either supposition. On the first, fresh blood must come incessantly from the lungs with its high temperature; on the second, if not renewed, its chemical changes will cease, having already occurred. As it is now generally believed that the oxygen which enters into the blood combines with the carbon, not in the lungs, but in all the extreme vessels, and in them forms carbonic acid, the evolution of heat throughout the body is thus at once explained, — it is a mere instance of combustion in the extreme vessels, the union of carbon and oxygen being always attended by an increase of temperature0; and we may equally abstain from troubling ourselves about relative capacities for caloric. The fact of local heats above the temperature of the general mass of blood, proves that heat is evolved by local processes. If arterial blood is made venous, or, more properly, blackened, by gal- vanism, heat is evolved, as I shall presently mention. Those who believe that venous blood has a larger capacity for caloric than the arterial, say that the heat evolved in the minute vessels, by the formation of carbonic acid, does not produce so high a temper- ature as it would, were the capacity of the blood for caloric not lessened by the changed character of the fluid : but, that, when rendered florid again in the lungs, its capacity is again reduced; and, not only is there sufficient caloric to raise the cold air to 98°, but the florid blood becomes one or two degrees higher than it was when venous in the right side of the heart. It is evident that, if the chemical changes which occur in the lungs are independent of life, and even take place out of the body, and the evolution of heat is a purely chemical phenomenon, it also will occur in c If the combustion thus takes place in the universal extreme vessels, the opinion of Tiedemann and Gmelin, that the use of the liver is to liberate the blood of much carbon without its union with oxygen, will not be the less probable than if the union occurred ordinarily in the lungs. If carbon is copiously removed with- out uniting to oxygen and forming caibonic acid in the blood, we understand why the blood in high temperatures is less dark, is even florid. ANIMAL HEAT. 239 the blood out of the body. Accordingly Sir C. Scudamore, exposing two portions of the same blood, under the same circum- stances, the one to atmospheric air, the other to oxygen, found the temperature of the portion exposed to oxygen eight degrees higher at the end of eight minutes than that of the other. It is possible that other chemical changes, which incessantly go on throughout the frame, also occasion heat to be evolved. A host of circumstances show that our temperature depends upon respiration, and therefore upon chemical changes. In high temperatures we have less necessity for the evolution of heat; in low temperatures, more. Accordingly, in the former, the arterial blood remains arterial, — is nearly as florid in the veins as in the arteries d, and the inspired air is less vitiated; in low temperatures, the venous blood is extremely dark, and the inspired air more vitiated. e Some have imagined that the body remains at its standard high temperature by the refrigeration of the evaporating sweat. But, though this must contribute, it is not the sole cause f; for frogs lose as much proportionally to their size by evaporation as any other animal, yet they follow pretty closely the surrounding temperature. Whenever, on the other hand, the body itself heightens its temperature, as in fever, more oxygen is consumed by the lungs g; (in the cold stage of fevers we saw that less was consumed.) The temperature of the va- rious classes of animals, and their vitiation of the air, are always proportional ; and inverse to the length of time they can live without air. d Dr. Crawford, 1. c. p. 387. sq. Dr. De la Roche, 1. c. c Dr. Crawford, ib. " C. Ferd. Becker, De JE/ectibus caloris etfrigoris ex- terni in c. h. Gott. 1802. 4to. ; and Wm. Fr. Bauer, On the same subject. IB EOI». (BOTH HONOURED WITH THE ROYAL PRIZE.) Mich. Skjelderup, Dissert, sistens vim frigojis incitantem. Hafn. 1803. Svo." Yet, in the account of Sir Astley Cooper's experiments, quoted at p. 235., it is mentioned that a puppy and a kitten, some weeks old, were placed nearly to the mouth in iced water, till they died ; and that the blood of the lips, nose, toes, mesentery, and left side of the heart, was of a fine vermilion hue. The colour of the venous blood is not mentioned. I should presume it was very dark, but that the oxygen, from the great coldness of the air inspired, was so effective in withdrawing the carbonic acid, that the arterial blood was, on this account, unusually florid. f Dr. Edwards, 1. c. p. 488. 6 See supra, p. 222. 240 ANIMAL HEAT. The temperature of young animals is lower than of adults, or rather they maintain a peculiar temperature much less, are more easily cooled and heated, and they vitiate the air less, and re- quire respiration less, proportionally, than adults. h As they proceed to vitiate it more, and require respiration more, their ca- lorific power increases. While their calorific powers are weak, they breathe, if they are exposed to cold, more quickly, so as to keep up their temperature as much as possible.1 The same we shall find is true of adult warm-blooded animals, not of the hyber- nating family, when exposed to cold. Dr. Edwards found that habit has great influence on the calo- rific powers of animals ; — that a given low artificial temperature in winter will reduce the animal heat much less than in summerk: and that, with the habit of evolving more heat in winter, is ac- quired the habit of consuming and requiring more oxygen, so that animals supplied with a given quantity of air, and placed in a given warm temperature in winter, die much sooner than in summer.1 Yet the momentary application of heat or cold has a different effect : the former heating less if the body has been sub- jected to a low, and the latter cooling less if the body has been subjected to a high, temperature. We all feel the cold less quickly on leaving the house in winter if well warmed first, than if we leave it already chilly. When animals hybernate, their temperature falls, and respira- tion is nearly or entirely suspended. m Their consumption of air lessens as the temperature falls, whence they consume less in November than in August. n If hybernating animals, while torpid and still placed in the same temperature, are stimulated mecha- nically to breathe, their temperature rises with the progress of respiration.0 If the cold to which they are exposed is so intense that it threatens death, it actually no longer depresses respiration, but, for a time, excites it, and their temperature rises proportion- h Dr. Edwards, 1. c. p. 165. sqq. i 1. c. pp. 299. 310. k 1. c. p. 162. sqq. 252. sqq. ' 1. c. p. 200. sqq. m Spallanzani, Mtmoires sur la Respiration, p. 77. De Saissy could not by cold produce torpor in a marmot, till he had deprived it of fresh air. Edwards, 1. c. p. 154. B M. de Saissy. See Edwards, 1. c. p. 286. 0 M. de Saissy. See Edwards, 1. c. p. 305. ANIMAL HEAT. 24-1 ally.P Man and other non-hybernating animals breathe more quickly when exposed to cold (no doubt for the purpose of sup- plying heat) till the powers become exhausted. 9 The higher the temperature of the animal, the more extensive is the aggregate surface of the air-cells, the more blood passes through its lungs, and the more necessary to its existence is respiration. — The lungs of cold-blooded animals are not sub- divided into minute cells, but formed into vesicles ; and birds, which have the highest temperature among animals, are drowned the soonest. r Respiration is much slower in the cold-blooded. Dr. Stevens found an alligator breathe but three or four times in a minute, though young, and agitated at being held.8 The changes of the air by the blood are seen to be effected entirely by the red particles. Prevost and Dumas found that the number of red particles is proportionate to the temperature. If the blood circulates without being first properly changed in the lungs, the temperature is below the natural standard. Those who have the blue disease (cceruleans l), some of whose blood reaches the left side of the heart without passing through the lungs, are cold : and coldness is a symptom of hydrothorax, and of the repletion of the air-cells with mucus in chronic bronchitis; in the former of which affections the lungs cannot fully expand; and in the latter the air is prevented from coming fully in contact with the air-cells, and mucus Priestley found to be a barrier to the influence of oxygen on the blood, (p. 14-9.) In cold climates, and in temperate ones in cold weather, animal food is desired and taken in abundance ; in hot climates, and during the summer in temperate regions, light vegetable food is preferred, and the appetite is less. We may conceive the former diet more calculated to support a process similar to combustion, and under the former circumstances we have seen that the changes of the air in the lungs are actually more considerable. P Dr. Edwards, 1. c. p. 306. sq. Vegetables have a tendency to preserve a peculiar temper- ature, yet they have no nervous system. But that the nervous system affects the temperature is certain. c A passion of the mind will make the stomach or the feet cold, or the whole body hot. Paralysed parts are often colder than others, or, more properly, are more influenced than others by all external changes of temperature. d But every function is affected by the mind, though not dependent upon the brain for its regular performance : and in varieties of temperature, both by the state of the mind and by paralysis, there is, as far as we can judge, a commensurate affection of the local circulation. Parts heated by any passion are also red, and vice versa ; and paralytic parts must have imperfect vascular functions, in some measure, at least, from the want of the compression of the vessels by muscular action, and of the general excitement by volition; they waste, and sometimes inflame and ulcerate, or slough, on the slightest b Grundriss der Physiologic, 150. 0 " I have formerly treated at some length of the influence of the nervous system upon animal heat, in my Specimen Physiologies Comparatce inter animantia calidi etfrigidi san^ninis. 1786. p. 23. See the same confirmed by many arguments in Magn. Strom, Theoria inflam- mationis doctrines de calore animali superstructa. Havn. 1795. 8vo. p. 30. sq. and by the much-lamented Roose, Journal der JErfindungen, $c. t. v. p. 17. Consult also Dupuytren, Analyse des Travaux de flnstitut, 1807, p. 16." d Dr. Abercrombie, Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal. 246 ANIMAL HEAT. injury. Again, parts perfectly paralysed still maintain a temper- ature above that of the surrounding medium, as well as circu- lation, secretion, &c.e, and sometimes the same as in health. Dr. Philip considers galvanism an important agent in the nervous system, and found that it raised the heat of fresh arterial blood 3° or 4°, and, at the same time, made the blood dark; a circumstance proving that the action is purely chemical, — an alteration of some constituents of the blood to that state in which their capacity for caloric is less. f There is certainly no more reason to believe animal heat de- pendent on the nervous system, than secretion and every organic function. That, like these, it is influenced by the state of the nervous system, is certain; but never, I imagine, except through the instrumentality of chemical changes. The purpose of animal heat is no doubt the performance of the processes of the animated system, chemical, eleptrical, and vital, which cannot continue unless at a certain temperature, nor unless a certain degree of fluidity is preserved in some constitu- ents of the system, and of solidity in others. e Dr. Philip, we have seen, found rabbits just killed cool in exactly the same time, whether the brain and spinal marrow were destroyed or not, although when these were destroyed a stop was put to the secretion of gastric juice. Yet when the same was done to a living rabbit, with the same effect on the stomach, the animal's temperature fell. This, however, would result from the shock given to the nervous system as merely a part of the body, for the same happens every day in cases of severe injuries even of the extremities. f Experimental Inquiry, p. 230. sqq. Vegetables and animals are prepared for almost all climates, and for temper- atures higher than the heat of any country. Dr. Reeve found larvae in a spring at 208° ; Lord Bute, confervae and beetles in the boiling springs of Albano, that died when plunged into cold water. A species of chara will flower and produce seed in the hot springs of Iceland, which boil an egg in four minutes. ( Drs. Hodg- kin and Fisher's translation of Dr. Edwards's work, p. 467., where will be found many curious facts of this nature, though less striking. ) One plant, uredo nivalis, which is a mere microscopic globule, is said to grow and flower under the snow. Some cold-blooded animals bear heat very badly. Dr. Edwards says that frogs die in a few seconds in water at 107°. (1. c. p. 40.) Yet a species of taenia has been found alive in a boiled carp ; but then the carp which it inhabits will live in water as hot as human blood. (Sennebier, Notes to his Translation of Spallanzani.) ANIMAL HEAT. 24-7 The germs of many insects, &c. are unaffected by a great range of tempera- ture. I know a gentleman who boiled some honey-comb two years old, and, after extracting all the sweet matter, threw the remains into a stable, which was soon filled with bees. Body lice have appeared on clothes which had been im- mersed in boiling water. Spallanzani found long ebullition in the open air favourable to the appearance of the animalcules of vegetable infusions ; and the application of great heat in close vessels, although it prevented the appearance of a larger kind of animalcule, did not that of a smaller. The eggs of silk- worms and butterflies hatch after exposure to a cold of 24° below zero. On the other hand, insects may be frozen repeatedly, and recover as soon as thawed, as we shall see when speaking of torpidity. Besides the power of generating heat, some animals are luminous, and some display great electric phenomena. v- t The glow-worm is known to all ; and many insects of the beetle tribe, as well as others, emit light. Many can extinguish or conceal their light, or render it more vivid, at pleasure. Jn some it has been found to proceed from masses not dissimilar, except in their yellow colour, from the interstitial substance of the rest of the body, lying under the transparent integuments, and absorbed when the season of luminousness is passed. (Consult Kirby and Spence, An Introduction to Entomology, vol. ii. p. 409. sqq. ) The ocean is frequently luminous at night from the presence of certain animalcules, to some sort of which, perhaps, is owing the phosphorescence of dead herrings. Some fish, as the gymnotus electricus and torpedo, give electric shocks, and possess a regular galvanic battery. I have adopted the common language in speaking of animal heat, as though the phenomena depended upon a specific substance. However, there may be every reason to believe that neither caloric nor light are fluids, but peculiar states only ; and electricity may prove to be so likewise ; and, perhaps, all these to be modifications of the same state. CHAP. XIV. NUTRITION. " BESIDES the function of distributing oxygen through the system, and removing carbon, the principal use of the blood is to afford nourishment to the body in general, and to the secreting organs the peculiar fluids which they possess the power of deriving from it. Nutrition shall be first examined. " Nutrition is the grandest gift of nature, and the common and highest prerogative of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, by which they, beyond measure, surpass, even at first sight, all human machines and automatons. Upon these no artist can bestow the faculty, not to say of increasing and coming to per- fection, but even of existing independently, and repairing the incessant losses incurred from friction. a " By the nutritive faculty of the body, its greatest and most admirable functions are performed; by it we grow from our first formation and arrive at manhood ; and by it are remedied the destruction and consumption which incessantly occur in our system during life.b " Respecting the nature of this consumption, there has been much dispute whether it affects the solids c, or whether, accord- a " * Nutrition, in fact, appears to be a continued generation,' according to the old observation of the very ingenious Ent. See his work, already re- commended." b " Th. Young, De corporis humani viribus conservatricibus. Getting. 1796. 8vo. Fl. J. Van Maanen, De natura humana sui ipsius conservalrice ac medicatrice. Harderv. 1801. 8vo." 0 " See the great J. Bernoulli's Diss. de nutrit. Groning. 1669. 4to. He estimates the continual, though insensible, loss and reparation of the solids so high, that the whole body may be said to be destroyed and renewed every three years." NUTRITION. 249 ing to some very acute writers d, these, when once formed and perfected, remain invariably entire. ** There can be no doubt that some of the similar solids, v. c. the epidermis and nails, are gradually destroyed and renewed ; the same is proved by the frequently surprising attenuation of the flat bones, especially of the skull, from defective nutrition, in old age e; and" some imagine " it is proved also by the well- known experiment of dyeing them, in warm-blooded animals, with madder root." But the redness imparted to the bones by feeding animals with madder, does not prove that the matter of the bones is constantly changing ; because the opinion that the madder unites with the phosphate of lime in the blood, and thus reddens all the bony matter subsequently deposited, is erroneous. Mr. Gibson proved, by numerous experiments, that the serum has a stronger affinity than the phosphate of lime, for madder, The serum being charged with madder, the phosphate of lime of the bones, al- ready formed, seizes the superabundant madder, and becomes red. If the madder is no longer given to the animal, as it is con- tinually passing off with the excretions, the stronger attraction of the serum draws it from the bones, and they re-acquire their whiteness. f The attenuation of the flat bones shows, I imagine, wasting only. The constant renewal of the epidermis is demonstrated by wearing black silk stockings next the skin. The microscope exhibits that very minute fragments are incessantly thrown off from the mucous membranes no less than from the skin.* That the hair and nails not only grow perpetually, but are even reproduced, is certain from the great quantity of the former which falls off the head whole if worn long, while a good head of hair still continues; and from the renewal of the latter, after the loss of a great part of a finger. I once attended a middle-aged woman in St. Thomas's Hospital, who had lost nearly the whole of the first phalanx of a finger, and yet the stump was tipped by d " See J. Chr. Kemme, Beurtheilung eines Beweises vor die Immaterialitat der Seele aus der Medecin. Halle. 1776. 8vo. And his Zweifel und Erinnerungen wider die Lehre der Aerzte von der Erridh- rung derfesten Theile. Ibid. 1778. 8vo." e " Respecting this mutability of the bones, I have spoken at some length in my osteological work, ed. 2. p. 26. and elsewhere." f Manchester Memoirt, vol. i. g Raspail, 1. c. pp. 245. 505. 250 NUTRITION. a nail, though certainly a clumsy one. An instance of a nail at the end of the stump, after the complete removal of the first, pha- lanx, may be seen in one of our London Journals.'1 Tulpius de- clares he has seen examples after the loss of both the first and second phalanges — in secundo et tertio articulo.1 The glans penis (in truth a mere continuation of the corpus spongiosum urethrse) was entirely renewed in one case.k Nothing more can, I apprehend, be said respecting the entire restoration of organs in the human body. Portions of cutis, bone, membrane, blood- vessels, absorbents, and nerves, are replaced. That portions of large nerves, fully capable of all the functions of the destroyed pieces, are reproduced, is now a matter of certainty.1 Minute blood-vessels and absorbents are of course allowed on all hands to be produced in the cure of most solutions of continuity, whether by wounds, ulceration, or whatever elsem; but Dr. Parry, senior, has shown, that, in the ram, at least, when a blood-vessel which proceeds some way without giving off a branch is obstructed, new branches sprout forth and establish a communication on each side h London Medical and Physical Journal, 1817. 1 Observationes Medicce, iv. 56. k Edinburgh Med. and Physical Essays, vol. v. 1 The proofs of this are numerous ; the latest are by Tiedemann. Zeitschrift fiir Physiologie, 4ter band, Her heft, S. 68. m Mr. Bauer thinks he has observed vegetable tubes to be constructed by the extrication of carbonic acid gas into a slimy matter prepared for nutrition. Some such opinion was held by Borelli, Tabor, and Hales. He explains the form- ation of blood-vessels in coagulated fibrin and pus in an analogous manner, but his experiments did not proceed far enough for me to dwell upon them. Phil. Trans. 1818 and 1819. Dr. Stevens has recently made observations upon this subject. (L c. p. 66.) Not only divided parts re-unite, but even portions completely separated and cold, and parts of different bodies. A soldier's arm \vas struck off at the battle of Arlon, with the exception of a piece of skin and the subjacent vessels and nerves, and yet the muscles, bones, &c. completely re-united in about eight months. (Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicates, t. xii.) Garengeot saw a ncse unite after being bitten off, trampled upon, and allowed to lie in the dirt till it was cold. (Traite des Operations de C/iirurgerie, t. iii.) Dr. Balfour saw a similar occurrence in the instance of a finger. (Edinburgh Med. and Surgical Journal. 1815.) One will be found ( Rust's Magazin, 14 b. 1 b. p. 112. Berlin, 1823.) by Dr. John, Wiederanheilung eines gandich absgeschittenen Jtngers. Others might be quoted. See Dr. Thomson's Lectures on Inflammation, p. 243. Transplantation, for instance, of the cock's testes to the hen's abdomen, as well as of the spur to the head, is very common, and the latter was mentioned nearly two centuries ago in Bartholin, Epist. Cent. i. p. 174. ; and by Duhamel, in the Mem. deTAcad. Royale des Sciences, 1746, as very common in poultry-yards. NUTRITION. 251 of the obstruction.11 The continuance of circulation was previ- ously attributed solely to the enlargement of the small anasto- mosing vessels; and we know that whenever the aorta itself is obstructed, branches will so enlarge as to carry on the circu- lation very well.0 Muscle is supplied by tendinous matter. The substance formed in the situation of destroyed cellular mem- brane is so little cellular, that it does not become distended in emphysema or anasarca.p " If I am not mistaken, those solid parts undergo successive change, which possess the reproductive power, — an extraordinary faculty, by which not only the natural loss of particles, but even the accidental removal of considerable parts through external injuries, is repaired and perfectly supplied, as the bones but not with years, Nor grew it white in a single night, As men's have grown from sudden fears.*' Prisoner of Chilian. See Byron's note to these lines, and Dr. Speranza in Dr. Omedei's Annali Universali di Medicina. Feb. 1832. Milan. e Quarterly Journal of Foreign Medicine, No. xvii. 278 PERSPIRATION. was instantly felt, and occasioned a paroxysm of rage.f Now sensibility cannot be acquired by a part not already alive. Hair often grows abundantly in portions of the skin usually not much supplied with it, and these are generally of a brown colour : it will sometimes grow in parts naturally destitute of it, as the tongue and even the heart.s Sometimes it grows in encysted tumours, accompanied by fat, and occasionally by teeth and por- tions of jaw and amorphous bone ; and feathers covered by fat are sometimes found in the thorax and abdomen of tame geese and ducks. h Hair has also been discharged from the urethra.1 It has many times been seen blue as well as green. k The skin produces chemical changes similar to those which occur in the lungs !, and, like them, forms a watery secretion f 1. c. ibid. 8 See references in Dr. Good's Study of Medicine, (4th edit.) vol. iv. p. 525.. h Blumenbach, Comparative Anatomy, § 138. 1 Phil. Trans, abridg. vol. v. and ix. k Various instances of both kinds in man and horse are collected by Dr, Speranza, 1. c. Horses have had curly hair. Otto, 1. c. 1 " W. Bache, On the Morbid Effects of Carbonic Acid Gas on Healthy Animals. Philadel. 1794. 8vo. p. 46. Abernethy, 1. c." Cruikshanks on Insensible Per- spiration, and Ellis, Further Inquiry on the Changes produced in Atmosj)heric Air, &c. Others have questioned this, but no one doubts the fact in regard to cold- blooded animals. Dr. Edwards found the surface of frogs and salamanders to carbonise the air (1. c. p. 12.). Frogs are amphibious. They live indefinitely in extensive or renewed water, and die if it is de-aerated, or not changed (p. 41. sqq. ) ; as also do aquatic salamanders and the common toad. If their lungs are removed, they still live indefinitely in such water or in air, and die if no air has access to their skin, or the water is not purified enough (p. 71.) ; and die sooner as they are younger and smaller. Although frogs live in air, mere respiration appears insufficient after a time ; — some application of air or aerated water to the surface is also requisite to their life. That they live so long inclosed in wood or mineral substances, as is commonly known, appears owing to the opposition afforded, under these circumstances, to transpiration, which, in the open air, is so great as speedily to dry them up, while, at the same time, the closeness is not such as to entirely exclude air (p. 13.). They die in vacuo. In a limited quantity of water, they die sooner the higher the temperature (p. 25. sqq.) ; and they support a high temperature better, if previously subjected for some time to a cold temperature (p. 33. sqq.). Although their skin be care- fully moistened, they cannot live without respiration in summer (p. 91.)- I* appears from Dr. Edwards's experiments to be a general fact among animals, that the want of air is best borne in a low temperature. The general good effect of the application of cold in asphyxia by carbonic acid, is well known. The greater the external heat, on the contrary, the more is air required by the skin and PERSPIRATION. 279 and excretes foreign matters, and is an organ of absorp- tion. The watery secretion is sometimes termed perspirabile Sanctori* anum m, after the patient and acute philosopher who first applied himself professedly to investigate its importance. To ascertain the quantity of watery secretion, Lavoisier and Seguinn enclosed the body in a silk bag varnished with elastic gum and having a small opening carefully cemented around the mouth, so that, by weighing the body previously and subsequently to the experiment, they were able to ascertain exactly what had been lost, and, by subtracting from this loss the weight of the perspired contents of the bag, they also ascertained how much of this had passed off by the lungs. From repeated trials they found the mean pulmonary discharge in twenty-four hours amounted to lungs, independently, it would appear, of its chemical effect, as it is of use when there is no circulation, — when the heart is excised, either in frogs or cats, which perish after this operation the sooner as the temperature is higher. When the quantity of water, though limited, is sufficient to support life, the want of re- spiration causes the frogs to become as slow in their motions as turtles, and dull to all impressions on the senses (p. 65.)' Lizards, serpents, and turtles, also carbonise the air by their surface ; but serpents and turtles, and, indeed, some varieties of frogs, can live by respiration only, and this happens where the lungs of the animal are proportionally large (p. 128.). The effect of air, however, upon the surface, in reptiles at least, does not require the aid of circulation to distribute its benefits ; for, when their heart is removed (and the same happens with toads, salamanders, and cats), they live much longer in air than, in de-aerated water (p. 3. sqq.) ; yet they live longer if the heart is not removed (p. 7. sqq.). m " Ars Sanctor. Sanctorii de Statica Medicina apkorismor. sectionibus vii. com- prehensa. Venet. 1634. 16mo. C. de Milly and Lavoisier, Memoires de VAcad. des Sc. de Parts. 1777. p. 221. sq. 360. sq. J. Ingen-Housz, Esepts. upon Vegetables. Lond. 1779. 8vo. p. 132. sqq. J. H. Voight. Versuch einer neuen Tkeorie des Feuers, p. 157. sq." " The balance employed by Sanctorius to estimate the loss of perspired matter is described in his Comm. in primam Fen primi L. Canon. Avicennas. Venet. 1646. 4to. p. 781. Another, much simpler and better adapted for the purpose, is described by Jo. Andr. Segner, De Libra, qua sui quisque corporis pondus explorare posset. Getting. 1740. 4to. J. A. Klindworth, an excellent Gottingen instrument-maker and engineer, altered this at my suggestion, and rendered it more convenient and accurate." n Memoires deV Academic des Sciences, 1790, 280 PERSPIRATION. 15 oz., and the cutaneous to 30 oz. The quantity of carbon se- parated by the lungs ought however to be taken into the account. If it amount to 11 oz. in twenty-four hours, — the quantity stated by Allen and Pepys — there will be but 4 oz. of pulmonary ex- halation. But if oxygen and azote are absorbed in respiration, there must have been correspondently more pulmonary exhalation ; and we have seen that Hales estimated it at about 20 oz. in the twenty-four hours. They found the cutaneous transpiration at its minimum during and immediately after meals, and at its max- imum during digestion. The minimum after digestion was found by them to be 11 grs* per minute ; the maximum 32 grs. : at and immediately after dinner lO^o ; and the maximum 19T^, under the most favourable and un- favourable circumstances. It was increased by liquid, but not by solid, food. The pulmonary they regard as greater than the cu- taneous, proportionally to the surface on which it occurs.0 What- ever was taken, the weight was found to become ultimately as before. Indigestion lessened transpiration, and the body con- tinued heavier generally till the fifth day, when the original weight was restored. Transpiration was less in moist air and at a low temperature, and the pulmonary and cutaneous transpirations obeyed the same laws. Dr. Edwards has made a great number of experiments upon this subject.? He distinguishes the loss of fluid by evaporation of what is exuded, from that by secretion. He contends, however, that, in the lungs, all is evaporation without secre- tion. But, with Dr. Bostock, I must dissent from him. PERSPIRATION. 281 which perspire copiously, the loss by evaporation at 68° is thus found six times greater than by mere secretion, and the propor- tion in man, the temperature being the same and the air dry, must be greater, as his skin secretes much less. The secreted fluid may be carried off by evaporation as quickly as it is formed, so as to be insensible perspiration ; or may be too abundant for this, and appear as sweat. The transuded fluid may also be condensed and precipitated on the skin in the form of sweat. The cutaneous secretion is not so much augmented by moderate elevations of temperature as might be imagined ; but, as the elevation proceeds, the augmentation of secretion becomes more than proportionate. It appeared increased after meals and during sleep, and, though subject to great fluctuations, if observed at short intervals, from accidental changes in the atmosphere, under- went successive diminutions when observed every six hours, from six o'clock A. M. — the hour of rising — till the return of the same period. In frogs this regular diminution might be detected every three hours.r In frogs the cutaneous secretion continues, though at its mini- mum, in the moistest air and in water; and it would appear to do so also in man.8 The matter of the cutaneous secretion contains an acid, pro- bably the acetic, chloride of potassium and sodium, acetate of soda, and perhaps albumen.1 What evaporates is mere water. Dr. Edwards makes some curious remarks upon the different effects of dry and moist air, when hot, and when cold. When hot, dry air will of course communicate less heat to the body than if moist, and will, by its dryness, cause more evaporation ; and thus carry off more heat ; so that the two operations of air, dry or moist, will correspond in temperatures above that of the body. When cold, dry air will remove less heat from the body than moist ; but, by its dryness, will cause more evaporation, and therefore tend to cool more, so that the two operations oppose each other in temperatures inferior to that of the body.u The same remarks apply to cold water. r For what relates to this function in the batrachians, see 1. c. part i. c. v. and vi. s p. 92. sqq. 98. sqq. 351. sqq. 1 Berzelius, Ardmcd Chemistry, p. 95. u 1. c. p. 386. sq. 282 PERSPIRATION. He did not find moist cold air to cool animals more than dry cold air. In low temperatures, we have seen that the loss by evaporation greatly exceeds that by secretion. In high, it is the reverse ; and, when the body is covered with sweat, there can be no loss by the evaporation which occurs, independent of secreted fluid, whether the air be dry or moist. Vapour will cause more loss by secretion than dry air ; but no loss can take place by the lungs in hot vapour.x Perspiration can never be entirely suppressed; because the cold which suppresses secretion, causes the air, however moist, and therefore opposed to evaporation, to rise in temperature, by coming in contact with the body ; and the superior temperature which it instantly acquires, enables it to hold more moisture, and evaporation from the skin is thus instantly promoted, y There is a common belief, that the cutaneous exhalation has always peculiar properties, invigorating in the young, and debili- tating in the old. David lay between two young girls to gain strength ; and Dr. Copland declares he has seen a child suffer from lying with its grandmother.2 The elimination of foreign matters by the skin is shewn by the odour of the perspiration after some odorous substances have been taken, by its effect upon silver when mercury is prescribed, and by its green and coppery secretion when copper has been in- troduced.a The odour of the secretion of the sebaceous follicles, and that of the perspiration, are, in some parts, naturally peculiar, and in different persons more or less intense, and even singular; and either always, only under excitement, or only at times when under excitement, in different parts. In the tonsils, x p. 380. sq. y p. 335. sq. z Dictionary of Practical Medicine, by James Copland, M.D., art. DEBILITY. A work displaying such extraordinary extent of reading, and such deep and comprehensive reflection, as to demand a place in the library of every medical man. a See a case in the Land. Med. Gazette, Nov. 19. 1832. " Hence the danger of contagion from hairs, as miasmata adhere to them very tenaciously for a great length of time. Vide Cartwright, Jbumalof Transactions on the Coast of Labrador, vol. i. p. 273. vol. ii. p. 424." " G. Wedemeyer, Historia Pathologica Pilorum (honoured with the royal prize). Getting. 1812. 4to." PERSPIRATION. 283 when the secretion is solid, it is horridly offensive, really faecal, and is a frequent cause of foetid breath : in the glands behind the ears, when the secretion is squeezed out in a solid form, its smell is said to be caseous : in the parts of generation, saline and peculiar. In many brutes, the odour of the female genitals attracts the male, and is strongest when the animal is in heat. All know that the mere sweat has a different smell in dif- ferent parts ; in the arm-pits, hircine ; in the feet, sometimes like that of tan, and sometimes of cabbage-water. If the palms of the hands of some persons are rubbed briskly together, an odour something like that of hot boiled potatoes is evolved ; in others general excitement of the system occasions this. A sulphureous odour, which perhaps was not very dissimilar, is said, in the Ephemerides, to have proceeded from Cardan's arm ; from the head of a boy at Rome ; and from a dropsical boy.b Schmidt mentions a man from whose hands and arms an intolerable fcetor of sulphur proceeded. c Egesandro mentions two persons so offensive that they were not allowed to visit the public baths.d In the same volume of the Ephemerides we read of a literary man whose stench was far too much for all perfumes ; and Hagendorn declares he saw a woman who was unbearable at the distance of some feet, — a second Thais.6 In America the shrew spreads a horrid stench to escape its pursuers ; and the yellow serpent of Martinique is known by its fcetor to be present. Persons differ not only in the amount of their general perspiration, but in its amount in different parts; and under exercise and heat different b Ephem. Nat. Curios, ami. ii. p. 191. c Ephem. > ann. viii. Dec. 2. d Giornale Venet. t. ii. See Dr. Speranza, 1. c. p. 241. e Tarn male Thais olet, quam non fullonis avari Testa vetus, media sed modo fracta via ; Non ab amore recens hircus j non ora leonis ; Non detracta cani Transtiberina cutis ; Pullus abortive nee quum putrescat in ovo : Amphora corrupto nee vitiata garo. Virus ut hoc alio fallax permutat odore Deposita quoties balnea veste petit ; Psilothro viret, aut acida latet oblita creta : Aut tegitur pingui terque quaterque faba. Quum bene se tutam per fraudes mille putes ? Omnia quum fecit, Thaida Thais olet. MART. l.vi. ep. 93. 284? PERSPIRATION. persons sweat most indifferent parts. Now a person, from merely happening to sweat most in a part, the secretion of which is ge- nerally offensive, may probably acquire the characteristic odour, without having a particular disposition to filthiness of secretion. The general perspiration of every one probably smells peculiarly, for savages can distinguish the nation of persons by the smell. e (Haller and Humboldt.) The boy born deaf and blind, whose history is related by Mr. Dugald Stewart, distinguished people by their odour ; and I once saw, in the report of a trial in the newspapers, that dealers in hair boasted of being able to tell the nation from which the hair came, merely by the smell. The power possessed by brutes in distinguishing and tracing us and other animals is well known ; and we perceive the various odours of many brutes, especially if they perspire freely and are numerous. The odour of a dog-kennel on the one hand, and of a heated flock of sheep in the road, must be known to every one. No doubt every animal and vegetable, like all inanimate matter, exhales a peculiar odour, cognisable to organs which are of sufficient acuteness and not blunted by habitual exposure to it. In different diseases the odour of the perspiration is often pe- culiar ; and the admission of certain substances into the system, that escape by the pulmonary and cutaneous secretions, will ne- cessarily give them an odour. f Some odours of animals are most intense during sexual heat. The odour of some persons is said to have been quite a per- fume. Plutarch mentions that Alexander the Great smelt, not of carnage like a hero, but most pleasantly. Fragrance proceeded also from Augustus.? In the memoirs of the Queen of Navarre we read that Catherine de' Medici was a nosegay; and Cujacius e " Fr. L. Andr. Koeler, De Odore per cutem spirants in&tatu sano ac morboso. Gotting. 1794- 4to." •' '• Sieve's dans Paris, Sentent encore le chou dont ils furent nourris. MOLIERE. 8 Since both these were worshipped as gods we cannot wonder at the thing ; for the most elegant of the gods and goddesses had all this attribute. Diana was recognised by Hippolytus from her divine odour, EURIPIDES, Hippolytus^ 1391. PERSPIRATION. 285 the civilian, and Lord Herbert of Cherbury, were equally de- lightful. Dr. Speranza lately witnessed a strong balsamic fra- grance from the inner part of the left forearm of a healthy man, which continued, especially in the morning, for two months, and ceased for good on the supervention of fever.1 Van Swieten mentions a man whose left armpit smelt strongly of musk ; and Wedel and Gahrliess saw each a similar example.k Absorption by the skin, unless friction is employed or the cu- ticle abraded, has been denied. We are told that Dr. Currie's patient, labouring under dysphagia seated in the cesophagus, always found his thirst relieved by bathing, but never acquired the least additional weight l : that Dr. Gerard's diabetic patient weighed no more after cold or warm bathing than previously111: that Seguin found no mercurial effects from bathing a person in a mercurial solution, provided the cuticle remained entire ; while they occurred when the cuticle was abraded. n But the two former cases are no proofs that water was not absorbed, because the persons immersed did not lose in weight, which they would have done if not immersed, owing to the pul- monary and cutaneous excretions ; these therefore must have been counterbalanced by absorption somewhere, and no shadow of proof can be urged against its occurrence by the skin, as Dr. Kellie remarks in his excellent paper on the functions of this part.0 Seguin besides found two grains of the mercurial salt disappear in an hour from the solution when of the temperature of 72J°. There is every reason to believe the occurrence of cutaneous absorption independently of friction or abrasion of the cuticle. First, the existence of absorbents all over the surface cannot be intended for use merely when friction is employed or the cuticle When Venus showed herself to her son, Ambrosiaeque comae divinum vertice odorem Spiravere. JEneid. i. 403. Homer says the same of Venus (Odyss* S), and of Juno (Iliad, £. 170. sqq.)« Flora, Ceres, and Apollo also were nosegays. — Ovid, Fast. v. ; Homer, Hymn* in Cererem. 'l Annali universali di Medicina, Feb. 18 32. k Ib. Where three other cases of fragrance are referred to, in two of which it proceeded from the hands ; as well as singular examples from among brutes* 1 Medical Reports, %c. m Hollo, On Diabetes* n La Medecine edairee, $e. t. 3. 0 Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal, vol. i» U 286 PERSPIRATION. abraded. So numerous are its absorbents, that, when successfully injected with mercury, the whole surface looks like a sheet of silver. P Secondly, we have many facts which prove absorption without these circumstances, either by the skin or lungs, or both, while no reason can be given why they should be attributed solely to the lungs. A boy at Newmarket, who had been greatly reduced before a race, was found to have gained 30 oz. in weight during an hour, in which time he had only half a glass of wine.q Dr. Home, after being fatigued and going to bed supperless, gained 2 oz. in weight before seven in the morning.^ In three diabetic patients of Dr. Bardsley's, the amount of the urine ex- ceeded that of the ingesta, and the body even increased in weight, and in one of the instances as much as l?lbs.r Dr. Currie allows that, in his patient, " The egesta exceeded the ingesta in a proportion much greater than the waste of his body will explain ; and, indeed, such facts occur every day." The same patient's urine, too, after the daily use of the bath, flowed more abundantly and became less pungent. Keill says that he one night gained 18 oz. in his sleep : and Lining, that, after drinking some punch one cool day, " the quantity of humid particles attracted by his skin exceeded the quantity perspired in these two hours and a half by 8^ oz.," and gives two more such instances in the same table.8 Dr. Edwards observed similar facts in guinea-pigs. Thirdly,1 we have positive evidence of cutaneous absorption without friction or abrasion, in the case of frogs, toads, nay, in scaly lizards, which will increase in weight by cutaneous absorption, even if only a part of them is immersed in water ; and remark- ably so if previously made to lose much of their moisture by exposure to the airu, although they never surpass the point from which the loss of weight began. v The increase is much greater in water than in the moistest air. * Dr. Beaupre says, that, if a new born puppy is held a quarter of an hour in warm ink, the urine subsequently made is coloured. * p Dr. Gordon, Anatomy, p. 234. * Bishop Watson, Chemical Essays, vol. iii. p. 1OJ. Medical Facts and Experiments. Phil. Trans, vol. xlii. p. 496. l 1. c. p. 362. Dr. Edwards, 1. c. part iv. ch. xii. v 1. c. p. 101. L c. p. 360. A Treatise on the Effects and Properties of Cold, by M. Beaupre", M.D., translated, with notes, by Dr. Clendinning. Edin. 1826. p. 56. PERSPIRATION. 287 In all the cases which have been mentioned, there is no reason to suppose that exhalation did not continue, both on the skin and in the lungs, so that the absorption must have been greater than it at first sight appears. When no increase of weight has taken place on immersion in the warm bath, absorption must have oc- curred to maintain the weight, notwithstanding the cutaneous and pulmonary losses ; and, when some decrease of weight has been observed, we are not justified in concluding that absorption had not taken place and not lessened the amount of the loss which would have happened. Indeed, there is no doubt that per- spiration is considerably increased in the warm bath. — I may remark that, while absorption is more active accordingly as more fluid has been lost, it gradually becomes less as it approaches the habitual standard of plenitude in the individual, and that, while transpiration is increased by elevation, the proportion of absorp- tion is increased by depression of temperature. z Dr. Massy, of America, about 1812, found that, if the body were immersed in a decoction of madder, this substance became discoverable in the urine by the alkalies ; and Dr. Rousseau, in conjunction with Dr. S. B. Smith, made, in consequence, a num- ber of experiments, from which they conclude that rhubarb and madder are so absorbed, and that these only of all absorbed substances can be discovered in the urine, and are seen in this fluid only, and are absorbed by no other parts than the spaces between the middle of the thigh and hip, and between the middle of the arm and shoulder. a * 1. c. p. 98. sqq. 352. sqq. r * Discourses on the Elements of Therapeutics and Mat. Med. 1817. vol. i. p. 56. sq. Vegetables perspire copiously during the day; not so much according to the temperature, but to the intensity of light; and De Candolle found that lamps had a similar power on the function to that of the solar ray, and proportionately to their intensity. (Physiologie Vegetale, t. i. p. 1 12.) The number of pores or stomata through which the fluid exhales, will also influence its quantity. Hales inferred that a sunflower, three feet high, exhaled only twenty ounces, — seventeen times more, according to him, than would have been perspired from an equal extent of u 2 288 PERSPIRATION. the human surface. Generally the sap loses about two thirds of its water, and the exhaled portion is probably pure, or does not contain more than a 10,000,000th part of the foreign matter which it had when first absorbed.^ (Dr. Roget, Bridge- water Treatise, vol. ii. p. 27. sq.) The greater number of cellular plants absorb water equally at every part of their surface. Lichens only in particular parts. In vesicular plants the surface absorbs but little, except when the roots have been removed, or can obtain no water. 289 CHAP. XVII. THE URINE. THERE is another fluid incessantly secreted, and always dis- charged from the body, that serves no direct purpose, like the bile or saliva, — is not recrementitious ; nor indirect purpose, like the perspiration, which regulates our temperature and preserves the skin in a fit and healthy state ; but is purely excrementitious. It is the urine, and is produced by the kidneys. " The kidneys a are two viscera, situated at the upper part of the loins on each side, behind the peritonaeum ; rather flattened ; more liable than any other organ to varieties of figure and num. berb;" connected with the aorta and vena cava inferior by the- a, renal capsule. 6, kidney. rf, branches of renal vein. e, branches of renal artery. a " See Al. Schumlansky, 1. c." b " See Jer. Blasius, Renum monstrosorum exempla, at the end of Bellini, de- structura et u&u renum. Amstel. 1665. 12mo." u 3 290 THE URINE. renal artery and vein c, " which are excessively large in propor- tion to them ; and imbedded in sebaceous fat. " They are enveloped in a membrane of their own, which is beautifully vascular ; and each, especially during infancy, con- sists of eight, or rather more, smaller kidneys, each of which again consists, as Ferrein asserted, of seventy or eighty fleshy radii, denominated by him pyramides albidae. " A kidney, if divided horizontally, presents two substances ; the exterior, called cortex ; the interior, medulla.** «* Each abounds in blood-vessels ; but the cortical portion has likewise very minute colourless tubes which " are the origins of the uriniferous ducts*; the medullary part contains these ducts. The blood-vessels are distributed in rather a reticulated manner among the tubes, with which they have no communication of canal. Small round hollow bodies are also seen, containing blood, and connected with the blood-vessels, but with them only.f " These tubes arise, in the manner formerly described" in regard to the bile ducts, from minute blind extremities, not dilated, but nearly of the same diameter as the rest of the canal, and " formed in the cortical part ; of which they constitute the greatest portion." They preserve an angular course in the cortica part ; but in the medullary, where they are called the Bel- f C) PaPillae- linian tubes, they run straight. f /J^lj HB ^wf""'3' The cortical part " principally J|| MBKiBHSi /' ureter. consists of them; and, after they have coalesced into fewer trunks, their mouths perforate, in the form of so many cones, c " Eustachius, tabulae, i. — v., which belong to his classical work De renibus published with this great man's other Opusc. anatom. Venet. 1564. 4to. Also tab. xii." d " C. W. Eysenhardt, De structura renum Observationes Microscopices. Berol. 1818. 4to." e " These appear to have imposed upon Ferrein as a new description of vessels which he called neuro-lymphatics, or white tubes, and of which he imagined the whole parenchyma of the viscera to be composed. He affirmed that they were of such tenuity, that their length in each kidney of an adult man was equal to 1000 orgyiae (60,000 feet) or five leagues." f Mueller, De glandularum sccementium, $c. p. 102. THE URINE. 291 like a sieve, the papillce of the pelvis of the organ £," or, more pro- perly, the rounded ends of these cones project as so many papillae. " These papillae usually correspond in number with the lobes which form the kidneys, and they convey the urine, secreted in the colourless vessels of the cortex and " " the Bellinian tubes of the medulla, into the infundibula" or little membranous canals which at one end surround the duct or papilla, and at the other *« unite into a common pelvis. " The pelvis is continued into the ureters, which are mem- branous canals, very sensible, lined with mucus, extremely dilat- able, generally of unequal size in the human subject in different parts h, and inserted into the posterior and inferior surface of the bladder in such a way, that they do not immediately per- forate its substance, but pass a short distance between the muscular and cellular coats, which at that part are rather thicker than elsewhere, and finally open into its cavity by an oblique mouth. This peculiarity of structure prevents the urine from regurgitating into the ureters from the bladder." As the ureters have a tendency to lose this obliquity of inser- tion in proportion as the bladder is depleted, two long bands of muscular fibres run from the back of the prostate gland to the orifices of the ureters, and not only assist in emptying the bladder, but, at the same time, pull down the orifices of the ureters, and thus tend to preserve the obliquity.1 When the bladder is dis- tended, and the urine flows with difficulty into it, the fluid ac- cumulates in the ureters, and, as the obliquity greatly lessens as soon as the bladder is emptied, the urine then flows freely into it, and persons, after making a large quantity of urine, thus very soon make another quantity. " The urinary bladder*" oviform in the adult, but " varying in shape according to age and sex, is generally capable, in the adult, of containing two pints of urine. Its fundus, which in the foetus terminates in the urachus, is covered posteriorly by the peritonaeum. The other coats correspond with those of the stomach. " The muscular consists of interrupted bands of fleshy fibres, 8 " Eustachius, tab. xi. fig. 10." h " See Nuck, Adenographia, fig. 32. 34, 35. Leop. M. Ant. Caldani, Saggi delV Accad. di Padova, t. ii. p. 2." 1 Sir C. Bell, Med. Chir. Trans, vol. iii. * " Duverney, CEuvres anatomiques, vol. ii. tab. i.— iv " U 4 292 THE .URINE. variously decussated, and surrounding the bladder. * These are called the detrusor urinae : the fibres which imperfectly sur- round the neck, and are inconstant in origin and figure, have received the appellation of sphincter. " The cellular chiefly imparts tone to this membranous viscus. " The interior, abounding in cribriform follicles m, is lined with mucus, principally about the cervix. " The urine conveyed to the bladder gradually becomes un- pleasant by its quantity, and urges us to discharge it. For this purpose the urethra is given, which " is a canal beginning at the lowest part of the bladder, much longer in the male than the female, and attached to the arch of the pubes by muscular fibres that are described by Mr. Wilson under the name of compressor urethrae and conceived to act as the sphincter of the bladder, " varies with the sex, and will be farther considered in our account of the sexual functions. " The bladder is evacuated from the constriction of the sphinc- ter being overcome both by the action of the detrusor and by the pressure of the abdomen." The assistance of the abdominal muscles, however, is not absolutely requisite, however greatly it may contribute ; because, if we keep^them motionless, and direct our attention to the bladder, when it contains urine, a sensation is immediately felt at its neck ; and if we still fix our attention, we can will the passage of the urine through it, probably by willing a relaxation of the muscular fibres of the part, as much as by willing a contraction of the detrusores fibres, — the dia- phragm and abdominal muscles being still preserved motionless. " The last drops of urine remaining in the bulb of the" male " urethra are sent forth by the ejaculatores seminis. " The nature of the urine varies infinitely n from age, season of the year, and especially from the length of the period since food or drink was last taken, and also from the quality of the 1 " Santonin's posthumous tables, xv." "" m « Fior- Caldani, Opus. anat. Patav. 1803. 4to. p. 4.'* " " See Halle, Mem. de la Soc. de Medecine, vol. iii. p. 469. sq." 0 " The specific quality of some ingesta manifest themselves in the urine so suddenly, even while blood drawn from a vein discovers no sign of their presence, that philologists have thought there must be some secret ways leading directly from the alimentary canal to the kidneys, besides the common channels. An examination of them will be found in Aug. H. L. Westrumb's Commentary (honoured with the royal prize) de phenomenis, quce ad vias sic dictas lotii clan- destinas demonstrandas referuntur. Getting. 1819. 4to., and P. G. C. E. Bark- THE URINE. 293 ingesta®, &c. The urine of a healthy adult, recently made after a tranquil repose, is generally a" clear " watery fluid of a nidorous smell" while warm, " and of a lemon " or amber " colour," saline, bitter, and disagreeable to the taste, " and contains a variety of matters? held by a large quantity of water in solution, and differing " in their absolute quantity in different persons, and in the same person at different times. The more aqueous fluid is taken, and the less the skin and lungs secrete, as in cold weather, the larger the amount of water in the urine, which is then paler, more copious, and lighter. The opposite circumstances, as well as exercise or feverishness, render it high coloured, scanty, and heavy. Its usual specific gravity is from 1015 to 1025. Much of the matters dissolved subside in the form of a pale brown or reddish sediment after it has stood, if the individual is feverish or dyspeptic, and the tem- perature to which it is exposed is low ; and they dissolve again if it is warmed. The quantity made daily by adults in health, though much influenced by the quantity of liquids drunk, is, perhaps, on the average, about three pints in the twenty-four hours. After standing some time, the urine, which, when first made in health, is acid, becomes alkaline, emits a strong ammo- niacal smell, and is covered with a white mucous pellicle, in which, as well as on the sides of the vessel, crystalline phosphate of mag- nesia and ammonia is seen : yellow cubic crystals of chloride of ammonia are then deposited, next yellow octohedrons of chloride of ammonia, and lastly microcosmic salt or the fusible salt of the urine, — phosphate of magnesia and ammonia. The fluid in the mean time becomes a brown and foetid syrup. The following is Berzelius's analysis of urine, in 1809^ : — Water ;,,-: 933-00 Uric acid - - «a ' - 1-00 hausen's Dissertation (which gained the second prize) de viis clandestinis urinee* Berol. 1820. 8vo." Sir Everard Home observed, in his experiments on the spleen, that colouring matters began to manifest themselves in the urine about seventeen minutes after they were swallowed, became gradually more evident, then gradually disappeared, and after some hours, when the mass had unquestionably passed into the intes- tines, again tinged it as strongly as ever. P See Fr. Stromeyer, Theoret. chimie, t. ii. p. 609. : « Med. Chir. Trans, vol. iii. THE URINE. Urea j;> t . . 3010 Sulphate of potass - 3-71 Sulphate of soda - 3.15 Phosphate of soda - Chloride of sodium - Phosphate of ammonia . 1.55 Chloride of ammonia - - 1*50 Free lactic acid Lactate of ammonia ... Animal (extractive) matter soluble in (anhy- drous) alcohol, and usnally accompanying ^ 17*14? the lactates Animal matter insoluble in alcohol Urea, not separable from the preceding Earthy phosphates with a trace of fluate of lime 1-00 Mucus of the bladder - 0-34? Silex - 0-03 1000-00 In the urine of young children and herbivorous animals benzole acid is found, united with animal matter, and perhaps thus exists as a peculiar acid, for which Berzelius proposes the name of uro-benzoic acid.r According to some, urine, like the blood, affords carbonic acid gas under the receiver of an air-pump8, and more after a meal t ; but others regard its presence as accidental, from not having been able to find it.u Uric acid is in the form of soft white scales, without taste or smell, requiring a thousand times its weight of cold water for its solution, and nearly as much of boiling water. According to Dr. Prout it consists of Nitrogen - - 31-125 Carbon - - 39-875 Hydrogen - 2-225 Oxygen - 26'775 The urine contains much more uric acid in solution than an equal quantity of boiling water would dissolve. Hence Dr. Prout con- r TraitS de Chimie, t. vii. p. 363. 1833. • Vogel, Anndes de Chimie, t. xciii. 1 Mr. Brande, Phil. Trans. 1810. u Berzelius, 1. c. and Whoeler. THE URINE. 295 ceives that it is in the state of urate of ammonia, which is decomposed by the other acids when it cools : while others fancy that the solution in the urine of substances so little soluble is a fact analogous to that of iodine being so much more soluble in water charged with chloride of sodium or ammonia. Urea is in the form of slender four-sided prisms, colourless, inodorous, and deliquescent, and affords a cool taste like nitre : it reacts as neither an acid nor an alkali. It is a common mistake, even at present, to ascribe the colour and smell of urine to it. Whoeler has shown that urea is a cya- nite of ammonia. Dr. Prout has established that it consists of Hydrogen - -266 Carbon w&p - -799 Nitrogen - 1-866 Oxygen - 1-066 4-000 * The large proportion of nitrogen in urea leads to the conclu- sion that the kidneys are the great outlet for azote, as the lungs and liver are for carbon. In disease, the specific gravity may exceed 1050, and the quantity has been greater than thirty pounds a day. Dr. Peter Frank had a patient who made forty pounds every twenty-four hours, and occasionally fifty-two pounds a ; and he knew it exceed the weight of the body in a few days. On the other hand, no urine has sometimes been secreted for twenty -two weeks. I Dr. Richard- son mentions a lad of seventeen who had never made any, and yet felt no inconvenience.2 In disease, and even during such little derangements as are scarcely considered disease, the urine deposits sediments, lateritious and pink ; and Dr. Prout has shown that they consist chiefly of the urate of ammonia, and states that they are formed from the albuminous portions of the chyle. The red colour he has shown to depend upon the presence of the pur- purate of ammonia, — a substance formed from the uric acid, and which, like the other purpurates, colours the urates pink. ' When the usual yellow colouring matter is present, this, with the pink, * Med. Chir. Trans, vol. viii. p. 535. y Haller, Biblioth. Medic, vol. ii. p. 200. z Phil. Trans. 1713. He had a constant diarrhoea. * De curandis hominum morbis, lib. v. p. 44. 296 THE URINE. causes the sediment to be red — of various hues, according to the proportions ; and, when the colouring matter is absent, as in hectic, the sediment is pink.b Various odorous and coloured principles pass off with the urine ; as turpentine, balsams, asparagus, on the one hand, and red fruits, cactus opuntia, rhubarb, indigo, &c. on the other. Mercury, iron, and prussiate of potass will enter into it ; as well as tartaric, oxalic, gallic, succinic, benzoic, malic, and citric acids, or at least these will render it acid. Alkaline borates, carbonates, silicates, chlo- rates, and nitrates, also pass off by the kidney. But the neutral salts of potass and soda with vegetable acids are decomposed ; the alkali only, in the state of carbonate, being found in the urine. Mineral acids, alcohol, camphor, empyreumatic animal oil, musk, cochineal, turnsol, le vert de vessie, and orcanette, with the oxides of iron, and preparations of lead and bismuth, when taken, are not found in it.c The urine may be deranged as remarkably as the sweat. For it is sometimes blue, from containing indigo not taken into the system, as I have seen through the kindness of Dr. Prout, and from other substances ; and blueness of it appears to be produced some- times by Prussian blue swallowed. Sometimes it is black, perhaps from containing a peculiar acid, called melanic, without any danger to the health. Dr. Prout has shown me two specimens of this, in which the sediment was perfectly black ; and it may con- tain not only the albumen and red particles of the blood, but absolutely sugar, and occasionally new substances found nowhere else. The urine of birds is generally discharged with the faeces, becomes solid by exposure to the air, and contains a large quantity of biurate of ammonia. Urea exists in the urine of carnivorous birds, not in that of the herbivorous. Dr. Wol- laston found the uric acid to be only ^ in a goose feeding on nothing but grass ; and in birds taking nothing but animal food, to constitute nearly the whole mass. That of serpents is discharged only once in some weeks, is of a caseous consist- ence, and likewise becomes perfectly solid afterwards. It is almost entirely uric acid, and superurates of potass, soda, and ammonia. d The urine of the turtle r> Gultstonian Lectures delivered before the College of Physicians. London Med. Gazette, 1833. c Berzelius, 1. c. d Dr. Prout, Thomson's 4nnak of Philosophy. Dr. Davy, Phil. Trans. 1818- THE URINE. 297 and tortoise is also destitute of urea, but does not contain urate of ammonia so pure. That of the frog and toad contains urea, chloride of sodium, and a little phosphate of lime.6 The urine of fish, as well as of birds and reptiles, and the kidneys of mollusca, contain uric acid. f In oviparous animals the urine is formed from venous blood, the kidneys having a double venous circulation, exactly as is the case with the human liver.g The urine of carnivorous mammalia contains uric acid and urea ; while that of herbivorous brutes contains uro-benzoates and urea, but no uric acid, and is generally deficient in phosphates, which are replaced by carbonates. e Consult Berzelius, 1. c. f Ibid. g Dr. Jacobson, De system, venos. peculiari in permultis animalibus observato* Hafnise, 1821 j and Edinb. Med. and Surg. Journ. vol.xix. p. 78. CHAP. XVIII. THE FAT. IN many parts of the body a fluid exists, which must be con- sidered before we close our account of the production, application, and purification of the blood — or, in other words, of the natural functions. The fat, in truth, nourishes the body, when food can- not be procured or cannot be assimilated. " The fat* is" a yellow " oily fluid, very similar in its general character to vegetable oilsb, bland, inodorous, lighter than water; containing" oleine, stearine, glycerine, and margaric and oleic acids — substances, together with some others, found in the fatty secretions of different animals. Stearine is the solid principle, and oleine the fluid principle, of oils. It consists ultimately of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. * Carbon - 79-000 Oxygen - 9-584- Hydrogen - 11-416 " When secreted from the blood and deposited in the mucous tela, it exists in the form of drops, divided by the laminae of the tela, in a manner not unlike that in which the vitreous humour of the eye is contained in very similar cells. " The relation of fat to different parts is various. " In the first place, some parts, even those whose mucous tela is extremely soft and delicate, never contain fat. Such are the palpebrae and penis. " In very many parts, it is diffused indefinitely, especially in the panniculus adiposus, the interstices of the muscles, &c. " In some few, it is always found, and appears to be contained in certain definite spaces, and destined for particular purposes. Such we consider the fat around the basis of the heart c : and in * " W. Xav. Jansen, Pinguedinis Animalis Consideratio Physiologica et Patho- logica. Lugd. Bat. 1784. 8vo." b " J. D. Brandis, Comm. (rewarded with the royal prize) de oleor. ungui- nosor. natura. Getting. 1785. 4to. p. 13.'* c " Hence it is clear how many exceptions must be made to the assertion of THE FAT. 299 the mons veneris, where it forms a peculiar and circumscribed lump.d " Its consistence varies in different parts. More fluid in the orbit, it is harder and more like suet around the kidneys. " It is of late formation in the fretus ; scarcely any trace of its existence is discoverable before the fifth month after con- ception." It is accumulated under the skin chiefly in the first years of childhood, and again between the fortieth year and old age. Women grow fat earlier, and especially if married. In old people it gradually lessens, like all solids and fluids, till they are wrinkled, shrivelled, and very light. " There have been controversies respecting the mode of its secretion : some, as W. Hunter, contending that it is formed by peculiar glands ; others, that it merely transudes from the arte- ries. Besides other arguments in favour of the latter opinion, we may urge the morbid existence of fat in parts naturally destitute of it ; — a fact more explicable on the supposition of diseased action of vessels, than of the preternatural formation of glands. Thus, it is occasionally formed in the globe of the eye; a lump of hard fat generally fills up the place of an extirpated testicle; and steatoms have been found in almost every cavity of the body." Dr. William Hunter contended that the fat is not contained in the same cells of the cellular membrane as the fluid of ana- sarca, but in distinct vesicles : because, — 1. The marrow, which strongly resembles fat, is contained in vesicles or bags ; 2. Parts which are not loaded with anasarca, as the eyelids, never contain fat; 3. In dropsical subjects, exhausted of the fat, the membrane which contained fat appears still very different from the other, — that immediately under the skin, for example, being thin and collapsed, while that opposite the tendon of the latissimus dorsi is thick and gelatinous; 4. Parts which become filled with fluid from gravitation in dropsy, as the penis and scrotum, never con- tain a drop of oil in the fattest persons ; 5. Dropsical parts pit on pressure ; the fluid disperses, and returns when the pressure the celebrated Fourcroy, — that fat is an oily matter, formed at the extremities of arteries, and at the greatest distance from the centre of motion and animal heat. See his Philosophic Chimigue, p. 112." d " I found this still more distinct in the body of a female of the species simia cynomolgus, from which, by means of cold, I was able to remove it with its sym- metrical form entire." 300 THE FAT. is resumed. This is not the case with parts distended by fat, although it is when oil is poured into the common cellular mem- brane after death.6 The intestines occasionally discharge fat; sometimes solid, sometimes fluid, but concreting quickly on cooling. I have seen such cases, and published a full history of the subject two years ago.f " The glands which some celebrated characters have con- tended secrete the fat, are only imaginary, e " Whatever may be the truth of this matter, the deposition and absorption of the fat take place with great rapidity. " The use of the fat is multifarious. " It lubricates the solids and facilitates their movements ; pre- vents excessive sensibility; and, by equally distending the skin, contributes to beauty." It probably supports mechanically, and lessens shocks ; and preserves the temperature of the body, like an inner garment. " We pass over the particular uses of fat in certain parts, v. c. of the marrow of the bones. " During health, it contributes little or nothing to nourish- ment." h But as soon as food or chyle is deficient, or great eva- cuations occur, it is absorbed, in order to afford as much nourish- ment as possible. Fourcroy fancied " that it affords a receptacle for the super- Medical Observations and Inquiries, vol. ii. p. 33. sqq. Med. Chir. Trans, vol. xviii. I give cases of its discharge from both bowels and urinary bladder : and one of its discharge from the intestines, while the kidneys were discharging sugar and the lungs pus. Ambergris is a fatty matter found in the intestines of the spermaceti whale, but never higher than six or seven feet from the anus. Its quantity has exceeded a hundred pounds, and, though so frequently discharged as to be found on the shore and floating on the waves, ac- cumulation, or the state which occasions it, sometimes appears to destroy life. It is more abundant in proportion as the animal is costive and sickly. 1. c. Some birds nourish their young with an oily substance, secreted in their own stomachs. This is so copious in the petrel, that, ^in the Faro Isles, people use petrels for candles, merely passing a wick through the body from the mouth to the rump. Pennant, Brit* Zool. vol. ii. p. 434. e " The singular opinion of the distinguished Home, respecting the origin and use of the fat, viz. that it is formed in the large intestines, chiefly by the instru- mentality of the bile, and that it supplies a kind of secondary nourishment to the body, will be found fully described in the Phil. Trans. IS] 3. p. 146." h " P. Lyonet conjectures, with probability, that insects destitute of blood derive their chief nourishment from the fat in which they abound. Tr. anat. de la Chenille gui ronge le bois de Souk, pp. 428. 483, sq. and the Preface, p. xiii." THE FAT. 301 fluous hydrogen, which could not otherwise be easily evacu- ated/'1 The fattest person on record is, I believe, Lambert of Leices- ter. He weighed seven hundred and thirty-nine pounds k, and died at the age of forty years. In him rats and mice might cer- tainly have nested, if it is true that a bishop of Mentz, or " A Saxon Duke, did grow so fat That mice (as histories relate) Ate grots and labyrinths to dwell in His postique parts without his feeling." ' Excessive formation of fat may be strongly opposed by regu- larly taking great exercise, little sleep, and little, but dry, food. m Fretfulness of temper, or real anxiety of mind, will prevent any one from getting fat, and make any fat man thin. A passage that occurs in the most magnificent of Shakspeare's Roman plays, and is founded on some information of Plutarch's, will in- stantly be remembered. Caesar. Let me have men about me that are fat ; Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights ; Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look ; He thinks too much : such men are dangerous. Antony. Fear him not, Caesar, he 's not dangerous ; He is a noble Roman, and well given. Caesar. 'Would he were fatter : — But I fear him not : Yet if my name were liable to fear, I do not know the man I should avoid So soon as that spare Cassius. n Great obesity occurs sometimes in infants. I saw a prodi- giously fat female, but a year old, who weighed sixty pounds, and 1 " See Fourcroy, 1. c. k Dr. Good says that some German Journals mention cases of eight hundred pounds weight, but he gives no references. 1 HudibraS) P. ii. Canto i. m Semper vero et certissime debellanda (obesitas), si modo bona voluntas et vis animi fuerit, valida corporis exercitatione, brevi somno, parca et sicca dircta. Nee faci le miles gregarius repertus f uerit, qui tali morbo laborat. Dr. Gregory, Con- spectus Med. Theor. Ixxxix. Iodine is the best medicine against it. See the intructive case of the Miller of Billericay, in the Transactions of the Royal College of Physicians, London, vol. ii. A large collection of cases of obesity will be found in Mr. Wadd's Cursory Remarks on Corpulence. B Julius Ceesar, act i. scene 2. X o02 THE FAT. had begun to grow fat at the end of the third month. She was also of Herculean general development, and, like many dwarfs, had a flat nose. At an early age I believe females are more commonly the subjects of the affection than males. A Frenchman named Seurat, who was shown in London a few years ago, with the soubriquet of the " Living Skeleton," was pro- bably as extreme an instance of emaciation as can be imagined. An American, named Calvin Edson, shown more lately, was also extraordinarily emaciated, and weighed but 58 Ibs. They had no other apparent disease. The Frenchman was about 30 years old, and had wasted from infancy : the American about 4O, and had wasted for sixteen years. A French penny roll and a little vin du pays was the Frenchman's daily food in France ; and in England a iittle meat, amounting, with a reduced portion of bread, to three ounces per diem. The fatty substance of various animals has various properties, and affords various principles. Vegetables contain fatty substances volatile as well as fixed. Starch is hoarded in plants in small cells, into which the sap penetrates and then dissolves it, so that it becomes nourishment to the plant, under particular cirrum- f.tances, just as fat does to animals. This is the purpose of the stock of ft-cula in tuberose roots. 303 CHAP. XIX. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. \V^E now arrive at the animal functions — those which consist of feeling and the exertion of a will, — those, therefore, which, in their nature, must be peculiar to animals. The organs of these functions are, the cnccphalon, spinal chord, and nerves. These, together with bodies called ganglions, con- stitute the nervous system. The encephalon, or brain, is encased in the cranium ; the spinal chord, or improperly, spinal marrow, or spinal prolongation of the brain, in all the vertebrae, down to the first or second lumbar ; the nerves pass through openings in the skull, between the verte- brae, and in the sacrum, and run in all directions through the system ; while the ganglions are disseminated in the head, neck, and trunk. The encephalon is the largest solid organ found in the cavities of the body, except the liver. Its substance is not firm, and on ex- posure to the air grows very soft. It consists of a pulpy and a fibrous portion. Its more external part, and some internal parts, are pulpy, and of various shades of ash colour and yellowish brown. The chief portion is fibrous and white. It is, therefore, said by some to consist of a cortical or cineritious, and of a medullary or white, portion : but what is not white is not always cortical, neither is its hue always cineritious ; and the white fibrous portion is totally different from what is properly called marrow. Gall, therefore, more properly, says it consists of a pulpy and a fibrous portion.* * " We could wish that the term medulla were banished from the nervous system. The functions of nerves are totally different from those of marrow, and infinitely more noble. Besides, the idea of marrow always excludes fibrous structure." (Anatomie et Physiologie du Systeme Nerveux, et du Cerveau en par- ticulier, 4 vols. 4to. Paris, 1810 — 19, with an atlas of 100 plates Vol. i. p. 49.) While some had said that the white part was all blood-vessels, others that it contained none, some that it, as well as the cineritious part, was all globules, some that it was solid, others tubular, Leuwenhoeck, Vieussens, and Stenon, /¥ 304 ANATOMY OF It consists of four masses : one many times larger in the adult than the second, and called cerebrum ; a second, called cerebellum, pronounced it fibrous ; and Bonnet, Herder, and many others, conceived a fibrous structure so fit for the operations of the mind that they adopted this opinion. But Soemmering and Cuvier did not venture to consider it fibrous throughout; and many moderns, — the brothers Wenzel, for instance, — declared that, after re- peated experiments and most careful observation, the brain was not at all fibrous, but equally pulpy throughout. Walter, Ackerman, and Bichat equally deny the fibrous structure of the brain, and speak of the white part as only medullary. (Gall, 1. c. vol. i. p. 235.) Professor Ehrenberg has lately found the proper substance of the brain and nerves to be fibrous, under a microscope with a power of magnifying to 300 or even to 800 diameters. In the white part of the the brain, he says, the fibres are straight and cylindrical, with others like strings of pearls : in the medullary, these knotted fibres only exist, contained in a dense network of blood-vessels, and interspersed with plates and granules. He declares the large cylindrical fibres to be tubular, and believes that the knotted are tubular also. All micro- scopical observations require careful repetition by many individuals. (Poggen- dorf 's Annalen der Physik und Chimie, No. 7. 1833.) THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 305 1, Anterior extremity. 2, Posterior extremity, of the great central fissure of the cerebrum. 3, 3, 3. Its anterior lobes. 4, 4. Its middle lobes. 5, 5. Fissure of Silvius, separating the anterior from the middle. 6, 6. Posterior lobes. 7, 7. Convolutions of the external surface of the hemispheres. 8, Infundibulum. 9, Tuber cinereum. 10. Corpora pisiformia. 11. Grey substance between them ; and , 12. The anterior prolongations of the mesocephalon, or crura cerebri. 1 3- Inferior surface of the mesocepha- lon, and the groove which lodges the basilar artery. 14. Groove separating the mesoce- phalon and the superior extre- mity of the chorda oblongata. 15,15. Posterior prolongations of the mesocephalon, or crura cerebelli. 16, 16. Inferior surface of the lobes of the cerebellum. 17. Anterior, and 18, 18. Posterior, parts of the circum- ference of the cerebellum. 19. Fissure separating the lobes of the cerebellum behind. 20. Superior extremity of the spinal chord. 21. Central groove, which divides 22. The corpora pyramidalia. 23. Corpora olivaria. 24. Corpora restiformia. 25. Olfactory nerve, 26. Its bulb, 27. Extent, 28. Its middle, and 29. Internal, root. 30. Optic nerves after their decussa- tion. 31. Their decussation. 32. Optic nerves before their decus- sation. 33. Common motor nerve of the eye. 34. Internal motor, or pathetic, nerve, 35. Trigeminus or tri facial. 36. External motor nerve of the eye. 37. Facial nerve. 38. Acoustic nerve. 39. Glosso-pharyngeal or gustatory. 40. Pneumono-gastric or vagus. 4 1 . Accessory. 42. 42. Fibres of reinforcement of the accessory. 43. Roots of the hypoglossal, plunged in the groove between the para- tnidal and olivary bodies. ( Gall.) and placed below the posterior part of the cerebrum ; a third, which unites these, is much smaller than the second, and called mesocephalon or tuber annulare or pons Varolii ; and an apparent prolongation of this, still smaller, and termed chorda oblongata or medulla oblongata; an apparent prolongation of which, again, is the chorda, or medulla, spinalis. The cerebrum is divided down to its middle into two equal portions, termed hemispheres. Each of these, again, consists of three portions or lobes ; an anterior, a middle, and a posterior. The outermost part of the cerebrum is rendered far more exten- sive than the dimensions of the organ, by these divisions ; and still more by being furrowed to about an inch in depth, the two sides of each furrow being in contact, so that what are termed convolutions exist. The inner surface of the small intes- tines is greatly increased by projections of the mucous membrane ; the inner surface of the lungs, and of glands, by being divided into innumerable tubes and cells : whence there is far more ab- sorption of chyle, far more changes of the blood and air, and far Y 2 306 ANATOMY OF Superior surface of the cerebrum, narrower at the front than at the back ; divided into two hemispheres, and consisting of convolutions. — In the cut at p. 3O4. the lobes are seen. more secretion, in these respective parts, than there otherwise could be. As an equally beautiful contrivance augments the sur- face of the cerebrum, and of the portion immediately subjacent, we may be certain that the more external parts — those portions which are thus rendered more extensive (for the mass is rather diminished by the contrivance) are of the highest importance; and, as the inner surfaces, thus augmented, are all the seat of the functions of the respective organs, we may, perhaps, presume that, in the case of the cerebrum, the seat of chief function is the more superficial portions. Even a little more increase is effected by the summit of many convolutions being depressed. In the same way, the cerebellum is divided into two lobes, and these into sixteen lobules ; the surface of each lobe consists of about sixty plates, standing side by side ; and even in the sides of these are others, secondary, seen only on separating the primary, and amounting, perhaps, to 600 or 700. The purpose must be the same. We THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 307 shall find the surface farther augmented by cavities, and the sur- face of these cavities also increased by irregularities.5 On cutting the hemispheres of the cerebrum away by succes- sive horizontal slices, we find the mass white and the outermost portions grey. When the hemispheres are entirely removed, a continuous surface remains, called centrum ovale ; the two halves The cranium is external. The pulpy grey substance next. Then the fibrous white substance or centrum ovale. The mesolobe in the midst of it ; and the raphe in the centre of this. b M. Desmoulins contends, 1st, that integrity of surface is the only condition constantly necessary for the production of nervous actions j 2d, that these are proportionate to extent of surface ; and, 3d, that they are performed by the sur- face, and transmitted from it. The energy of an electric apparatus depends very much upon surface. Dr. Spurzheim asks whether it is not on this account that the encephalic masses are hollow or convoluted ; and remarks that the nervous masses of the lower animals are very commonly hollow. The Anatomy of the Brain, by G. Spurzheim, M.D., p. 206. London, 1826. Dr. Macartney has lately declared that the surface of the human brain is thus proportionately more extensive than that of any other animal. Second Report of the British Sclent. Assoc., p. 454. Y 3 308 ANATOMY OF being united in the centre, and their commissure being termed me- solobe or corpus callosum. It has a longitudinal depression, called raphe or suture. When still more is removed horizontally, a large cavity appears immediately on each side of the centre, called the lateral ventricle : which runs forwards into the anterior lobe, making an anterior cornu ; backwards into the posterior lobe, making a posterior cornu, ending like a finger, and thus forming what is called a digital cavity ; and downwards into the middle lobe, making an inferior cornu. A septum exists between the two lateral ventricles, called septum lucidum, with a little space called the Jifth ventricle between the two layers of which it con- sists. In each lateral ventricle is a white mass, called thalamus Horizontal view of the cerebrum, sufficient being cut away to exhibit, 1,1, the great mass of white fibrous substance, surrounded on the surface by the grey pulp. 2, 2. Corpora striata, and lateral ventricles. 3. Septum lucidum. 4. Fifth ventricle. 5, 5. Semicircular band separating the corpora striata from the thalami optici, upon which lie, 6, 6, the plexus choroides. 7, 7. Fornix. 8, 8. Its posterior pillars, turning round to face the fimbriated bodies. 9, 9. Part where the superior part of the lateral ventricles communicates with the inferior, which is not seen. 10, 10. Ergot. 11,11. The posterior part or digital extremity of the lateral ven- tricles. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 309 opticus, with two tubercles on its posterior border, called external and internal corpora geniculata ; a yellowish mass with white striae, called corpus striatum ; a pale semicircular band, called tcenia semicircularis, between the two ; and a plexus of vessels, called plexus choroides. The floor of the cavity has various promi- nences : one called hippocampus major, or cornu ammonis, which is a prolongation of the posterior extremity of the mesolobe in the inferior cornu; and a small one of the same kind in the posterior cornu, called hippocampus minor, or ergot; another called corpus Jlmbriatum. Under the septum is another long white body called thejbrnix, with a few transverse lines called lyra at its lower surface, extended over a third ventricle, which is placed exactly in the centre, and to which an opening leads at each side of the fornix from the corresponding lateral ven- tricle. The anterior extremity of the fornix divides into two pillars, which diverge and run down to two projections at the base of the brain, called corpora mammillaria, pisiformia, or albicantia, between which is a grey triangular plate, called pons Tarini: its posterior extremity does the same, and each pos- terior division itself divides into two, one of which is the corpus fimbriatum ; and between this and the thalamus opticus exists a chink through which the pia mater, or innermost covering of the brain, enters into the third ventricle and unites with the plexus choroides, which is, in fact, a plexus of vessels, connected by cellular membrane, called, in this part of the body, pia mater. At the posterior extremity of the fornix are seen four eminences, called corpora quadrigemina ; the two higher and larger called nates, or c. q. anteriora ; the two smaller and lower called testes, or c. q. posteriora ; and, before them all, is a grey body, called pineal gland, generally containing grit, and attached to the brain by two medullary prolongations only, which run to the thalami optici. Behind and below the corpora quadrigemina, is a fine layer of transverse greyish fibres, called valve of Vieussens, which is formed by three converging bands, named processus a cerebello ;« ad testes. Three bands of white matter, called commissures, run transversely over the third ventricle, establishing more commu- nication between the two halves of the cerebrum. The anterior part of the floor of the third ventricle is formed by the upper surface of a small grey body, called tuber cinereum, which runs downwards in a conical form under the name of infundibulum, and ends in a little mass called pituitary gland, and lodged in the fossa Y 4 310 ANATOMY OF A transverse section of the brain, on a level with the lateral ventricles. The upper part of the corpus callosum, together with the fornix, removed, so as to expose the upper part of the lateral ventricles, the middle ventricle, the corpora striata, the optic thalami, tubercula quadrigemina, and the pineal gland with its prolongations. The valve of Vieussens and the cerebellum are divided in the middle line, and separated to expose the fourth ventricle and the calamus scrip- torius. 1 . Transverse section of the frontal bone. 2, 2. Cranial surface of its orbitar plate. 3. Anterior extremity of the cerebral hemispheres. 4. Posterior extremity of the same hemispheres. 5. White substance of the hemispheres. 6, 6, 6. Thin grey substance. 7. Anterior part of the interlobular fissure. 8. Cut in the anterior extremity of the corpus callosum. 9. Bent back portion of the anterior extremity of the corpus callosum, placed between the corpora striata. 10. Anterior extremity of the corpus striatum. 11. Posterior ex- tremity of the corpus striatum, and upper part of the lateral ventricle. 12. Tha- lamus opticus. 13. Semicircular band between the thalamus and corpus striatum. 14, 14. Anterior pillars of the fornix, divided near their origin. 15. Anterior, and, 16. Posterior, extremity of the middle ventricle. 17. Nerv- ous band or middle commissure, uniting the thalami in the interior of the middle ventricle. 18. Posterior commissure. 19. Pineal gland. 20. Medul- lary prolongations of the pineal gland in the internal part of the optic thalami. 21. Tubercula quadrigemina superiora. 22. Tub. quad, inferiora. 23. Crucial fur- row between them all. 24, 24. Valve of Vieussens divided, and each half turned back. 25. Vertical section of the cerebellum and arbor vitae. 26, 26. Supe- rior surface of the cerebellum. 27. Fourth ventricle. 28. Central groove THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 311 running from the aqueduct of Sylvius and the upper surface of the cerebral protuberance to the upper surface of the spinal chord, and united to, 29. the cavity commonly called calamus scriptorius. 30. Upper extremity of the spinal seen on the upper part of the ethmoid bone, before the cor- pora albicantia. (Cut, p. 304?.) From the posterior part of the third ventricle a canal, called aquceductus Sylvii, or iter a tertio ad quartum ventriculum, runs back, under the base of the corpora quadrigemina, into a cavity in the cerebellum called the fourth ventricle. On cutting the Cerebellum, which has two lobes united by a projecting portion called vermiform process at the superior-ante- rior and superior-middle part, we find it less consistent than the other parts of the encephalon. Its fibrous substance within is collected into three masses; two lateral, and sending offprolong- 1. Continuation of the central fissure of the spinal chord. 2. Beginning of the anterior pyramids. 3,3. Anterior pyramids. 4, 4. Corpora olivaria. 5, 5. Cor- pora restiformia. 6, 6. Cross band uniting the corpora olivaria. 7. Horizontal 312 ANATOMY OF section of the cerebellum- 7*. Ganglion of the cerebellum. 8. Converging fibres of the cerebellum. 9. Commissure of the cerebellum or mesocephalon. 10, 10. Par trigeminum. 11, 11. Crura of the cerebrum. 12. Transverse inter- lacement below the optic nerve. 13. One of the corpora albicantia. 14. Pro- longation of the corpus albicans towards an anterior pillar of the fornix. 15. Optic nerve. 16. Optic nerve just before their decussation, turned back. 17. Band of transverse fibres of the optic nerve. 17. Reinforcement of optic nerve at the decussation. 19. Olfactory nerve. 20. Its internal root. 21. Its external ditto. 22. Its middle ditto. 23. Anterior commissure. 24. Internal part of the great superior ganglion or corpus striatum. 25. External part of ditto. 26. The bundles of the corpus striatutn. 27. Anterior plate of the corpus callosum. 28. Convolution at the bottom of the fissura Sylvii. — (Gall.) ations like the tree called the tree of life, whence their name of arbor vita; and one central. A lateral view of the encephalon, sufficient having been removed to show the interior of the chorda oblongata. 1. Origin of the anterior pyramid, or great original band of the cerebrum. 2. The fibres of the anterior pyramid entered into the mosocephalon or great commissure of the cerebellum, and enlarged in their passage through it. 3. Crura, or great fibrous bands, of the cerebrum. 4. Their locus niger. 5. The corpus olivare or oval ganglion of the great chorda oblongata. 6. The thalamus opticus or great inferior ganglion of the cere- brum. 7, 7, 7. The corpus striatum or great superior gangb'on of the cerebrum. 8. Corpus restiforme or original band of the cerebellum. 9. Corpus den- tatum or ganglion of the cerebellum. — (Gall.) A smaller division of the brain, but the firmest, is the Meso- cephalon, so named from its situation in the centre of the base, between the cerebrum and cerebellum, and over the spinal chord. (Cut, p. 311.) Two processes of the cerebrum, called crura cerebri, which contain some grey substance, whence the name locus niger, THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 313 The brain placed upon its base. The knife has passed through the middle of the great commissure or corpus callosum, 1,1, 1, 1, as far as the mfundibulum 2, situated below the anterior commissure 3, and as far as the corpora quadri- gemina 4, 4, 4, 4. The two hemispheres are separated and unfolded. The posterior and superior parts of the nervous mass of the spine and brain are seen. The grooves 5, 5, are continuous with the lateral grooves 6, 6. 7. The central fissure. 8, 8. The space before the fundamental part or processus vermiformis of the cerebellum open ; viz. the fourth ventrical : it is in connection, by means of a canal situated below the mass of communication called the valve of Vieus- sens 9, 9, and below 10, with the third ventricle or space, 11, 11, in the midst of the great inferior cerebral ganglion or thalamus opticus 12. The'septum lucidum or common mass of communication and fornix are cut at 1 3, on each side, and entirely removed, in order to expose the great cerebral ganglion 12, 12, and 14, 14, 14, 14. On the side A, all the inner surface of the cerebellum is seen cut vertically through the centre. On the side B, the cerebellum has been removed by a horizontal cut from within outwards, and from before backwards, on a level with the white fibres 15, situated in the fourth cavity or ventricle, the fundamental part or vermiform process, and what is seen of the anterior surface of the side A. By a vertical cut in the direction from 13 to 16 (side A), the anterior and inner part of the hemisphere B has been removed, to show the diverging direction of the nervous band above the great inferior ganglion or thalamus opticus, the very fine fibres of grey substance, the great bands 17 in the middle, the direction of this mass of grey substance in the internal part 1 8 and in the external 1 9, and the proportional size of each of these divisions. 20, 20. Commencement of the pyramidal bundle of the cerebrum. 21. Corpus restiforme or original band of the cerebellum. 22. Fourth ventricle or the space before the fundamental part of the cerebellum. 23. Entrance of the pyramids below the pons or great original band of the cerebrum beneath the commissure of the cere- 314- ANATOMY OF bellura. 24. Median line of the cerebellum. 25. Middle of the nervous mass of the fundamental part of the cerebellum. 26. Ganglion or corpus rhomboideum of the cerebellum. 27, 27. Mesolobe. 28, 28. Valve of Vieus- sens or mass of connection of the primitive part of the cerebellum with the corpora quadrigemina. 29,29. Pathetic nerves. 30. Commissure of the corpora quadrigemina. 31. Pineal gland. 32,32. Superior band of connection of the pineal gland with the great inferior cerebral ganglion. 33. Soft or middle com- missure of the inferior cerebral ganglion. 34, 34. Mammillary bodies. 35, 35. Transverse interlacement of the great cerebral bundle. 36, 36. Transverse in- terlacement below the optic nerve. 37, 37. Optic thalamus or great inferior cerebral ganglion. 38, 38. Transverse interlacement of the nervous bands of the middle lobes. 39, 39. Transverse interlacements of the great superior cere- bral ganglion. 40, 4O. Fold of the corpus callosum or mass of union of the inferior convolutions of the anterior lobe. — (GalL) and two of the cerebellum, called crura cerebelli, appear to run to it. The corpora quadrigemina are a part of its superior, or, as it lies obliquely, posterior, portion ; and it, with its continuation — the chorda oblongata, furnishes the anterior wall of the fourth ventricle. This cavity is irregularly quadrilateral, and runs ob- liquely from the aquaeductus Sylvii or iter a tertio ad quartum ventriculum, under the valve of Vieussens and processus ad testes, downwards upon the back of the chorda oblongata, and before the vermiform process of the cerebellum. On the floor of it, or, as from the oblique position of the parts we might say, the back of the chorda oblongata, is a groove which ends in a tri- angular depression called calamus scriptorius. The mesocephalon, thus appearing formed of prolongations — two from the cerebrum, and two from the cerebellum — is itself apparently prolonged into a short bulbous chord, termed chorda oblongata, which lies upon the basilar process of the occipital bone. (Cut, p. 304.) On its anterior or lower surface (for it, like the mesocephalon, lies obliquely) are seen four elevations ; the two outer called corpora olivaria, the two inner corpora pyramidalia, or c.p. anteriora, or anterior pyramids. (Cut, p. 311.) On its lateral parts are two oblong prominences, called corpora restiformia : and on its posterior portion two others, called corpora pyramid- alia posterior a or posterior pyramids. (Cut, p. 313.) This chord apparently prolonged becomes the chorda spinalis, which runs in the vertebral canal, from the foramen occipitale to the first or second lumbar vertebra, larger and smaller in various parts of its course : smaller at first than the bulbous chorda oblongata, it swells in the middle of the cervical region, diminishes at the end of this, swells again at the upper part of the loins, and diminishes through the rest of its course, till it ends in an oval THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 315 a, a, Anterior corpora py- ramidalia of the chorda oblongata. 6, b, Corpora oli- varia. c, c, Corpora restifor- mia. d, Glosso-pharyn- geal nerve. e, Pneumono- gastric. f, Hypo-glossal, g, Accessory nerve, h, Poste- rior root of the first cervical pair, i, Anterior root. The posterior root in this, as in many subjects, gives a twig, k, to the accessory, and crosses before it to reach the anterior root. In this in- stance, not only is there a communication between the accessory and the posterior root of the first pair, but the accessory actually be- gins from a twig uniting the posterior roots together. I, First root of the accessory, ra, 1, The first cervical pair, formed of its anterior and posterior root. m, 2, to ra, 8, are the successive cer- vical nerves, with their two roots. n, 1, to n, 12, The successive dorsal ditto, o, 1, to o, 5, The successive lum- bar, p, 1, to py 6, The suc- cessive sacral. q, q, q, qy The cervical plexus, formed by the eight cervical and first dorsal nerves ; and fur- nishing, among other nerves, r, The phrenic. sy s, s, s, The lumbo-sacral plexus, consisting of nerves fur- nished by the lumbar and sacral nerves, t, The cer- vical enlargement of the spinal chord, u, The lum- bar enlargement. v, Its termination, where it splits into many nerves, called altogether, w, w, The cauda equina. x. The last nerve of the lumbro-sacral plexus, or sciatic. — (Dr. Manec.) 316 ANATOMY OF bulbous extremity. A fissure in front, beginning between the anterior pyramids, (Cut, p. 311.) divides it into two lateral halves. Another, less deep, beginning between the posterior pyramids, divides it posteriorly. Thus it appears two long chords, united in their middle line ; for at the bottom of each fissure a layer of white substance is seen, running longitudinally in the form of two bands at the posterior fissure, and consisting of transverse filaments at the anterior, as Gall first pointed out. Two faint grooves are seen at each side, in the cervical portion; the one near the posterior, the other near the anterior, fissure. Its con- sistence is generally less than that of other nervous parts. It is composed chiefly of white fibrous substance; but in the midst of this is seen a fine layer of grey pulpy substance, very irregular in shape, — not solid, but, as Mr. Mayo mentions, really a capsule. We will now trace the several parts of the encephalon. B, Right side of the base of the encephalon. I, Hemisphere entire of the cerebellum. The primitive^band or corpus restiforme e e of the cerebellum plunges THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 317 between the facial nerve, 11, and the acoustic nerve, 9. The trigeminus or fifth is still covered entirely by the transverse fibres of the cerebellum. The olivary ganglion, a, is prolonged below the transverse fibres b of the cerebellum ; one part of the transverse fibres of the cerebellum is removed to show the continu- ation of the pyramidal band 1, c, c, which begins to diverge and be reinforced. Outside the optic nerve q, t, v is seen the expansion of the nervous bands, in the inferior convolutions w, w, w of the middle lobe 26, 27. A, Left side of the base. A verticle cut of the cerebellum, directed through the entrance of its original bundle e e, and through the middle of its ganglion s, in the direction 92, 28, B, to show the reinforcement of the original bundle in the ganglion, and the ramifications and subdivisions of the nervous chords. All the transverse fibres of the cerebellum which cover the trigeminus k, i, and the prolongation f of the pyramidal bundle 1, c, c, are removed. The pro- longation of the olivary ganglions a, a is still covered by the transverse fibres. The optic nerve is removed from the great fibrous bundle g, and cut at v, q, The pyramidal bundle is seen prolonged from the deeussation 1, to the trans- verse interlacement 35, below the optic nerves. The grey mass 17 has been removed by scraping, to show the two cords of the mammillary bodies 16, 16 ; the one y, towards the transverse interlacement 35, the other, 7, towards the common mass of communication or fornix. The nervous fibres which spread out in the convolutions of the middle lobe, and contribute to its functions, are cut at h, h, k between 35 and 37, on a level with the anterior commissure ; and the middle lobe is entirely removed. The mass of grey substance of the great superior ganglion of the brain, and a part of the convolutions situated below the great fissure, between the middle and anterior lobes, are cut in the same direction. We thus see how this great mass is divided by the nervous bundles S into an inner part I, and an outer part, L L ; how the finest fibres are implanted in the grey substance; how the convolutions 40, 41 are formed by the posterior chords of the great fibrous bundle or crus placed before 'tg, and what are the depth and length of the great fissure 39, 39 between the anterior and middle lobes. By the removal of the middle lobe, the posterior edge of the great cerebral cavity N N becomes visible. This cavity is prolonged inwards and forwards below the great fibrous bundle or crus g. Between 40 and vii. are seen the convolutions situated above the fissura Sylvii between the anterior and middle lobes. The anterior lobe is but slightly cut. 21. Internal root of the olfactory nerve. 18. Its external root. 23. Its bulb. 25, 26. Anterior lobe of the cerebrum. 27. Its middle lobe. 28. Its pos- terior lobe. 20. Optic nerve. 32. Deeussation of the optic nerves, v. Optic nerve after its deeussation. 33. Transverse interlacement of the upper edge of the great commissure of the cerebellum. 34, 34. Transverse interlacement of the great fibrous bundle. 36. Transverse interlacement of the nervous bundles of the middle lobe. 37. Tranverse interlacement of the great superior cerebral ganglion. 38, 38, 38, 38. Situation of the tissue of the two orders of nervous filaments. 13. Pathetic nerve. 6, b. Pons Varolii. 91. Central fissure of the posterior part of the spinal chord. 61. Anterior commissure of the cerebrum. -(Gall.) According to Gall c, many primitive bundles of nervous fibres give origin to the cerebrum and cerebellum. The anterior and posterior corpora pyramidalia, bands proceeding immediately from the corpora olivaria, longitudinal bands which contribute to form the fourth ventricle, and many others concealed in the chorda oblongata, to the cerebrum ; the corpora restiformia to the cere- bellum. The bands arising from the anterior pyramids are the only ones c 1. c. vol. i. 270. sqq. 318 ANATOMY OF which decussate ; the two halves of the cerebrum, the cerebellum and spinal chord, being united by commissures. MM. Magendie and Desmoulins, just as Prochaska, Barthez, Sabatier, Boyer, Dumas, Bichat, and Chaussier did before them, deny the decus- sation ; but it was known of old, as Gall remarks in his demon- stration of it, and cannot be disputed. The following, from Mr. a, Corpora olivaria; b, Corpora pyra- midalia, seen to discussate at their low- est part, where are three sets of ascend- ing fibres on each half — one turning from behind c, the corpora restiformia, another running straight, and the third decussating. This writer, however, speaks of them not as ascending, but descending. Mayo, shows it well. This forms an exception to the rule ob- served in every other part of the cranial nervous organs, except the optic nerves and the fibres which run from the genitals to the cerebellum, of the nervous fibres, destined to each side of the body, running on the same side of the brain ; and we hence explain why injuries of one side of the brain, causing paralysis, generally influence the opposite side of the body. d The spinal chord has no decussation, whence injuries of one side of it in- fluence the corresponding half of the body. Decussation has not been discovered in the cerebellum ; and vivisectors say that an injury of a cerebellic hemisphere affects the same side ; but Gall found that extirpation of a testicle caused the opposite lobe of the cerebellum to shrink.6 After their decussation, the bands of the anterior corpora py- ramidalia ascend on the ANTERIOR part of the chorda oblongata (called by Gall the grand reriflement), enlarging as they proceed. As soon as they enter among the transverse fibres of the meso- cephalon, called by Gall the great commissure of the cerebellum, they divide into many bundles, which are imbedded in a large quantity of pulpy substance, from which proceed many fibres, d I have never known an exception to this ; but exceptions are recorded, and probably some difference of situation is the reason of the difference of effect. e 1. c. vol. iii. p. 112. sqq. Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, t. iii. p. 291. sqq. Dr. Vimont has repeated Gall's experiments with the same results. Traitc de Phrtnologie humaine et c&mparee, par J. Vimont, M. D. 2 vols. 4to. with an atlas of 120 plates. Paris, 1832—5. vol. ii. p. 233. 319 joining and augmenting them while passing through this ganglion, for such it really is ; so that they come out increased enough to constitute, on the anterior and outer part, at least two thirds' of the crura cerebri, or, as Gall terms them, the great jibrous bundles of the hemispheres. They contain a large quantity of pulpy sub- stance, and enlarge the most at their superior extremity, where the optic nerve turns round them. Their filaments and bundles leave the great fibrous mass at the anterior or outer side of the optic nerve, and, diverging more and more, form the lower, anterior, and outer convolutions of the anterior and middle lobes, which, with the anterior and outer part of the crura and gan- glion in the mesocephalon, are always in direct proportion to the pyramids. (Cut, p. 311.) The corpora olivaria are true ganglia. A large bundle pro- ceeds from each, and ascends with the POSTERIOR bundles of the chorda oblongata among the transverse fibres of the meso- cephalon, like the bundles of the pyramids, but acquiring fewer additional fibres than these from among the pulpy matter. On leaving the mesocephalon, they form the posterior and inner part of the crura cerebri. They acquire their greatest increase on entering the crura, on account of the large quantity of pulpy substance which is there, called locus niger, which, with the fibres it produces, forms the two thalami optici, that are here pretty firm ganglia, and are called the great inferior cerebral ganglia by Gall. The bundles, on leaving the superior part of these ganglia, reunite into fibres less diverging, and then traverse two other ganglia — the corpora striata, called by Gall the external masses of the pulpy substance of the great superior cerebral ganglion. Here they acquire another increase, sufficient to enable them to form the posterior lobes and all the superior convolutions of the an- terior and middle lobes (Cut, p. 312.), which are always in direct proportion to the thalami. All these fibres of the brain (Cut, p. 312.) are styled by Gall diverging, departing, or apparatus of formation. But those of the two sides, that are united by transverse fibres or commissures, are styled by Gall converging or entering fibres. The mesolobe is the great commissure of the superior convolutions of the hemi- spheres. The inferior convolutions of the anterior lobes are united by what was called the anterior fold of the mesolobe, — by the anterior portion of it, which was considered to bend down and thus form the anterior extremity of the lateral ventricles, afterwards z 320 forming their floor by running on backwards, just as before bend- ing down it had formed their ceiling. This pretended anterior fold is consequently termed by Gall the mass of the union of the inferior convolutions of the anterior lobes. The fornix is the commissure of the posterior convolutions of the middle and of all of the posterior lobe, and is called by Gall the mass of the general communication of the brain. The lyre is the assemblage of the filaments of union in the fornix. The pretended posterior fold of the mesolobe is the commissure of the posterior internal con- volutions of the middle lobe. The anterior convolutions of the middle lobe, and some situated at the bottom of the great Jissure of Sylvius, called by Gall the great Jissure between the anterior and middle lobes of the cerebrum, give rise, by their union, to what is called the anterior commissure of the lateral ventricles, but by Gall the union of the anterior convolutions of the middle lobe. The posterior commissure of the lateral ventricles cannot be traced to the convolutions, but only just into the thalami optici, and is therefore named by Gall the posterior commissure of the great inferior cerebral ganglion. The middle commissure, for the same reason, and on account of its softness, is called by him the soft union of the great inferior cerebral ganglion. (Cut, p. 313. 316.) Each of these points of union is proportionate to the parts which it unites. Gall considers the origin of the converging fibres to be in the superficial pulpy substance. The converging fibres of all these commissures, after lining the interior of the two lateral ventricles, or great cavities of the cere- brum, as Gall styles them, while he terms the third ventricle the space between the great inferior cerebral ganglia, interlace with the diverging fibres, and thus form a true tissue. (Cut, p. 313. No. 35, 36. 38, 39. ; p. 316. No. 33, 34. 36, 37.) The diverging fibres are then prolonged in the form of a fibrous expansion. If the ventricles are opened, and their walls gently expanded with the hand, or if fluids collect in them, as in hydrocephalus, the tissue of diverging and converging fibres is at length lacer- ated. After this, the expanding force acts upon merely diverging fibres, and all the convolutions disappear; the brain becoming expanded into a smooth bag. A convolution is thus proved to be two fibrous layers, placed side by side, and very slightly united : therefore, if air or water is impelled against the centre of a 321 convolution cut transversely, it opens this from its base to its summit. f A convolution. The centre (a) of the white substance is seen opened by the impulse of air. Many fibres, especially those at the sides, are short ; while others are longer, and this the more central they are. Hence the prolongations and depressions of the surface of the cerebrum — or, in other words, the convolutions. The parts most developed have the fewest convolutions ; and, in hypertrophy of the brain, the surface is also more regular and smooth, the shorter fibres approaching in length to the longer. The convolutions are sel- dom quite vertical, and their white substance is thicker at their lower parts, since there both the shorter and the longer fibres exist. All the fibres are covered by cineritious pulpy substance at their extremities. The origin of the cerebellum is in the corpora restiformia, ac- cording to Gall.8 They increase as they ascend ; and, entering the cerebellum, penetrate to a mass of grey substance of a somewhat rhomboidal form and with serrated edges, whence it is styled corpus rkomboideum or dentatum. It is considered by Gall f Gall, from observing the mind of hydrocephalic patients to be little or not at all impaired, was certain that Walter, Ackerman, and numerous others, were wrong, who maintained that the brain was destroyed in the disease. Finding a female, 54 years of age, with her head greatly enlarged, he entirely supported her, as he informed me, till she died, in order to prove the correctness of his opinion. He examined her brain, and was thus led to discover the true nature of the convolu- tions, and the operation of the distending fluid in hydrocephalus. Mr. Chenevix, Dr. Spurzheim's friend, suppresses this (British and Foreign Quarterly, 1830), and says that a fortunate accident occasioned the discovery (p. 10.). His article con- tains other instances of inaccuracy and injustice towards Gall j but received Dr. Spurzheim's sanction. By this discovery alone, Gall proved that those, who still obstinately spoke of the brain as pulp, were wrong. Pulp would be washed or blown away at the centre, and every where else, by the impulse of air or water, and would not separate into two regular layers. Yet I recollect that in Edin- burgh, in 1809, when I was studying, his anatomy and his assertion of the fibrous structure of the brain were ridiculed as too absurd. 8 Anat. et Phys.,\o\. i. p. 249. sqq. Z 2 322 GALL'S ANATOMY. as intended to increase the formative fibres of the cerebellum, and therefore he terms it the ganglion of the cerebellum. (Cut, p. 311. No. 7*.; p. 312. No. 9.) One of the principal bands which proceed from this advances towards the median line, and with its fellow becomes a long rounded eminence, or ridge, rising from before backwards, and usually called the vermiform process, but by Gall the fundamental part of the cerebellum^ because it is always found in animals which have a cerebellum. (Cut, p. 313. No. 8.) The other bands from the ganglion proceed upwards, downwards, backwards, and outwards, disposed in thin horizontal layers ; those which are nearest the middle being the longest, and those nearest the spot where the original bundles enter the ganglia the shortest. Their extremity distant from the middle is covered with cineritious pulpy substance. A vertical cut exhibits the white layers as branches and twigs, each being surrounded by cineritious substance ; the twigs so surrounded resemble leaflets ; and the whole is known by the name of arbor vitae. (Cut, p. 312, 313. 316.) Besides these diverging fibres, there are, as in the cerebrum, converging fibres, having no immediate connection with the pri- mitive bundle, with the chorda oblongata, or with the ganglion. These arise from the pulpy substance, and proceed in different directions among the diverging fibres towards the external an- terior part, where those from each side, under the name of crura cerebelli, unite together and form the mesocephalon, or, more properly, the large commissure of the cerebellum. (Cut, p. 304«. No. 13. ; p. 311. No. 9. ; p. 313. No. 27. ; p. 316. b.) The size of this is in direct proportion to the size of the hemispheres of the cerebellum, just as the corpus restiforme, ganglion, and cerebel- lum, are all proportionate to each other. Another cerebellic commissure exists at the vermiform process, by means of the soft delicate layers of transverse fibres of its superior and in- ferior part. A layer of fibres, under the name, according to Reil, of inferior medullary veil, or commonly of valve of Vieus- sens and processus a cerebello ad testes, or, according to Gall, of mass of connection between the primitive part of the cerebellum and the corpora quadrigemina, establishes a commissure between the cerebellum and the corpora quadrigemina : and another layer, termed by Reil the superior medullary veil, establishes a commis- sure between the lower portion of the fundamental part or ver- miform process and the posterior pyramidal bodies of the chorda oblongata. (Cut, p. 313.) The fourth ventricle is a mere space NERVES. 323 between the chorda oblongata and the cerebellum. (Cut, p. 313. No. 8, 9, 10.) Gall terms it the space placed before the funda- mental part of the cerebellum, just as he terms the third ventricle the space between the great inferior cerebral ganglions ; and the lateral ventricles he styles the great cavities of the cerebrum. Dr. Macartney has lately declared that the sides of the ence- phalic cavities are so closely applied to each other that no cavity really exists ; so that there is merely an extension of internal surface.11 The encephalon communicates with the rest of the body by the spinal chord and other chords termed nerves. These appear proceeding from its base and from the spinal chord. If we in- spect the base of the brain (see Cut, p. 304.), we observe, besides the cerebrum and cerebellum with their lobes, the mesocephalon and chorda oblongata, the corpora albicantia, pons Tarini, tuber cinereum, infundibulum, and pituitary gland — the four latter of which are, like the parts in the ventricles, most absurdly named, and the five latter of which are masses of pulpy substance — eleven pairs of nerves : — the glosso-pharyngeal, for taste only ; the olfac- tory, for smell only ; optic, for sight only ; acoustic, for hearing only; three conveying volition to the muscles of the eye, the common motors, trochleare or pathetic or internal motor, and ab- ducent or external motor ; the lingual, conveying volition to the muscles of the tongue ; the facial, conveying volition to some muscles of the face ; the vagum, or, according to Chaussier, pneu- mo-gastric, but correctly pneumono-gastric'1, — a pair of sense and motion, communicating between the lungs, larynx, trachea, and stomach, &c-, and the brain ; and the trigeminum, which also is double, and furnishes many nerves giving common sensibility to the face and head at large, and conveys the will to the muscles of the lower jaw. k h Report of the Thirt Meeting of the British Scientific Association, p. 453. 1 Such words, compounded of two Greek or Latin nouns, are made with the dative of the first, its last syllable being generally made to end in o. The geni- tive of irvevfjLwv is irvetifAovos, and the dative irv^fjLovi. See my paper on the Medi- cinal Properties of Creosote, in the 1 9th vol. of the Transactions of the Royal Med. and Chir. Society, p. 1 1 . sqq. k In old language, the glosso-pharyngeal ; the first ; second ; portio mollis of the seventh ; the third, fourth or pathetic, and sixth ; ninth ; portio dura of the seventh ; the eighth, of which the glosso-pharyngeal was considered a part ; and the fifth, or mixed pair, as Gall called it from being satisfied of its mixed functions. Z 3 324 NERVES. The olfactory, optic, and common and internal motors of the eye, arise from the cerebrum or mesocephalon ; the rest from the chorda oblongata. From the chorda spinalis, thirty-one pairs of nerves, double in substance and function, like the trigeminum, proceed on each side, by an anterior and a posterior root ; — eight pairs in the neck — the first above the first cervical ver- tebra, the last below the last cervical vertebra ; twelve in the back ; and five in the loins, — the last below the last lumbar verte- bra. The anterior root of these double nerves is smaller than the posterior, and each begins by many filaments, which unite in their passage out. The posterior root forms a ganglion, and the nerve externally to this unites with the anterior nerve. The five pairs of the lumbar portion, proceed, enclosed in mem- brane, together with five or six other pairs, from the bulbous extremity of the chord, and pass through the foramina of the sacrum. This splitting of the chord is termed the chorda equina. Besides these, a pair arises at about the seventh or eighth cervical pair, called accessory, running up into the cranium through the foramen magnum, and coming in contact with the pneumonogas- tric nerve ; and it passes out again through the foramen lacerum. Many nerves unite : for instance, twigs of the portio dura with twigs of all the branches of the trigeminum ; and twigs of the ninth with the lingual branch of the trigeminum. Many nerves unite to separate again, forming what are termed plexuses ; and the nerves running into and from a plexus may be different in number. (Cut, p. 315.) On some nerves we observe nodules of various shapes, called ganglions ; and sometimes more than one nerve have the same ganglion. We have seen that Gall applies the word ganglion to masses of nervous substance also in the encephalon and spinal chord ; and other anatomists, in a similar manner, apply it to the enlargements of the fifth cerebral nerve and of the posterior spinal nerves. Nerves are collections of white filaments contained in delicate membranes, and united into fibres like those of the brain, and all invested with another membrane, called neurilema, which again is enclosed in a firm white membrane. M. Raspail has lately examined them, and finds them to be aggregations of solid cylin- ders, each invested, like muscular fibrils, with a fine membrane, and the whole with a common covering to form a trunk.1 He de- clares that no tube exists in them, as many have asserted. A 1 Nouveau Systfrne, § 513. sqq. PLEXUSES. 325 thin transverse section of a branch of a ganglionic nerve ex- Slice of a branch of a ganglionic nerve. — (M. Raspail.) hibits a single chord ; but a similar section of the median of the arm exhibits several, every chord having its own membrane, as Slice of the median nerve of the arm : the cut ends of the fibrils are seen, with the covering of every bundle, and of the whole. The single spot represents a blood-vessel. — (M. Raspail.) well as the whole one in common ; and their number is greater, the further from the head the examination is made. A longitudinal view presented the filaments with a granulated appearance, like the orifices of tubes ; but this was probably the effect of the refraction of light, and it occurred when other textures were examined in the same way. (See first cut over- leaf.) Each cylinder of a human nerve is said by M. Raspail to be about '00787 of an inch in diameter.™ Though the fibres are parallel, their filaments continually unite, so that a nerve appears more or less reticular. A plexus is the same arrangement on a large scale. n Ganglions consist, like the encephalon and spinal chord, and m Professor Ehrenberg says that the olfactory and optic nerves, and the branches of the sympathetic, are entirely composed of granulated or knotted fibres ; while nerves of motion and the regular spinal nerves are cylindrical and tubular, and continuations of knotted fibres of the brain now become cylindrical. n Dr. Macartney asserts, indeed, that in all plexuses a complete mingling of the substance of all the nerves takes place, and that there no less is a mingling of the roots of the spinal nerves with the spinal chord. (1. c. p. 451.) z 4 326 GANGLIONS. Longitudinal view of the fibrils of a nerve. — (M. Raspail.) the swellings at the roots of the nerves of sense, called also ganglia, of white fibrous substance, and of a pulpy, greyish, red- dish, or whitish substance in which this is plunged and from which it is easily distinguished. The white filaments anastomose and interlace or mingle most freely, and membranes exist similar to those of nerves, within them and without. M. Raspail represents a ganglion like the median nerve, only that the separate portions half enclose each other. Slice of a ganglion of the sympa- thetic nerve. The nervous trunks are only half enclosed in each other, but all in a common covering. The black spots represent blood-vessels. — (M. Raspail.) GANGLIONS. 327 Besides the ganglia of the encephalon and of encephalic and spinal nerves at their origin, there are, on each side, several ganglia in the head ; — the ophthalmic or lenticular, the spheno-pa- latine or Meckel's, and the cavernous, the otic, and sub-maxillary ; there are three cervical ; twelve dorsal ; five lumbar ; and five or six sacral ; one at the heart, called cardiac ; and two in the abdomen, called semilunar. Branches connect them with the encephalic and spinal nerves. Single branches run longitudinally between them all, connecting their whole series ; and the lines unite in a single ganglion on the os coccygis. Old anatomists gave the whole the name of sympathetic or intercostal nerve, and supposed it to arise from the encephalo-spinal nerves.0 The ganglionic nerves are less firm than the encephalo-spinal, and of a less clear white. We must not forget that every part of the nervous system throughout the body is directly connected with others, and in- directly with all the rest, just as is every blood-vessel in regard to its system. Nerves subdivide and soften till they are lost, with the excep- tion of the optic, which expands into a membrane called retina, and of the coalition of nerves. The diameters of branches are said usually to exceed that of a trunk. I have used the words prolongations, arise, &c., but merely for the purpose of ocular description ; since Gall has shown that the nerves and spinal chord do not arise from the brain, but only communicate with it ; nor the spinal nerves from the spinal chord : for, when the brain is absent, the foetus may equally possess ence- phalic nerves and spinal chord P ; and, when the chord is absent, the foetus may equally possess spinal nerves ; and the brain and spinal chord, and the brain and encephalic nerves, are in no pro- portion to each other in the various species of the animal kingdom, nor the spinal nerves to the spinal chord, nor does the latter diminish as the nerves go off. The idea of the nerves proceeding from the brain is as un- founded as that of the arteries proceeding from the heart, or one portion of an extremity from another. Foetuses are seen with an arterial system, and no heart; others born with no arms, but 0 Writers say cerebro-spinal. But, if cerebrum is not allowed its classical meaning — the whole cranial nervous mass — as well as its scientific application to a portion only, the term cerebro-spinal must be replaced by encepbalo-spinal. P Gall, 4to. t. ii. p. 77. sqq. j 8vo. vol. i. sect. ii. For spinal nerves without chord, see Hist, de V Acad, des Sciences, 1746, p. 42. 328 fingers at the shoulders. Independently of contrary arguments, we may demand proofs of the opinion : none are given ; and it has, no doubt, been derived from the shooting of vegetables. Gall's opinion is now universal. Yet, when he wrote, he found no recent modern writer doubt that the spinal chord was a pro- longation of the encephalon.q When I published my last edition, Gall's anatomy was so little known, and his mode of dissecting the brain by tracing its con- stituent parts so disregarded, that I felt it right to express my wonder, as one of his disciples, M. Barbeguiere, did thirty years ago in Berlin1", that, while students were not instructed to dissect limbs and trunks by slices, as we cut brawn, they should be taught no other mode of examining the brain, and thus be left in igno- rance of its true structure. But now his anatomical discoveries are referred to in every good book upon anatomy ; and are given at full length in Dr. Cloquet's Manuel d' Anatomie descriptive, and the excellent Elements of Anatomy by Dr. Quain ; and his mode of dissecting the brain is taught in all the best schools.8 *) " This was the opinion of MM. Sabatier, Portal, Chaussier, Boyer, Cuvier, Fodere, Dumas, Ackerraan, Walter, &c." (Anat. et PhysioL, vol. i. p. 50.) just as of the ancients, and of other moderns, except Bartholin and Vieussens ; of whom the former began to doubt, and the latter, indeed, expressed himself decidedly ; but then in his descriptions and figures Vieussens still represented the brain as the origin of all the nerves, — an inconsistency committed by Soem- merring, who, while he regards the spinal chord as self-existent, declares it is produced by the mixture of the medulla of the cerebrum and cerebellum. Haller, Soemmerring, Blumenbach, derived the nerves from the brain and spinal chord ; Prochaska, Reil, Bichat, Cuvier, even the ganglions also from the latter ; and all continued to regard it as a prolongation of the encephalon. The French commissioners gave way ; but Ackerman and Walter persisted ! (1. c. vol. i. p. 49. sqq. *" Exposition de la Doctrine de Gall sur le Cerveau et le Crane, par Dr. C. H. E. Bischoff; traduit de la seconde Edition de PAllemand, par G. Barbeguiere. Berlin, 1806. " Is it not the height of folly to pretend to demonstrate the brain accurately by destroying it in slices ? " (p. 19.) s We may see in a report of Cuvier's, upon the experiments of M. Fleurens, after the fall of Napoleon, his admission of many of Gall's discoveries, which, in order to please Napoleon, who was jealous of the German, from being vexed with the honours paid by the Institute to another foreigner, — our countryman Sir Humphry Davy, he had previously doubted, or absolutely denied (having been favourable to Gall's views till he suddenly learned Napoleon's feelings) in a report presented by him and others upon Gall's anatomical discoveries to the French Institute, in 1 808 ; — "A report," says Gall, " which will always be one of the most valuable proofs of the backward state of the anatomical and NERVOUS SYSTEM. 329 There are great varieties in the absolute and relative amount of the several portions of the nervous system. But the brain of physiological knowledge of the nervous system at that time, and how much science owes me in this respect." (Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, t. vi. p. 318.) Even in this report, Cuvier had been obliged to confess that " the most accredited method of the schools, and that usually recommended in books of anatomy, is to take away successive slices of the brain, and observe the appearances offered by each. This is the easiest in practice for demonstration, but it is the most difficult for the imagination. The true relation of parts, which are always seen cut across, escape not only the pupil, but the master himself." Yet, rather than give Gall the due credit of unfolding the brain from the chorda ob- longata, the Committee of the Institute pretended that Varolius and Vieussens had, two centuries before, done the same thing ; whereas Vieussens dissected the brain from the centrum ovale, and he is declared by the Committee to have practised the same mode of dissection that Varolius employed. Varolius, on the contrary, began his dissection at the base, yet not in order to trace the parts from the base, through the brain, but simply, he says, because the brain com- pressed the several organs at the base, against the skull, especially in the dead body, and rendered the ordinary mode of dissecting from above inconvenient. He had so false an idea of the anatomy of the brain, that he conceived the crura cerebri and cerebelli were shoots from the respective parts, and produced the spinal chord : while, however, he also declares the spinal chord to be formed from the cerebrum, between the hemispheres and the pons ! In truth, our coun- tryman, Dr. Willis, who lived a century and a half ago (Cerebri Anatome], was the first who objected to slicing, and dissected the brain from the base : but by base he understood the corpora striata and the thalami ; and from these he both ascended and descended to the chorda oblongata. (Rapport des Commissaires de VInstitut de France, in Gall's Eecherches sur le Systeme Nerveux en general, et sur le Cerveau en particulier. The Edinburgh Review, which we shall see viewed the whole doctrines of Gall, " anatomical, physiological, and physiognomical," as a piece of thorough quack- ery from beginning to end, in June, 1815, did him justice, like Cuvier, lately, in a most remarkable manner, but without the generosity of mentioning his name. (No. xciv. 1828.) " Even within our own time," it now says, " although many great anatomists devoted themselves almost exclusively to dissecting the brain, this organ used to be demonstrated by the greater number of teachers in a manner which, however invariable, was assuredly not particularly useful. It was so me- chanically cut down upon, as to constitute a sort of exhibition worth nothing. The teacher and the pupil were equally dissatisfied with the performance, and the former probably the most. The latter soon gave up the painful attempt to draw any kind of deduction from what he witnessed, and disposed of the difficulty as he best could, when he had to render an account of what he had^seen. Up to this day, our me- mory is pained by the recollection of the barbarous names and regular sections of what was then the dullest part of anatomical study, which, although often re- peated, left no trace but of its obscurity or absurdity. Here an oval space of 330 WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN. an adult, probably between 20 and 60 years of age1, is said to weigh, on the average, between 40 and 50 ounces; the white colour, and there a line of grey, or one of red, were displayed : here a cineritious, there a medullary, mass : here a fraction white without, grey within ; there a fraction white within, and grey without : here a gland pituitary, there a gland like grains of sand-: here a ventricle, and there a cul de sac with endless fibres, and lines, and globules, and simple marks with appellations no less fanciful than devoid of meaning." These are just Gall's views, for which he was loaded with opprobrium. Anat. et PhysioL, vol. i. p. 287. sq. 285. Loder, who not only had attended Gall's lectures at Halle, but dissected nine human and thirteen brute brains with him, adds, after specifying Gall's ana- tomical discoveries, " These discoveries alone would be sufficient to immortalise Gall's name : they are the most important which have been made in anatomy since the discovery of the absorbents. The discovery of the unfolding of the brain is admirable." " I am ashamed and indignant with myself for having, with others, been slicing hundreds of brains, like cheese : I never perceived the forest for the multitude of the trees." " I say, with Reil, that I have found more than I thought one man could discover in the course of his life." * " Reil," said Professor Bischoff, above thirty years ago, " who, as a profound anatomist and judicious physiologist, requires not my praise, rising superior to all the littleness of vanity, has declared that he found more in Gall's dissections of the brain than he thought any man could have discovered in his whole life." Ex- position, just quoted, p. xxvi. Such is the judgment of Reil on what Mr. Mayo calls Gall's " popular and showy anatomy," dependent for its correctness, when it is correct, " rather to bold and fortunate conjecture, than to cautious and philosophical research ; " amounting to " little more than an expansion of the views of Willis," and desti- tute of the force of "demonstration which belongs to the researches of" Reil — their " rival. " Gall, so far from regarding Reil as a rival, thus speaks of him : — " With what readiness would the nervous system, this noble part of anatomy and physiology, the knowledge of which has so long made such small progress, have been restored to its dignity, if, in every country, men like Reil, animated with the love of truth, and endowed with a spirit of profound observation, had fol- lowed his example ! We are proud that the discoveries made by this able naturalist in the cerebellum, by following a totally different course from ours, agree so perfectly with ours." (Anat. et Physiol.,p. 250.) In truth, Gall was too good towards Reil ; for, after Gall's report to the French Institute, Reil, * Dr. Sims has just published, in the 19th vol. of the Trans, of the Royal Med.- Chir. Society, the most extensive averages of the weight of the brain. His average weight of the adult brain, between 20 and 60 years of age, is from rather above 44 to rather above 46 ounces. * Bischoff, 1. c. p. xxix. Also Gall, 4to. vol. iv. p. 378. sqq. ; 8vo. t. vi. p. 493. In this sixth volume will be found copious answers to Tiedemann, Rudolphi, Serres, &c., and a refutation of many of their anatomical assertions. WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN. 331 spinal chord about an ounce and a half; and the corresponding nerves, could they be collected to their minutest ramification, from whom Gall was said by Dr. Gordon and Mr. Mayo to have borrowed, but from whom he could have learned nothing, because Reil had not published at the time of Gall's discoveries, promulgated, in his Archives, views similar to those of Gall, without, indeed, claiming them as his own, but without ascribing them to Gall or any one. He also gave th6 parts different names — such as wings, mountains, teeth, lobules — agreeable to none but mechanical dissectors, who, like Dr. Gordon, as Dr. Spurzheim remarks, consider the anatomy of the brain unnecessary to physiological and pathological views. Gall demonstrated the Brain to Reil, in the summer of 1 805, privately, and so much pleased him that he gave Gall some of his drawings. (Examination of the Objections made in Great Britain, $c., by Dr. Spurzheim. Lond. 1817.) Dr. Spurz- heim here says, that Gall and he demonstrated. But he had been engaged by Gall only some months before as his assistant and dissector ; and Reil's presents in return were, he confesses, all to Gall. Reil calls them Gall's demonstrations, and wonders at such discoveries being made by one man. A medal had been already struck to Gall at Berlin (Bischojf, p. xvi.) ; all the attacks for both the Anatomy and Physiology were made upon Gall ; and all the accounts of the anatomy and physiology published by his pupils were given as of his discoveries, without the mention of Dr. Spurzheim's name, except once, when he is thus spoken of as Gall's assistant at lecture : — " Gall unfolded the convolutions without any difficulty by means of the fingers of the director Spurzheim." (Cranologie, ou Decouvertes nouvelks du Docteur F. J. Gall, concernant le Cer- veau, le Crane, et les Organes; ouvrage traduit de 1' Allemand. Paris, 1807, p. 32., the original having appeared at Dresden in 1805.) We learn from this, which, curiously enough, is the only notice of Dr. Spurzheim in the early history of Phre- nology, how Gall and he demonstrated ! " While at Vienna, ive spoke of the great leading points of our anatomical demonstration." " In 1805, at Berlin, we repeated our anatomical demonstration." " Outlines of our anatomical and physiological propositions were published during that spring by Professor Bis- choff." This is the work already quoted. Now, BischofF speaks of them solely as Gall's, and does not once mention Dr. Spurzheim's name. " At Dresden, M. Bloede published outlines of our anatomical and physiological views." I have read Bloede, in the work just referred to, and translated at Paris under the title of Cranologie, — a part of which is called Decouvertes Anatomiques du Docteur Gall, d'apres V Exposition du Docteur Bloede, — and find only Gall men- tioned, except in the quotation just made, where he is said to have used the fingers of his managing man Spurzheim to unfold the convolutions. The accuracy of Bloede's work is vouched for on the ground of its being approved of by " the discoverer Gall." (p. xv.) Dr, Spurzheim then goes on to say that Gall and he continued to lecture and demonstrate the brain in Weimar, Jena, Gottingen, Brunswick, Hamburgh, Keil, Copenhagen. Now, he never gave a lecture ; and only obeyed Gall's orders mechanically in silence, while Gall was demonstrating. Dr. Spurzheim never then pretended to discoveries ; and yet all the great discoveries were already made. Gall assured me that the discoveries, both anatomical and 332 WEIGHT OF THE BIIAIN. would weigh several ounces. The ganglions and ganglionic nerves can weigh but little comparatively. Dr. Macartney de- physiological, made after he engaged Dr. Spurzheim as his assistant, were merely slight modifications, — des nuances were the words he used ; and the truth of this is evident to those acquainted with the early literature of the new anatomy and physiology of the brain. Dr. Spurzheim himself affords, in many parts, refutations of his unjust and absurd attempts to arrogate what is not his due. For instance, he says (Anatomy of the Brain, p. 148.), " Modern anatomists before Gall and myself 'were divided in opinion on the subject of the decussation." Yet, at p. xi. he says that, having completed his studies in 1 804, he was associated with Gall, " and at this period Dr. Gall, in the Anatomy, spoke of the decussation of the pyramidal bodies ; of their passage through the pons Varolii, of eleven layers of longitudinal and transverse fibres in the pons, &c." ! ! Yet at p. 5. Dr. Spurzheim says the opinion that the white substance was fibrous is, that " which Dr. Gall and I have espoused." An instance of his short-sighted ambition is afforded at p. 95. of his Anatomy, where he positively says, " Before Dr. Gall and I began our researches, all other anatomists were in the habit of cutting down the brain by slices, " &c. ; whereas, before Gall ever saw him, Gall had taught his new method to thousands : Gall taught it to him among the rest, and engaged him as his pro- sector. At p. 178., he says, " Until Dr. Gall and / published, it was the custom to take merely mechanical views of these" (the commissures); whereas, in Bloede and Bischoff it appears that Gall taught all the true views of them before he saw Dr. Spurzheim. At p. 110. he says,—" Dr. Gall and /claim the merit of having been the first to compare the relations between the development of dif- ferent cerebral parts and peculiar functions." When every where, even in the first volume of the 4to. work, to which Gall, in the kindness of his heart, affixed Dr. Spurzheim's name with his own, in order, as he often said, to encourage him, and because he thought that Dr. Spurzheim would carry on phrenology after his death as he himself had done, Dr. Spurzheim, like all the world, ac- knowledges Gall to have been the first discoverer of the functions of different parts of the brain, and of course through observing development. At p. 1 1 5. he claims this all for himself ! though at p. xvi, of the preface to Gall's 4to. work, with his name added by Gall, this is all given to Gall. " / claim the merit of having been the first to maintain that the analogy or differences of cerebral parts in different classes ought to be determined by the combined aid of Anatomy and Physiology ! ! " Dr. Spurzheim gives another striking refutation of his own assumption. Gall had made and promulgated his discoveries, when Dr. Spurzheim, as he himself admits, having finished his studies in 1804, joined Gall. (Anatomy of the Brain. London, 1826. p. xi.) Yet, in his eagerness to be equal with Gall, he unluckily writes, in his Examination, <$-c., " I beg to observe that, in the summer of 1805, we demonstrated to Reil the same leading points in the anatomy of the brain which we still maintain ! " He whose fingers only were employed on the occasion ! he who had joined Gall but a few months from the class room ! In truth, the new anatomy of the brain did not consist m this little detail of discovery, or that, but in grand general views of structure ; and this WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN. 333 clares he has ascertained the real nervous substance to be so incon- siderable, that he thinks " it is, perhaps, not assuming too much was entirely Gall's, and completed before Dr. Spurzheim knew any thing of the matter. Possibly Dr. Spurzheim occasionally made a few little mechanical dis- coveries, like the person who was Gall's previous dissector, a M. Niklas ; of whom Gall says in his preface (4to. vol. i. p. xvi. ), " I taught M. Niklas my method of dissecting the brain ; and, thanks to his industry and address, he made such pro- gress that he directed my attention to many mechanical points till then unknown." But Dr. Spurzheim, like him, worked under Gall : was ordered to dissect this and that, and to ascertain what was the fact on this point or on that : and the shades of discovery, as Gall terms them, made after he was engaged by Gall, must evidently be ascribed to the working master-mind, and not to the fingers of him who only obeyed, and received his knowledge all but perfect at first, and was very long before he "could be taught by Gall to dissect a brain decently according to Gall's method. Gall told me that he taught Dr. Fossati in a quarter of the time it cost him to teach Dr. Spurzheim. Because M. Niklas worked and discovered me- chanically, Dr. Spurzheim declares (Notes, <$• 342 PULPY SUBSTANCE OF THE BRAIN. ing to a queen bee, by modifications of external circumstances, are consistent with the original existence of every part. Thus, as it is clear that one part may produce another which did not exist, that the fibrous portion of the brain may proceed from the pulpy. 2. As all the fibres of nerves are seen to begin in pulpy substance, and, the greater the mass of grey substance, the greater number of fibres are seen to proceed from it; and as, whenever in the brain or spinal chord an enlargement occurs in the fibrous band, there is an accumulation of pulpy matter, that the pulpy appears destined for the production and support of the fibrous8; and this not only in regard to nerves, but to the encephalon and spinal chord. For, whenever a portion of the fibrous part of the brain increases, a quantity of pulpy substance is found at the point of increase; just as wherever a branch springs in a tree, its origin is in a mass of soft substance, so that the diameter of all the branches exceeds that of the stem, and they are not divisions of it. Again, before fibres appear at all, the brain and other nervous parts are altogether pulpy and greyish. For, though Dr. Tiedemann asserts that the pulpy substance of the spinal chord is not formed before the fibrous, Gall refutes him in the most masterly manner, showing that he allows the chord to be at first fluid, then *' soft, reddish, and sprinkled with numerous small vessels," and that at length, in the course of the first two months, or about the beginning of the fourth month, fibres are seen. These are Tiedemann's own words; and yet he fancies he opposes Gall, who contends for the very same thing, saying, " it is the pulpy, gelatinous, non-fibrous substance sprinkled with innumer- able blood-vessels, secreted the first by the pia mater, which engenders, nourishes, and multiplies the nervous fibres." Dr. Tiedemann also objects that, if the swellings or ganglions of the chord were found first to engender the rest, and the nerves cor- responding with them, they should be found in the embryo ; but that they are not. Certainly this cannot be expected, replies Gall, before the chord becomes consistent, or the period for the pro- duction of nerves has arrived ; and when the great nerves of the extremities begin to form, and not before, can we expect that the pulpy substance which produces them will be observed.1 Dr. Tiede- * 1. c. 4to. vol. i. p. 44. and p. 242. 1 See Gall, 1. c. 8vo. t. vi. p. 65. sqq. A masterly refutation, but apparently unknown to English anatomists. Dr. Bellingeri fancies that the pulpy substance is for sensation, the fibrous or motion. I think it is Dr. Foville who fancies that the pulpy is for the pecu- COMPOSITION OF THE BRAIN. 343 mann actually says, " Gall is right in asserting that in the adult the parts of the chord most supplied with cortical substance are those where the largest nerves are given off."" He allows that nervous fibres go off wherever there are ganglions ; that whenever a nerve joins a ganglion, it is reinforced ; and that all nerves are accompanied by more or less of this substance, through which they acquire a successive increase, so as to become conical ; and that the soft substance is, at the ninth month, more abundant where nerves arise, and still more abundant at the origin of the great nerves of the extremities. Dr. Bellingeri allows the fact of the pulpy far exceeding the fibrous in childhood x; and Mr. Mayo allows that the origin of a nerve is always in part from fine grey matter, and that the ascending fibres of the chorda oblon- gata receive additions from the internal masses of grey matter, " as from new organs. "y Old anatomists were perfectly ignorant of the uses of the various parts which they viewed so mechanically, and distin- guished by such a collection of strange names. Gall views some of them as organs of increase, others as organs of union, and others as the bands of fibres which execute the nervous functions. What are considered the parts of increase, and what of union, must appear from the descriptions given. Just as the extreme parts of nerves execute their chief func- tion, as seen in the case of sight, smell, taste, hearing, touch; so, probably, the extreme portions of the fibrous substance of the brain execute its functions. This opinion is rendered the more probable from the pains which I showed nature to have taken to increase the surface of the cerebrum and cerebellum, so that the fibrous substance may ultimately be spread out amidst the pulpy to an immense extent. The substance of the brain is said to be different from that of all other animal textures. Vauquelin, in 1812, found, in 100 parts, Water - 80-00 Phosphorus - - 1*50 Albumen - 7'00 Muriate of soda, and- White fatty matter - 4--5S phosphate of lime, Red ditto - 0-70 potass, and mag- Osmazome - 1-12 nesia, with sulphur. liar nervous functions. But Dr. Marshall long ago gave strong reasons for ascribing them to the fibrous. (1. c. p. 239. sqq.) u Anatomie du Cerveau, traduit par M. Jourdain, p. 135. * De Medulla Spinali Nervisque, S. ii. c. vi. y Outlines of Physiology, p. 241. 253. London, ed. 3. 344 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF M. Couerbe discovered a large quantity of cholesterine in the brain ; and asserts that in the brain of sound persons as much as 2 or 2£ per cent, of phosphorus exists, but about half as much in the brain of idiots, and nearly double in the brain of maniacs ! M. John finds firmer albumen and more fat in the fibrous than in the pulpy substance.2 The oblong and spinal chords, according to Vauquelin, contain more fat, and less albumen, osmazome, and water: the nerves much less fat, much more albumen, and more fat analogous to adipocire. M. Raspail remarks that the invest- ments of the nervous fibrils, chords, and trunks, explain the pre- dominance of albumen. He also reminds us that a nervous dries to a horny substance without putrefying, whereas the brain putre- fies in twenty-four hours. Where feeling occurs in matter, mind exists. But the capa- bility of feeling would be useless, were not volition united with it. Feeling might exist without will, but could lead to nothing : and means neither of obtaining or protracting pleasant sensations, nor of escaping from painful ones, could be adopted. Volition could not exist without feeling ; for we will through motives only. Neither can the existence of feeling be known, but by the certain effects of volition sensible to others. Now feeling may be excited by external things, or by changes within. In the former case, some Scotch metaphysicians term it sensation, and, if an idea of the external thing is also excited, perception : in the latter case, they term it consciousness. When we smell, we have a sensation ; when we see an object, we have a perception ; when we have a wish, or an idea, or an internal pain, we are conscious. But sensation and consciousness are the same, except as to their immediate causes. Before will is exerted, on the occurrence of feeling, a wish must also be felt — a desire to escape from the feeling, or to increase or prolong it : and, therefore, even in the lowest and most simple cases, a faculty, if so it may be called, probably must be sup- posed to exist wherever there are feeling and volition. There are various feelings, and modifications of feelings. The external world produces immediately as many as five kinds z Journal de Chimie Medicate, Aotit, 1835. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 34-5 in the most complicated beings ; so that man is said to have five external senses — touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. The word touch is used to signify both the power of sensation on the contact of bodies, and also that general feeling which pervades every part, tind is able to produce endless varieties of sensations from diversity of causes. If the external world, however, excites merely sensations, the knowledge is very scanty, and the execution of the will and the motives are as limited. But as we ascend in the scale of animals, faculty after faculty is added : so that various properties of the external world are learnt, — form is distinguished, and symmetry, and distance : the relation of colours, sounds, and numbers ; and a power is at the same time given for viewing, as a whole, any object which excites these sensations and inner feelings, - — so many internal senses, as some have named these powers. As we continue to rise, powers still higher are given ; — the power of viewing all things in connection, of comparing, contrast- ing, inferring : and in some individuals these, to which the term intellectual powers is especially given, are of great strength. At the same time, motives are given in increased numbers. The lowest animal has little more than a desire for food or life or an agree- able sensation, and an aversion from uneasiness : but to some, a desire of an act for the purpose of continuing the species ; to others, a desire to construct a habitation, and in a particular manner; to some, a desire to attack and destroy, &c., is given,-— desires few or more and in various proportions. These are all internal feeling, or so much consciousness. Now, any feeling may not only occur, so that sensation, perception, or consciousness are common attributes ; but, when a feeling occurs which had occurred before, the circumstance that it is the recurrence of a feeling may be noticed. An odour may be recognised as one smelt before ; a desire, a thought, as one experienced before. The philosopher may recognise a great thought as not new to him ; and the lowest animal may probably be aware that a savour is the same it experienced once before. This is called memory. The impression may return in an obscure manner, without the recurrence of the original cause : so that we feel we had it before, — we remember having witnessed something. Feelings from even external causes may recur without the recurrence of the external cause. ' The impression is not so lively as when excited origin- ally ; if we figure to ourselves a building which we have seen, the feeling, though strong enough for thinking and discoursing S4?6 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF upon, is far short of that experienced with the aid of the external senses. In diseased states of brain, the feeling, however, is as strong as before ; as well as where a large portion, but not the whole, of the brain is torpid, or, in other words, a large number of faculties are inactive, and not merely inactive, but roused to full action with difficulty, as in dreaming. The insane and the dreamer, from the powerful action of parts only of the brain, have as strong impressions as though they were employing their ex- ternal senses. Any feeling or train of feelings may be thus renewed ; a string of words be conceived, though perhaps, at the time, neither heard, spoken, nor written, or even a train of thought. Whether a former impression is directly excited from without, as it was at first, and recognised ; or whether feelings of any kind are re- excited from merely internal or indirect external causes of excite- ment, and recognised ; or whether the impression of the former occurrence of any feeling is renewed ; — in all these cases of memory, or perhaps more properly, in regard to the two first instances, recognition, the matter is precisely the same. The mere recurrence of former impressions, without regard to their recognition, is termed imagination or fancy : and innume- rable combinations of past impressions may occur, in such form and order as they did not occur before ; and it is to this, strictly, that the term imagination or fancy is generally applied. Feelings thus re-excited, whether intellectual or moral, do not start up insulated, but draw forth one another in association — just as they previously occurred in combination or in succession. An odour will re-excite the idea of the place where such an odour was vividly perceived; and all the circumstances and occurrences of the place will present themselves to the mind in succession or conjunction. It is thus that language spoken and written is an instrument of connection. Any connection between two feelings, of any kind whatever, serves this purpose ; and every faculty may be thus excited ; and the excitement of the very propensities excites ideas connected with the propensity, and the excitement of any one faculty may excite another. While any feeling takes the lead, we are said to attend to it. We can for a time keep it steadily vivid. This power is called attention. The lowest animal can attend to its sensations, just as the greatest philosopher to his profoundest thoughts* We cannot call up a thought or feeling at pleasure ; but, by keeping vividly THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 34-7 before our mind any present feelings connected with it, it sooner or later springs up through association, perhaps very compli- cated: and in this way, by keeping up impressions connected with certain propensities, we can excite even our propensities. The other mode in which our will operates, is by causing muscular contraction. We can will attention, and will muscular motion. We are able to compare feelings of all kinds, and to infer one thing from another. This is called judgment. The animal, with but two external senses, taste and touch, judges of the quality of what it tastes and touches, — whether the object is like that to which he is accustomed. An animal with sight also judges if the aspect of food or drink is like that to which it is accustomed. With the faculty for the feeling of the relation of tones, it judges of music ; with that relating to numbers, it judges of them. To draw large inferences, see the relation of many feelings, and judge of cause and effect, seems a peculiar faculty; and, like all the rest, may exist in various degrees of force. All these powers, of course, tend to action ; and the various mere propensities are so many tendencies to action. Their im- pulse is 'called instinct*; and their highest tendency to excite- ment, passion. But instinct and passion are common to them all. These modes or different operations of faculties were considered by old writers, and are still considered by those whose knowledge is but the remains of the ignorance of former days, as fun- damental faculties. Every faculty, when it acts, acts in the way of one of them ; so that they are nearly common to all our faculties; and, except attention, which is an act of volition, they are all modes only of action. Gall, therefore, instead of dividing them into perception, attention, memory, judgment, &c., as fun- damental faculties ; and viewing " the Power of Taste, a genius for Poetry, for Painting, for Music, for Mathematics," &c., as "more complicated powers or capacities, which are gradually formed by particular habits of study or of businessb;" regards these last powers as distinct faculties, and perception, atten- tion, memory, judgment, &c., merely as modes or varieties com- mon to the action of each faculty. He contends that, when we see a boy, brought up exactly like his brothers and sisters, dis- * Some limit the term instinct to the natural tendency to an act, without any knowledge of its purposes. b Dugald Stewart, Outlines of Moral Philosophy, p. 10. 348 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF playing fine musical talents or an astonishing power of calcu- lation, though in all other respects a child) his pre-eminence cannot be explained by particular habits of study or of business, nor by mere strength of judgment, memory, &c. : — That the boy has a strong perception of melody, a strong memory of tunes, a strong musical imagination, a strong musical judgment, or a strong per- ception, memory, and judgment, of numbers ; but may not be clearer-headed or more attentive on any other point: while men of the strongest sense may have no perception, memory, or judgment, of tunes, or may calculate with extreme difficulty. It is the same with regard to instinct. Writers consider instinct a general fa- culty, while it is only the inherent disposition to activity possessed by every faculty ; and there are, therefore, as many instincts as fundamental faculties. By instinct " the spider spreads a web and ensnares flies: the working bee constructs cells, but does not kill flies to support itself; it takes care of the young, but does not copulate. Many male animals copulate, but take no care of their young : the cuckoo, both male and female, abandons the charge of bringing up its young to other birds, although it is compelled to copulation by a very ardent instinct. The castor builds a hut, but neither sings nor hunts ; the dog hunts, but does not build; the butcher-bird sings, builds, and preys ; the quail does not mate, but copulates, takes care of its young, and migrates ; the partridge mates, copulates, and takes care of its young, but does not migrate ; the wolf, fox, roebuck, and rabbit, marry, and take care of their young conjointly with the female : the dog, stag, and hare, copulate with the first female they meet, and never know their offspring. The vigorous wolf, the artful and timid hare, do not burrow like the courageous rabbit and the cunning fox. Rabbits live in republics, and place sentinels, which is done by neither the fox nor the hare. How can these various instincts exist in one species of animals, and not in another ? , How can they be com- bined so differently ? If instinct were a single and general faculty, every instinct should show itself, not only at once, but also in the same degree ; and yet while in the young animal many instincts act with great force, others are still quite inactive : some instincts act at one season, others at another. There is one season for pro- pagation, another for emigration ; one season for living solitarily ; another for assembling in companies, and for collecting provisions. And how can we explain, on the supposition of a general instinct, why the different instincts do not exist merely separate in dif- THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 34,9 ferent species of animals, but that many of them are even con- tradictory ? " c For my own part, when I reflect upon the various talents and dispositions of persons who are all placed in the same circum- stances,— how unsuccessfully some apply, with the utmost perse- verance, to a branch of study, in which another, under the same instructors, or, perhaps, scarcely assisted at all, or even with every impediment thrown fin his way, reaches excellence with little trouble, and, again, fails in one in which the first is, on the other hand, successful, — how early various tempers are developed among children of the same nursery, — how the best moral education is often thrown away, while in the midst of the worst examples and every incentive to vice a virtuous character is sometimes formed, — how hereditary are peculiarities of talent and of character, — how similar some persons are to each other in one point of talent and character, and dissimilar in another, — how positively contradictory many points of the same character are found ; — how exactly the same is true of all species of brutesd, and of alJ in- dividuals among them, as far as their faculties are the same as ours, — each species having its peculiar nature, and each indi- vidual its peculiar character: — I confess myself unable to deny that there is one innate faculty for numbers, another for colours, a third for music, &c., &c., with a variety of distinct innate pro- pensities; and that memory, judgment, &c., are but modes of action common to the different faculties. The faculties of whose existence Gall satisfied himself are : 1. The instinct of generation; 2. The love of offspring ; 3. The disposition to friendship ; 4. Courage ; 5. The instinct to destroy life ; 6. Cunning ; 7. The sentiment of property ; 8. Pride ; 9. Va- nity ; 10. Circumspection ; 11. Sense of things, by which we take cognisance of individual objects and occurrences ; 12. Sense of locality, or of the relations of space : 13. Sense of persons; 14-. Sense of words ; 15. Sense of language, or philological talent ; 16. Sense of the relations of colours; 17. Sense of the relations of tones; 18. Sense of the relations of numbers ; 19. Sense of construction ; 20. Comparative sagacity, by whfch we compare ; c Gall, 1. c. 4to. vol. iv. p. 332. sqq., 8vo. t. vi p. 352. sqq. d See the poet Cowper's amusing account of the different characters of his three hares. But all persons conversant with horses, dogs, cats, or any other domestic brute, know that every individual among them is proportionally as dif- ferent in its various abilities and dispositions, from others of its species, as every human being is from other men. 350 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF 21. Metaphysical sagacity, by which we examine into cause and effect; 22. Wit; 23. Poetic talent; 24. Goodness, and moral sense ; 25. Faculty of imitation ; disposition to have visions ; 26. Religious feeling; 27. Firmness. He had been long inclined to admit also a sense of order and a sense of time, and waited only for proofs of their organs. Gall gives various other names to each faculty, more anxious to express his view of the nature of each than to quibble for appellations.6 For information respecting the precise nature of each faculty, many of which may be ill understood from their designations, I refer to the third and fourth volumes of Gall's work, Anatomic du Cerveau, and the third, fourth, and fifth volumes of his Fonctions du Cerveau — portions of the work which the most indolent will find entertaining. That the faculties enumerated are not modifications of each other, or of any other, but distinct and primitive, Gall considers proved by the circumstance of each having one or more of the following conditions. " An instinct, inclination, sentiment, talent, deserves," says he, "the denomination of fundamental, primitive, radical: "1. When a quality or faculty (or its organ) is not manifested nor developed, nor diminishes, at the same time with others. Thus the instinct of generation (with its organ) is generally developed and manifested later than other inclinations. Thus, the memory of names usually grows weak sooner than the other faculties. " When, in the same individual, a quality or faculty is more or less active (and its corresponding cerebral part more or less " Dr. Spurzheim gave to the majority of these faculties new names, which he afterwards changed from time to time, some of which were long and uncouth, and still destitute of the uniformity he aimed at, some new-coined words, and some expressive of a doubtful, if not decidedly erroneous, view of the faculties ; and to most of which Gall objected, as I confess I do. Dr. Vimont thus gives his opinion of them : — " Des expressions ridicules. J'ai vu avec plaisir que les medecins les plus distingues en France n'ontjamaispu condescendre arecevoirles mots secretivit£, marveillosit£, &c. — langage pretentieux, de mauvais gout, et qui figurerait a merveille dans la comedie des Precieuses Ridicules, ou des Femmes Savantes." (Traitt de Phrenologie, 4to. Paris, t. ii. p. 105.) It would have been much better to have followed the example of Gall, and rested contented with a few names for each faculty, so as to show what was meant, and waited till the science is so far advanced that an appropriate name cannot be difficult. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 351 developed) than the others. Thus, the greatest sculptors, painters, designers, have sometimes not the least disposition to music ; the greatest poets little talent for mathematics. " 3. When a single quality or faculty is active, whilst the others are paralysed (and only the corresponding organ deve- loped). Thus, persons imbecile in every other respect, are often violently impelled by physical love, or have a great talent for imitation, &c. " 4. When, all the other qualities and faculties being active (and all the other organs sufficiently developed), one single quality or faculty is inactive (and one single organ not developed). Thus, certain individuals cannot comprehend that two and two make four ; others detest music, or women. " 5. When, in mental diseases, one quality or faculty only suf- fers, or one only is entire. Thus, one insane person is mad only in regard to religion, to pride, &c.; another, although mad in every respect, still gives lessons in music with great intelligence. " 6. When the same quality or faculty is quite differently ma- nifested in the two sexes of the same species of animal (and the organ is differently developed in the two). Thus, the love of off- spring (with its organ) is more developed in the females of most animals : thus, among singing birds, the male only sings (and has the organ well developed). " 7. Lastly, when the same quality or faculty (and the same organ) always exists in one species and is deficient in another. Thus, many species of birds, the dog, the horse, &c., have no in- clination (nor organ) for construction, though this is so strikingly manifested in other kinds of birds, in the squirrel, in the beaver. Thus, certain kinds of animals are predaceous, migrate, sing, take care of their young, while other kinds are frugivorous, lead sta- tionary lives, do not sing, abandon their offspring."f f 1. c. t. iii. p. 213. sqq. See also 4to. vol. iii. p. 81. These were Gall's own philosophic principles, resulting from a view of his discoveries, and employed by him to test farther discoveries. Yet Dr. Spurzheim details them with no im- portant difference as his own, and says, " I have no hesitation to maintain that, in pointing out the social or fundamental powers of the mind, my proceeding is philosophical, founded on principles, £c. ;" whereas " Gall did not determine any of the organs in conformity with these views." (Phrenology vol. i. p. 137. American edition.) Gall began, of necessity, empirically; but these were the general principles which he laid down after his discoveries and published in the volumes which bear his name only. " I renounced all reasoning, and gave B B 352 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF Perception, memory, judgment, &c., are modes of action of these distinct faculties. " As often as there exists a fundamental faculty, a particular and determinate intellectual power, there necessarily exists likewise a perceptive faculty for objects related to this faculty. As often as this faculty is active upon the objects of its sphere, there is attention. As often as the idea or traces which the impressions of objects have left in the brain are re- newed, either by the presence or in the absence of these same objects, there is remembrance, reminiscence, passive memory. If this same renewal of received impressions takes place by an act of reflection, by a voluntary act of the organs, there is active memory. As often as an organ or a fundamental faculty compares and judges the relations of analogous and dissimilar ideas, there is comparison, there is judgment. A series of comparisons and judgments constitutes reasoning. As often as an organ or a funda- mental power creates, by its own inherent energy, without the concurrence of the external world, objects relative to its func- tions ; as often as the organ discovers, by its own activity, the laws of the objects related to it in the external world, there is imagination^ invention, genius. "Whether, now, we consider perception, attention, memory, reminiscence, recollection, comparison, judgment, reasoning, imagination, invention, genius, either as gradations of different degrees of the same faculty, or as peculiar modes of being of this faculty, it still remains certain that all the fundamental faculties which have been demonstrated are endowed, or may be endowed, with perception, attention, memory, recollection, judg- ment, imagination ; and that, consequently, it is they which ought to be considered intellectual and fundamental faculties, and that the pretended mental faculties of my predecessors are only com- mon attributes. Here, then, is a perfectly new philosophy of the intellectual faculties, founded upon the details of the natural history of the different modifications of human intellect. The same may be said of the appetitive faculties, or rather qualities."? myself up entirely to observation. In this way I discovered twenty-seven quali- ties or faculties essentially distinct, which must all be reduced to fundamental qualities or faculties. It was only after this discovery that I was enabled to point out the characteristic conditions of the fundamental qualities 01 faculties." (4to. vol. iii. p. 81.) Then follow the seven characteristics. B 1. c. 4to. vol. iv. p. 327. sqq., 8vo. t. vi. p. 405. sqq., t. iii. p. 131. sqq. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 353 ** When a person has the talent for music, poetry, construction, judging of distance, &c., in only a weak degree, he will not have a very decided inclination for those objects. If, on the other hand, the organs of these fundamental forces are more energetic, the person feels a pleasure in the exercise of their functions ; he has an inclination for these objects. When the action of these organs is still more energetic, he feels a want to occupy himself with them. Lastly, when the action of these organs prepon- derates, the person is impelled towards these objects ; he finds his happiness in them, and feels disappointed, unhappy, when he cannot follow his inclination; he has a passion for these objects. Thus it is that certain individuals have a passion for music, poetry, architecture, travelling," &c.h " ' You shall not persuade me, however,' " Gall fancies it will be said to him, " ' that the faculties acknowledged by philosophers as faculties of the soul, are chimaeras. Who will dispute that understanding, will, sensation, attention, comparison, judgment, memory, imagination, desire, liberty, are not real operations of the soul, or, if you please, of the brain ? ' ' " Yes," replies Gall, " without doubt these faculties are real, but they are mere ab- stractions, generalities, and inapplicable to a minute study of a species, or of individuals. Every man, who is not imbecile, has all these faculties. All men, however, have not the same intel- lectual or moral character. We must discover faculties, the various distribution of which determines the various species of animals ; and the various proportions of which explain the varie- ties among individuals. All bodies have weight, all have exten- sion, all have impenetrability; but all bodies are not gold or copper, all are not any plant, or any animal. Of what use to the naturalist would be the abstract and general notions of weight, extension, and impenetrability ? If we confined ourselves to these abstractions, we should still be in the most profound igno- rance of every branch of physics and natural history. " This is exactly what has happened to philosophers with their generalities. From the most ancient period down to the present day, one has not made a single step farther than another in the precise knowledge of the true nature of man, his inclin- ations and his talents, or of the source of his motives and deter- minations, Hence we have as many philosophies as soi-disant h 1. c. 4to. vol. iv. p. 328. sq., 8vo. t. vi. p. 408. B B 2 354 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF philosophers : hence the vacillation and uncertainty of our insti- tutions, especially of those which relate to education and criminal legislation."1 Gall does not pretend to have discovered the ultimate nature of all the fundamental faculties which he has pointed out. The poet's faculty, for example, he regards as distinct and fundamental, because it has the conditions of a fundamental faculty above enumerated ; but what are the ordinary functions of that part of the brain, which, when greatly developed, produces the poet, he dares not determine.15 " I have made it," says he, «< an invariable rule to advance nothing which I could not strictly prove, or at least render very probable by very strong arguments : for this reason, in regard to the qualities and faculties, the existence of which I maintain, I have always confined myself to the degree of activity in which I could discover them and observe their mani- festation. I know it would have been more philosophical always to refer to their fundamental forces the qualities or faculties which I could detect in only their highest action : but I preferred leaving something for those who came after me to do, rather than give them an opportunity to disprove what I had prematurely advanced."1 ' 1. c. Svo. t. i. p. 49. sq. See also 4to. vol. iv. p. 318. sqq., and 8vo. t. vi. p. 392. sqq. k 1. c. 4to. vol. iv. p. 181., 8vo. t. v. p. 243. 1 1. c. 4to. vol. iv. p. 275. sq., Svo. t. v. p. 407. Gall was of opinion that there is a faculty for judging of time, and another of order. (1. c. 4to. vol. iv. p. 61. sq., 138. sq., Svo. t. iv. p. 466. sq., t. v. p. 153. sqq.) He held, that there must be a faculty which determin.es the desire of a particular habitation (1. c. 4to. vol. iii. p. 314. Svo. t. iv. p. 280.), and might be one which gives pleasure in wonders ; but, like the faculties of time and order, he " was always of opinion that they should not be received into the list till the situation of their organs was proved by a sufficiently large number of exact observations." (1. c. 4to. vol. iii. p. xxiv. sq.) Dr. Spurzheim and phrenologists in general admit all four. Dr. Spurzheim splits Gall's sense of Things into two : one for objects, and one for occurrences. Gall conceives there is a cerebral organ for the desire »f taking food (1. c. Svo. t. iv. p. 63.); and Dr. Hoppe of Copenhagen is generally thought to have established it. (Phrenolog. Journ. Edin. Nos. 5. and 7.) Dr. S. assigns its establishment to a person who never uttered a word to us upon the subject till, many months after Dr. Hoppe's first paper was published and six weeks after the second paper had been read in the Edinburgh Society, he surprised us all in the London Phrenological Society by reading a paper upon the point. Gall originally fancied that there was a faculty of the love of life, and that he had dis- covered its organ ; but he afterwards thought he had been mistaken. Cranologie, THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 355 Neither does Gall pretend to have enumerated all the funda- mental faculties of the mind. " Probably," says he, " those who ou Dtcouvertes nouvelles du Docteur Gall, traduit de T Allemand. Paris, 1807, p.72. Gall, 8vo. t.iv. p. 63. sq.) Dr. A. Combe, however, in the Ed. Phr. Journ., 1826, contended that the love of life was a distinct faculty, and mentioned the case of an old lady who had long been remarkable for her love of life, and in whose brain the only thing peculiar was an enormous convolution at the base of the middle lobe. Dr. Spurzheim, without referring to Dr. A. Combe or any one else, coolly says he thinks " it is highly probable that there is a peculiar instinct to feel a love of life ; and I look for its organ at the base of the brain, between the posterior and middle lobes, inwardly of combativeness." (Phrenology, ed. 1832, vol. i. p. 142.) Dr. Vimont says (Traiti de Phonologic, 1835, vol. ii. p. 165.), that persons assured him that Dr. S., in his lectures at Paris, in 1830, arrogated to himself the discovery of the organ. Dr. Vimont, however, is equally culpable with Dr. S. ; for he not only says that Dr. S. made no such discovery, but that neither Gall nor Dr. S. speaks of the faculty ; and Mr. G. Combe only in the third edition of his System of Phrenology, in 1830. Now, 1. Dr. Spurz- heim did mention it in his edition of 1832, under the beautiful name vitative- ness ; and Gall long before, though to disprove it. 2. In the passage which Dr. Vimont refers to, in Mr. G. Combe's work, the case seen by Dr. A. Combe is fully detailed from the Ed. Phr. Journ., vol. iii. p. 467. sqq., published in 1826. But, Dr. Vimont's mention of it is in his second volume, published 1835, p. 105. and 16O. sqq. ; and he there says that he mentioned it in a memoir pre- sented to the French Institute only in 1827. Gall, in treating of attachment, gave strong reasons, in opposition to Dr. Spurz- heim, for believing that there is a faculty for marriage. Dr. Vimont fancies that he himself has established this ; as well as, in certain brutes, a faculty which he calls sens ggome'trique, inclining them, when moving in numbers, to arrange themselves in a certain figure ; and one in men, which he terms sensdu beau dans les arts. Dr. Spurzheim conceived that there is a distinct faculty for judging of weight or resistance, one for judging of size, as well as one of hope.* Gall was opposed to all three. In Edinburgh they fancy there is a faculty for keeping other faculties in simultaneous action towards one object, and they call it concen- trativeness. Dr. Spurzheim argues against it through no fewer than eleven pages; and Gall considered it unfounded. Dr. Spurzheim says that a friend of his, a M. De Tremmon of Paris, suggested the idea of an organ of which agriculture is the result. (Phr., Am. ed. vol. i. p. 168.) An Irish gentleman, who had just commenced the study of phrenology, announced the discovery of seventy-four new faculties one night to the Phrenological Society of London. It appears to me, however, that there must be a faculty which makes us wish to communicate our ideas to others, and another which makes us love society. Some persons can keep nothing for an instant. Now no want of secretiveness (if there is such a faculty, though Gall more properly, as I imagine, con- * Phrenology, or the Doctrine of the Mental Phenomena. By G. Spurzheim, M.D. 2 vols. Boston, 1832. Editions of some of his works, with his latest cor- rections, were printed there by Marsh, Capen, and Lyon, 1832-3. BB 3 356 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF follow me in the career which I have opened, will discover some fundamental forces and some organs which have escaped my researches." He doubts, however, whether so many will be discovered as some apprehend. A modification of a faculty must not be mis- taken for a faculty, nor the result of the combined action of several faculties for a particular faculty. " If," he says, " we reflect on the number of possible combinations which may result from the twenty-seven or thirty fundamental faculties or qualities, from the reciprocal action of as many organs, we shall not be surprised at the infinite number of shades of character among mankind. How many different combinations result from the ten ciphers, from the twenty-four letters. How many different coun- tenances result from the different combination of the small number of parts which compose the human face : how many shades of colours and tones result from the small number of primitive colours and fundamental tones." m They, moreover, may be variously modified in different animals. This view of the mental faculties may be considered quite in- dependently of the peculiar doctrines of Gall respecting the cerebral organs of each faculty, and even quite independently of the fact of the brain being the organ of the mind. It may be examined precisely like the metaphysics of Locke, Reid, Stewart, Brown, &c. n siders that what Dr. S. names secretiveness is a disposition to artfulness and stratagem) can explain it. There must be a positive propensity. The dis- ciples of Dr. S. must allow that the want of a disposition to conceal would not impel a person to communicate; as they maintain, in opposition to Gall, that the deficiency of combativeness will not give fear, nor of any feeling its op- posite. Again, some persons, not at all remarkable for attachment, cannot bear to be alone ; they have a propensity to society too strong to allow them to be alone a moment, though they have no regard for the person whose presence may suffice them. Gall is decidedly of this opinion (1. c. 4to. vol. iii. p. 175. sq., 8vo. t. iii. p. 492. sq.); and, having been unable to localise the tendency, is inclined to regard it as a modification of attachment. Solitariness and silence are dreadful punishments. m 1. c. 4to. vol. iv. p. 275., 8vo. t. v. p. 406, sq. Bacon, De Dignit. et Aug. Sc> 1. vii. cap. ii. is striking on this point. 11 It is remarkable that nearly every one of these faculties has been admitted by one metaphysician or another. See Mr. G. Combe's Letter in reply to Mr. Jeffrey, the editor of the Edin. Review, reprinted in the Edin. Phrenol. Journal, 1827. Notwithstanding, too, that memory, like judgment, attention, &c., was con- THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 357 It, however, derives its great proofs from the fact of the in- dividual faculties being, caeteris paribus, strong in proportion to the development of particular parts of the brain, as we shall presently see. Every faculty was given us for a good purpose, and it is only when one or more are excessive, or defective, or too much or too little excited by external circumstances, or by disease, that error occurs. The lower faculties given to brutes as well as to our- selves are evidently to yield to those which are of a superior nature and peculiar, or given in a higher degree and with peculiar modifications, to man. Happiness is " our being's end and aim." Not individual, partial, temporary happiness, however intense ; but the greatest and longest happiness of the greatest number. Sound morality in individuals and nations, — and in what, through elective representation should be, at least virtually, identical with a nation, — government, tends to this. No act is virtuous that does not lead to the greatest happiness of the individual and of the greatest number of individuals: nor does any act lead to the greatest happiness of the individual and of the greatest number, that is not virtuous. The whole set of faculties, each allowed to act, but the inferior in subordination to the superior, lead to virtue ; and this to happiness. *« All the faculties," says Gall, " are good, and necessary to human nature such as it should be according to the laws of the Creator. But I am convinced that too energetic an activity of certain faculties produces vicious in- clinations — causes the primitive destination of propagation to degenerate into libertinism, the sentiment of property into an inclination for theft, circumspection into irresolution and a tend- ency to suicide, self-love into insolence, disobedience, &c." ° To employ all our faculties so as to produce the largest amount of individual and general happiness, therefore, is the law of our nature ; and, like all the laws of nature, is intended to be obeyed. When we attempt to act contrarily to any law of nature, evil arises either to ourselves immediately or ultimately, to others sidered a distinct and fundamental faculty, some writers taught that there were three sorts of memory ; one for facts (memoria realis), one for words (memoria verbalis), and one for places (memoria localis). See Gall, 1. c. 4to. vol. iv. p. 14. sq., 8vo. t. iv. p. 380. Some, that there are four; a memory for words, another for places, a third for time, and another for cause and effect, or causality. See Gall, 1. c. 4to. vol. ii. p. 357. sq., 8vo. t. ii. p. 353. 0 1. c. 4to. vol. iii. p. xxxi. B B 4- 358 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF contemporaneous with us, or to our successors, be they our pro- geny or not. To obey them is. therefore, our solemn duty. Christianity teaches the very precepts which lead to the greatest happiness : and, if any one disregard the authority of them as taught by Christ., because he sees no proofs of Christ's super- human authority, he must remember that they are already esta- blished in nature ; and that Bishop Butler himself, in his Analogy r declares that man, " from his make, constitution, or nature, is, in the strictest and most proper sense, a law to himself, — he hath the rule of right within,"? and that Christianity, as regards its moral precepts, is a republication " of natural religion in its genuine simplicity," and that "moral precepts are precepts the reason of which we see," and " arise out of the nature of the case itself, prior to external command."'! So imperative are the natural moral laws, that a man is equally bound to obey them and be virtuous, though he disbelieves not only the divine authority of Scripture, but a future state. Indeed, in proportion to the necessity of being influenced in our conduct by the hope of future reward or the fear of future punishment must be the deficiency of real virtue. Nay, a man would be equally bound to obey the moral laws, though, notwithstanding the evidence of universal design, he should, from the difficulties of the subject, reason himself into a doubt of the personality of p' Sermon iii» i Analogy, P. ii. c. i. Melanctbon says, " Wherefore our decision is this, that those precepts which learned men have committed to writing, translating them from the common sense and common feeling of human nature, are to be accounted as not less divine than those contained in the tables given to Moses ; and that it could not be the intention of our Maker to supersede by a law given on a stone, that which is graven with his own finger on the table of the heart." Volney's Loi Naturette deserves reading; and that part of Dr. Spurzheim's Phrenology which relates to the moral constitution of man. Mr. Combe's work on the Constitution of Man is plain and forcible, and should be in every body's hands, as a guide to happiness and a protection from absurd and superstitious notions. Through a phrenological benefaction, its price is very low. Upon the subject of metaphysics, or the science of mind, all our knowledge, I think, may be found in Gall's works, — Sur V Anatonde ct Physiologic du Systfrne Nerveux , and his Fonctions du Cerveau ; in Dr. Spurzheim's Phrenology, in 2 vols ; and in the admirable Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, by Thomas Brown, M.D. Edinb. 1826, 1 vol. 8vo. Dr. Thomas Brown is not only among the ablest metaphysical writers, but is the latest, and his work approaches as near to phrenology as was possible without the aid of Gail's method of investigation. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 359 the great cause of creation. The wicked man who holds any of these opinions, in the idea of being loosened from the bonds of virtue, is as ignorant as he is wicked. Bishop Butler, in his profound metaphysical sermons, preached at the Roll's Chapel, and which all should study, proves that the natural tendency of all our united faculties and feelings is to virtue and the greatest happiness. r r Serm. i. Upon the social nature of Man. Serm. ii iii. Upon the natural supremacy of conscience. Some have, in the most Ibigoted manner, denied that there is any foundation for virtue, but in revelation. " I never took any pleasure in moral ethics" says Mr. Gilbert Wakefield (Memoirs of his own Life, vol. i. p. 512.), " and would not give one penny for all the morality in the world." Yet, as the present Dean of Peterborough, Dr. Turton remarks (p. 222.), " this gentleman wrote a book of about 230 pages in defence of Christianity ; and the volume is almost entirely confined to the internal evidences and moral excellence of the system. It is not unpleasant to observe the natural feelings of people thus completely overthrowing their theoretical positions. ' Natural religion,' Dr. Hey observes « is pre-supposed in revealed.' " Socinus even declared (Toulmin's Memoirs of Faustus Socinus, p. 216.) that no man could discover the truths of natural religion, not even the being of God, by the light of nature ; " and that the first notices of a Divine Being were derived from Revelation or immediate com- munications from God." Archbishop Magee held the same doctrine; and Bishop Home and the greater defender of the Trinity, Mr. Jones, went further, by be- lieving the Bible to contain a system of natural philosophy (" as certain critics," equally absurd in regard to another book, " are used to say, hyperbolically," that if all sciences were lost, they might be found in Virgil, (Lord Bacon, Advance- ment of Learning}, and, by becoming disciples of a person named Hutchinson, who thought that, by the " light which revelation afforded him, compared with his own observations, he saw farther into the constitution of the universe, and the operations carried on in it, than Sir Isaac Newton had done." (Bishop Home's Works, vol. i. p. 445.) " Mr. Hutchinson looked upon natural religion as an engine of the devil, in these latter days, for the overthrow of the Gospel ; and therefore boldly called it the religion of Satan or Antichrist." The fancy was, however, old. " Paracelsus and some others," says Lord Bacon (1. c.) have pretended to find the truths of all natural philosophy in the Scriptures, scandalising and traducing all other philosophy as heathenish and profane." " But neither do they give honour to the Scriptures, as they suppose, but much embase them." " The scope or purpose of the spirit of God is not to express matters of nature in the Scriptures otherwise than in passage, and for appli- cation to man's capacity and to matters moral and divine ; and it is a true rule auctoris aliud agentis parva auctoritas ; for it were a strange conclusion, if a man should use a similitude for ornament or illustration sake, borrowed from nature or history, according to vulgar conceit, as of a basilisk, an unicorn, a centaur, Briarcus, an Hydra, or the like ; and that therefore he must needs be thought to affirm the matter thereof positively to be true." — The mind is a subject of natural 360 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF We will now consider the special functions of the different parts of the nervous system. The mind is evidently the property of the brain ; and the operations of the mind, whether relating to sensation, will, intel- lect, or affections, are evidently the operations of the brain. In the division of this work devoted to general physiology, I proved the brain to be the organ of the mind, as much as the liver is the organ of the secretion of bile ; that what holds good of the function of every other part, holds good of the function of the brain ; and that to ascribe the power of the brain to an immaterial imaginary something called a soul, is a mere hypothesis, the remains of un- enlightened times, and not only unnecessary to the belief of a future state through a divine revelation, but calculated to throw discredit on such revelation, by making its annunciation of a future state appear superfluous.8 science, and Lord Bacon's remarks apply to it equally as to astronomical and geological matters ; and I consider that a soul stands upon the same foundation as a centaur or a Briareus. * An old argument, which I thought too puerile to notice, and which was disposed of by Gall (1. c. 8vo. t. iii. p. 119. sq.), has just been revived by Lord Brougham to uphold the existence of something called soul distinct from matter. (Paley's Natural Theology, illustrated by Henry Lord Brougham. London, 1835. The body is said to be incessantly changing its constituent particles, so that no part of it is the same after a certain lapse of time ; and yet we feel ourselves to be mentally the same- Now, the change of the particles of the body may be granted. But what then? Do not all the properties of all parts of the body remain the same, as much as its mental character ? are not the fresh particles so assimilated to each part, that all we can see or feel of our bodies, arid the qualities of every part, remain the same, as much as all we observe of the mind, throughout all the changes of particles? Is not a man held to be the same bodily as well as mentally all the days of his life? If the face is marked with the small-pox, do not the pits remain throughout life, though the particles may have all changed ten times ? If a nervous or dyspeptic affection exists here- ditarily, does not the morbid functional peculiarity continue through all the repeated changes of the particles? If a person acquires immunity from small-pox by vaccination, or by having once passed through the disease, is he not in nearly all instances safe against it, though he live long enough to change all his particles again, and again, and again. What is true of all other organs and parts is true, to just the same extent, of the brain, in regard to its substance and its qualities. An assertion of Lord Brougham's, that the mind does not decay with the body, but acquires vigour while the body declines, is incorrect. " It is equally cer- tain/' says he, " that while the body is rapidly decaying, between 60 or 63 and 70, the mind suffers hardly any IQSS of strength in the generality of men : that men continue to 75 or 76 in the possession of all their mental powers, while few THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 361 Ifit is clear that the brain is the organ of mind, it is extremely probable that particular portions of it have different offices. can boast of even their physical strength • and instances are not wanting of per- sons, who, between 80 and 90, and even older, when the body can hardly be said to live, possess every faculty of the mind unimpaired." (p. 120.) This statement is perfectly opposite to sound observation. Gall published when between 60 and 70, and in conversation appeared in full possession of his intellect ; nay, as to cere- bellum and body at large, he declared that he never omitted matrimonial duties for 24 hours. Madame Gall assured me, in regard to the whole man, " que le docteur n'etoit pas ^puise* ; que ses forces n'e"toient pas diminue'es !" But what he wrote did not contain a single discovery or new view, and was merely the offspring of his former labours and mental powers. He told me his mind's vigour was impaired, and his head somewhat diminished. A man's judgment may become greater near GO; not from greater strength, but from enlarged experience and longer habit. But let him attempt what is not habitual with him, or let him attempt originality, and, though he may not discover his decline, the rest of the world will. The Archbishop begged to be informed when his sermons showed his mind to be falling off; but was offended beyond forgiveness when Gil Bias told him that his last homily " ne paroit pas tout-a-fait de la force des precedents." " Mon esprit, grace au Ciel," replied the indignant old man, " n'a rien encore perdu de sa vigeur." When old men work at some- thing original, or pursue a course of public intellectual effort, their falling off is manifest, and we discover that the phrase ' retained their faculties to the last,' is vague and incorrect, just as I formerly remarked it to be when applied to persons near dissolution. I am not aware of any great discoveries or original productions by men who had attained the age of 60 ; but, should any instances of full mental vigour in old men be adduced, they would only be exceptions, just like octoge- narian fathers, or persons who we see continually in the papers lived to 90 or 100, and walked so many miles daily to within a week of their death for I know not how many years. An eminent agriculturist has been begetting a family at past 70.* Yet who would fix upon a man of 70 as a postman, or to ensure an heir ? Are not elderly men found to fall off from their full and palmy condition of mind, till they all acquire the title of old women ? There may be varieties in the period of general decline, as there are of full development ; and there may be varieties in the decline of different organs in the same system. Will not the stomachs of some old men receive and digest food as well as those of young ones ? But decline arrives ; and those who use such arguments should show that the * Every Sunday newspaper records the death of some wonderful old poor person, and I take this by chance from the Morning Chronicle of the 30th of last November. " The veteran Lord Lynedoch has been visiting at Holkham ; and we are happy to understand that, notwithstanding his advanced age (we believe the venerable General to be in his ninety-second or ninety-third year), he enjoys the diversion of shooting, and sees well enough to kill a hare. Mr. Coke (the agriculturist I alluded to) enjoys and directs the battues with the same health and energy he has done for many years." 362 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF Numerous old writers had assigned situations for the faculties, but in the most fanciful manner ; and, from regarding as distinct mind does not require sleep, is not weakened by over-exertion of the brain or any other part, by want of food, by cold, &c., and is not affected by narcotics and stimulants. Those who wish to show the mind independent of the brain in one point, must show it in all. In reply to the argument for an immaterial something from the consciousness of personality, I reminded my readers formerly that the fly must be as con- scious of its individual being — its personality — as the philosopher about whose head it buzzes. If he must be believed to have an immaterial and immortal soul ou this account, so must the fly, and so must the smallest microscopic creature. Nay, if an animal is of such a nature that it will re-acquire bodily per- fection, or can live when divided into two or more, its mind can do the same : so that aplanaria's consciousness may be made into two or ten if we please (see supra, p. 254.) — each new animal made from sections having its sense of personality, and therefore its pretension to an immaterial principle, as much as the original and as much as a philosopher ; and simply because its sensorial nervous system, though divided, fully thrives. Our own minds, and those of all other animals, are known to us only as powers generated merely by matter, through being of a certain composition and placed under certain circumstances, possessing or acquir- ing the property of changing and developing, till at length brain results, with its mental properties ; and, as the respective parts of this brain are farther improved in texture and developed, so increased and fresh faculties appear. The properties of every other organ come in the same way. Lord Brougham (p. 102. sqq.) censures former writers for not using an argu- ment which, unfortunately for their characters as observers of nature, was used by Drs. Barrow (7th Sermon on the Creed), Bentley (Sermon ii.) Clarke (On the Being and Attributes of God, Prop, viii.), Reid (Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 97.), Beattie (Dissertations, chap. i. sect. i.). A parti- cular combination of matter, he asserts, cannot give birth to what we call mind, because this would be " an assertion altogether peculiar and unexampled," of which " we have no other instance ;" because " we know of no case in which the combination of certain elements produces something quite different, not only from each of the simple ingredients, but also different from the whole compound," — " both the organised body and something different from it and not having one of its properties — neither dimensions, nor weight, nor colour, nor form." (p. 102. sqq.) — " To think," says Dr. Barrow, in anguish, " a gross body may be ground and pounded into rationality, a slow body may be thumped and driven into passion, a rough body may be filed and polished into a faculty of discovering and resenting things ; that a cluster of pretty thin round atoms (as Democritus, forsooth, conceited), that a well-mixed combin- ation of elements (as Empedocles fancied), that a harmonious contemperation (or crasis) of humours (as Galen, dreaming, it seems, upon his drugs and his potions, would persuade us); that an implement made up of I know not what fine springs, and wheels, and such mechanic knacks (as some of our modern wizards have been busy in devising), should, without more to do, become the subject of THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 363 faculties what are merely modes of action of faculties to which they were altogether strangers, their assertions on the subject were so rare capacities and endowments, the author of actions so worthy and works so wonderful, &c. &c. — how senseless and absurd conceits are these ! How can we, without great indignation and regret, entertain such suppositions ? " Asa son of Galen, I would reply to Barrow ("dreaming, it seems, upon his" dusty folios of divinity in his study, instead of looking abroad through nature) and to Lord Brougham, — 1. That the brain, matter though it be, is seen, in positive fact, to have these capacities and endowments — that it has them in proportion as it is better organised and has a greater bulk of its respective portions — that the mental phenomena are disturbed by all the means, applied to the brain, that dis- turb the functions of other organs when applied to them : 2. That there is an insensible transition of mental qualities from the lowest brutes through the cleverest, and through human beings of the dullest apprehension and feelings (many of whom are far below most brutes) to the highest among us ; and that the mental properties of the lowest are neither "dimensions, nor weight, nor colour, nor form," any more than the mental properties of ourselves, and must therefore arise from something more than matter, or our high capacities may be merely properties of matter. What faculty or degree of faculty that appears in the scale of animals is the first sign of soul ? Nay, the properties of simple life, such as vegetables have in common with us, are neither " dimensions, nor weight, nor colour, nor form," — they cannot be produced by "grinding, pound- ing, thumping, driving, filing, polishing, by springs, wheels, and such mechanic knacks." They, I suppose, are not now ascribed to a soul, though they once were, and ought to be still by such believers in souls. The vital properties of a cabbage, I presume, are allowed to result from a well-mixed combination of elements ; and if such a combination produces such a result, other combinations may and do produce results still higher. What in common with extension, impenetrability, and inertness, have heat, electricity, mag- netism? yet matter placed under certain circumstances displays these properties; and a change of circumstances changes them. Biniodide of mercury is yellow ; but reduce its temperature to a certain point, nay, only touch it, and instantly it becomes red. Soft iron and nickel have magnetic properties at a certain tem- perature, but suddenly lose them at a higher, and nickel at a less elevation than iron. Soft iron connected with a magnet, or encircled by a coil of copper wire and connected with a galvanic battery, becomes magnetic, but no longer than the connection lasts. What property of dimension, weight, &c., is that possessed by mercury, iron, and so many other elements, of variously affecting living natures, both corporeally and mentally ? A few elements combined in various proportions acquire various such properties, and, in some, properties of the most deadly kind. Prussic acid is only certain proportions of carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen — all which, in other proportions and combinations, are essential elements of our bodies. The living matter of vegetables and animals is common matter arranged and compounded as in no other instances, and which, properly circumstanced as to temperature, &c. 364- MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF necessarily groundless and ridiculous. Burton, for example, in his compilation, says, " Inner senses are three in number, so called gives rise to the phenomenon of life. When living matter arranges itself, accord • ing to its properties, into that peculiar combination which we call nervous, other peculiar phenomena appear ; and if its vital powers arrange it into that compo- sition and organ called brain, and this is properly circumstanced, mind appears. In truth, no combination of elements and arrangement of matter thus combined occurs in inanimate substances as we find in vegetables ; no such combination of elements and such organisation in vegetables as we find in brutes ; and no such combination and organisation in the other organs of brutes as we find in the brain, and the brain of no brute is equal to the development of its various parts to the human brain. The vital and mental phenomena are unexampled in the inanimate world — result from no combination or organisation there, simply because no such combination and organisation occur in the inanimate world. Combine and organise inanimate matter by supplying seeds and young plants with proper inanimate matter, and every vegetable may be generated from one or two, in indefinite abundance, as long as matter is supplied and ne- cessary circumstances attainable ; and you give living properties to matter pre- viously inanimate. You may do this equally with animals, and thus multiply minds ; you may do it equally with human animals, and thus multiply human minds indefinitely — generate souls ! Nay, you may generate what quality of mind you please, just as you may generate the properties of a rose, or of a lily if you prefer them, by propagating from a rose or lily, thus converting inanimate matter into roses or lilies; and just as you can propagate the intellectual and moral qualities of the intelligent and affectionate dog, or the musical qualities of the bulfinch, if you prefer them, by propagating dogs or bulfinches, thus con- verting inanimate matter into dogs and bulfinches. You may generate not only human faculties, but any variety of them you please, as much as you can varieties of body, by propagating and feeding different varieties of human beings, — by con- verting common matter into human beings, and human beings of whatever sort is preferred. Propagate from cretins in Switzerland, and you have idiotism ; from sagacious parents, and you have intelligence ; from parents endowed with a specific talent, you produce this talent, be it musical or any other ; from violent, vicious, half mad parents, and you beget a curse to mankind, in ferocity, de- pravity, or eccentricity ; from mad parents, you produce madness ; from the gentle, and benevolent, and affectionate, you generate gentleness and love. With but one parent so marked, you may often succeed in generating his or her quali- ties ; and when, with two alike, you fail, the failures are not more frequent, nor caused by other circumstances, than failures of transmission of corporeal re- semblances, or of the transmission of the mental qualities of brutes or of the properties of vegetables. Strange souls, to be thus under our command as to numbers and qualities ! So far from there being, as Lord Brougham says, no case in which the combination of certain elements produces something quite different, the world is incessantly filled with such cases ; all the vegetable and animal creation are examples of inanimate matter incessantly combined into the production of new qualities totally different from those previously possessed. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 365 because they be within the brain-pan, as common sense, phantasiey and memory." Of " common sense," "the forepart of the brain is It is asserted by Lord Brougham, who positively says that we have a " per- petual sense that we are thinking," " quite independent of all material objects," (p. 56.) that the circumstance of the existence of matter is only an hypothesis, and that materialists grossly and dogmatically assume that matter exists. Now, we do not assume — we know, that matter exists. From certain sens- ations, we believe inevitably, intuitively, by the laws of God, that what we term matter exists. He allows, indeed, " that we believe in the existence of matter, because we cannot help it. " (p. 241.) This is enough. As to our minds, we observe that no mind exists in nature but as a property or power of matter. We never see mind. We certainly learn the existence of matter by the property of our brain called mind : but that is no reason for saying that the power called mind exists alone. If it were felt by ourselves to exist, though we had no know- ledge of matter around us, it would only show that we felt personality without knowing the cause of it, — without knowing that we had brains. It would show our ignorance only. The elephant, and whale, and the smallest insect, with their sense of personality as real as ours, know nothing of their brains ; yet we know that their mind belongs to a brain. If even we were ignorant of the external world, we should know there is something more than an immaterial soul without dimen- sions. For, though we could live for a time without our external senses, we could not live a few minutes without breathing. We should, as usual, internally feel our personality in that part of space where our head is. We should also internally feel the uneasiness arising from want of breath at a distance from this — in the part of space where our lungs are. We should be compelled to will a motion to remove this uneasy sensation. All this must inform us of matter. Nay, could we live without breath, — mere heads, since the head might ache in different parts, we should have internal evidence of extension. When Lord Brougham reminds us that we learn the existence of matter only by our minds, he should remember that we are not conscious of our existence till matter makes an impression upon us. The existence of mind as a property of peculiarly arranged and circumstanced matter was fully proved before, and therefore these considerations, like every other fact, harmonise with the account ; and the doctrine of the existence of mind, independently of matter, indicates a want of modern knowledge and involves us in endless absurdity. Its studied display usually proceeds in our profession from rank hypocrisy and malice, as though a materialist may not be a devout Chris- tian, and these pharisees say aloud, " I thank thee, Lord, that I am not as other men are — even as this materialist." I agree with the early Christians and Mr. Carmichael (An Essay on such Physical Considerations as are connected ivith Mans ultimate Destination, who had described, in their dying declarations, the dangerous **«i>s with which u 4to. vol. ii. p. 358., 8vo. t. ii. p. 353. See Avicenna, 1. i. sect. 1. doctr. 6. cap. v. p. 25. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 369 a head divided into regions according to these opinions was de- signed by Albert the Great, Bishop of Ratisbonx; and another was published by Petrus Montagnana, in 1491.y One was pub- lished at Venice, in 1562, by Ludovico Dolce, a Venetian, in a work upon strengthening and preserving memory2; and another at Bologna, in 1670, in a work styled Apologia Fisonomica, by their career of vice and infamy took its commencement. When she returned home, she recovered in a quarter of an hour, was quite amazed at the questions put to her about the church sermon, and denied that she had been to any such place ; but next night, on being taken ill, she mentioned that she had been at church, repeated the words of the text, and, in Dr. Dyer's hearing, gave an accurate account of the tragical narrative of the three young men, by which her feelings had been so powerfully affected. " The same phenomena present themselves when in the state of somnambulism produced by animal magnetism. It has been repeatedly observed that some magnetised persons acquire a new consciousness and memory during their mag- netic sleep. When this state has subsided, all that passed in it is obliterated, and the recollection of the ordinary state is restored. If the magnetic sleep is recalled again, the memory of the circumstances which occurred in that state is restored, so that the individuals may be said to live in a state of divided or double consciousness." (Dr. Spurzheim, Phren. Am. ed. p. 78. sqq.) See Gall on Per- sonality (raoz), 8vo. t. ii. p. 401. sqq. * In the Tesorretto of Brunetto Latini, the preceptor of Dante, published in that century, the doctrine is taught in rhyme : — Nel capo son tre celle, Ed io diro di quelle, Davanti e lo intelletto E la forza d' apprendere Quello che puote intendere. In mezzo e la ragione E la discrezione Che scheme buono e male. E lo terno e 1' iguale Dirietro sta con gloria La valente memoria, Che ricordo e retiene Quello ch' in essa viene. y Gall, 4to. vol. ii. p. 358. sq., 8vo. t. ii. p. 354. sq., where as many his- torical details are given as the greatest detractor from Gall's originality could wish. z A friend presented me with this book : — Dialogo di M. Ludovico Dolce, Nel quale si ragiona del modo di accrescere e conservare la memoria. In Venetia, c c 2 370 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF Ghiradelli Bolognonese. In the British Museum I have seen a chart of the universe and the elements of all sciences, and in it a large head so delineated is conspicuous. It was pub- lished at Rome so late as 1632, and, what is singular, engraved at Antwerp by one Theodore Galleus, and the head is really a good family likeness of Dr. Gall, who, however, was born at Tiefenbrunn in Suabia, between Stuttgard and the Rhine, March 9. 1758.a a Notice Historique sur le Docteur Gall, par M. Fossati, M. D. Journal de la So- ciete Phr6nologiqu£ de Paris, t. i. 1832. It is remarkable that Aristotle, in his Physiognomy, though he gives a number of ridiculous signs of character from the face Olfactus and numerous parts of the body, gives three only from the cranium ; but that ^ , . , Gustus these are in strict accordance with the phrenology of Gall, who admitted of no deduction of intellectual or moral charac- ter from the developments of the face, but from those of the cranium only.* " Those who have a large head, are sagacious — are like dogs j those who have a small head, are stupid — are like asses ; those who have a conical head, have no shame — are like birds with curved claws." Head given by Dolce, 1562. It is copied into the Edin. Phrenolog. Journ. vol. ii. No. 7. MeyaXnv ol rnv »£aX»iv , euo-0»m>cor avatyiperai \it\ twq nvvaf ol 5s /uixpav, c. — De Physiognomid, cap, vi. It is no less remarkable that one of each of these points is spoken of by each of the three greatest poets. Milton distinguishes man from Eve and all the other beings in Eden, above whom he was intended to rule through the force of intellect, by his spacious forehead : " His fair large front and eye sublime declare Absolute rule." Paradise Lost, b. iv. * 1. c. 4 to. vol. iv. p. 234. sqq., 8vo. t. v. p. 429. sqq. He of course allows pathognomy, or the art of judging of the state of the feelings by the expression of the countenance in action, to be real ; and he mentions a number of curious facts illustrative of the coincidence of pathognomy with the seat of the organs. His original genius is very conspicuous on this subject. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 371 It is, however, more than probable that the different parts of the brain have different offices. Its faculties are so various, that it is impossible to imagine them possessed by the same portion. The faculty for melody is perfectly different from the love of offspring. If to suppose all parts of the brain are organs for all faculties is difficult, the difficulty appears greater on reflecting that in that case the whole brain would be concerned in every act and feeling, or, if the whole brain is not thus constantly at work at all things, that different parts would perform the very same offices at different times, each part working in every kind of mental act and feeling in its turn. Neither does the brain perform merely one thing, as the whole liver performs the secretion of merely one fluid — bile ; nor is its structure the same throughout, like that of the liver. The best authors hold that its various parts have various offices b , and Gall proves that they have. Shakspeare makes Caliban say — " I will have none on't : we shall lose our time, And all be turned to barnacles, or to apes With foreheads villainous low. Tempest, Act iv. sc. 1 . Homer gives the basest fellow who went to Troy, a conical head — a miserable development of the seat of the moral sentiments : — og 5 avvp t/7ro Ilias, B. b " The brain is a very complicated organ," says Bonnet, " or rather an assemblage of very different organs." (Palingengsie, t. i. p. 334.) Tissot contends that every perception has different fibres. ((Euvres, t. iii. p. 33.) Cuvier says, that " certain parts of the brain in all classes of animals are large or small ac- cording to certain qualities of the animals." (Anatomie Compare, t. ii.) S6m_ merring trusts that we shall one day find the particular seats of the different orders of ideas. " Let the timid, therefore, take courage," says Dr. Georget, in his admirable work upon the nervous system, " and, after the example of such high authorities, fear not to commit the unpardonable crime of innovation, of passing for cranioscopists, by admitting the plurality of the faculties and mental organs of the brain, or at least by daring to examine the subject." (J)e la Phy- siologic du Systeme Nerveux, et specialement du Cerveau, t. i. p. 126.) Gall's suc- cessful reply to some very unjust observations made in this work, will be found in his 8vo. edit. t. v. p. 488. sqq. Dr. Vimont repeats these, apparently in ignorance that Gall bad fully replied in his small work ; and censures Gall for having incorrectly said that Bonnet considered every cerebral fibre as having a distinct function. Now Bonnet's words really are, — "I thus consider every c c 3 372 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF If the old course, recommended by Mr. Dugald Stewart, of investigating the mind by attending to the subjects of our own consciousness, had been persevered in, the science of mind would have remained stationary for ever." Our powers and feelings are distributed in such various degrees, and the external circumstances which have acted upon them are so various, that every man, judging from himself only, would draw up a different account of the human mind ; as different from the attempts of all others, as the representations of the human face and head would be, if every painter were to execute his own likeness only. The account would be as inaccurate as if an individual were to determine the bodily powers and susceptibilities of the operation of agents by his own. Unquestionably much must be learned by observing the workings of our minds, and much can be learned sensible Jibre as a very little organ with its own functions." " The brain contains a prodigious number of organs infinitely small, appropriated to sentiment and thought." c Although Mr. Dugald Stewart declares that in his own inquiries he has " aimed at nothing more than to ascertain, in the first place, the laws of our con- stitution, as far as they can be discovered by attention to the subjects of our own consciousness;" (Essays, Preliminary Dissertation, p. 2.) " that the whole of a philosopher's life, if he spends it to any purpose, is one continued series of expe- riments on his own faculties and powers;" (p. 40.) and that " the structure of the mind (whatever collateral aids may be derived from observing the varieties of genius in our fellow creatures) is accessible to those only who can retire into the deepest recesses of their own internal frame ;" yet he adds, " even to those, pre- senting, along with the generic attributes of the race, many of the specific peculi- arities of the individual," (Elements, vol. ii. p. 513.) and has really the following passages in the forty-second and forty-third pages of the Essays. — " To counter- balance the advantages which this science of mind lies under, in consequence of its slender stock of experiments, made directly and intentionally on the minds of our fellow creatures, human life exhibits to our observation a boundless variety, both of intellectual and moral phenomena, by a diligent study of which we may ascertain almost every point that we could wish to investigate, if we had expe- riments at our command." «« Savage society, and all the different modes of civilisation ; the different callings of individuals, whether liberal or mechanical ; the prejudiced clown, the factitious man of fashion ; the varying phases of cha- racter, from infancy to old age ; the prodigies effected by human art, in all the objects around us, laws, government, commerce, religion ; but above all, the records of thought preserved in those volumes which fill our libraries ; — what are they but experiments, by which nature illustrates, for our instruction, on her own grand scale, the varied range of many intellectual faculties, and the omnipotence of education in fashioning the mind." THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 3?3 in no other way ; just as we may learn much of the external form of the human body by looking at ourselves, and cannot learn what are the feelings of hunger and thirst, heat and cold, except from our own consciousness. But it is only by extensive ob- servation of others, of different sexes, ages, races, education, occupations, and habits, in addition to the study of ourselves, that this knowledge is to be acquired. Nor would much pro- gress have been made without the discovery — that strength of individual talent and disposition was associated with proportionate development of particular portions of the brain. By this re- mark, confirmed by the opposite observation of deficient deve- lopment of the same portions of the brain being accompanied by deficiency of talent or disposition, the existence of particular faculties was firmly established ; and indeed Gall discovered them by observing persons conspicuous in some mental points to have certain portions of the head extremely large. I did but allude to craniology while detailing Gall's account of the mind, because the arrangement may be perfectly accurate, although craniology be false ; nor when speaking of the brain as the organ of the mind, because that fact also is independent of Gall's system. But, if the account of the mind, the use of the brain, and the development of the brain, generally observed by that of the cra- nium— by craniology, be now viewed together, they will all be seen mutually and beautifully to confirm each otlieiv Much ignorant invective, but no argument, has been written against the doctrine ; nor a single fact adduced in opposition to it. We are presented with a simple statement — that constant strength of certain parts of the mind is accompanied by strong development of certain parts of the brain, and, consequently, of the skull, except in disease and old age ; and deficient development of certain parts of the brain, and, consequently, of the skull, accom- panied by deficient strength of certain parts of the mind. The truth must be ascertained, not by speculating, quibbling, and abusing, not by giving improper way to the lower feelings of our nature, but by observing whether this is the case; and every one has it in his power to make the necessary observations. Those who pretend to have facts to offer in objection, must first be so well acquainted with cra- niology as to be able to judge accurately of the development which they adduce, and have carefully ascertained the character and exact talents of the individual whom they fancy to be an exception. Yet accounts the most absurd, and the most remote from truth in c c 4 374- MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF these particulars, are uttered and printed every day, even by those who assume the character of scientific men. Inquirers, however, must not expect always to find the converse of the statement verified, — to find strength of development always attended by strength of certain parts of the mind ; nor deficiency of the mani- festations of certain parts of the mind always attended by deficient development. Because the development of the head may arise from other causes than brain, or the quality of the brain may not be healthy ; and, on the other hand, deficiency of the manifest- ations of a part of the mind may arise from mere want of excite- ment, or from disease. The head may be large, generally or locally, from fluid, morbid growth of bone, &c. ; or the brain, though the cause of the size, may be of bad quality from original fault of structure, from subsequent disease, or from old age. But the existence of disease is generally known, and old age must be evident. Again, defective manifestations of a part of the mind from mere want of excitement rarely occurs except in regard to the intellectual powers ; for external circumstances almost always exist around sufficient for the play of the feelings. Thus, although any phrenologist may always without fear assert positively of the head from constant positive exhibitions of the mind, and always fearlessly assert negatively of the mind from negative exhibitions of the head ; he would not assert respecting the mind from positive exhibitions of the head, nor respecting the head from negative exhibitions of the mind, without certain provisions, viz. that the size of the head depends upon healthy brain, and the deficiency of mind arises from no want of excitement, or from disease. Yet, in the far greater number of instances, the de- velopment of the head agrees with the mind. In the greater number of those in which it does not, the probability of the want of agreement is evident ; and in the rest, the phrenologist cannot be wrong, because he will never assert from positive develop- ment of the head, nor from negative manifestation of the mind. Even in unsoundness of mind, the character generally agrees with the development ; the parts of the mind that may remain sound, generally manifest themselves according to the develop- ment of the head ; and those faculties which are diseased, are usually excited in proportion to the development of the cor- responding parts of the head.d d Let the antiphrenologist get over the diagnosis of Gall in his visit to some Prussian prisons (1. c. 4to. vol. iv. p. 369. sqq., 8vo. t. vi. p. 476. sqq.), and of THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 375 The exact situation of the organs can be learnt from delineations or marked heads only. I shall therefore confine myself to Gall's general remarks. 1st. The organs of the faculties or qualities common to man and brutes, are placed in parts of the brain com- mon to man and brutes, — at the inferior-posterior, the posterior- inferior, and inferior-anterior parts of the brain ; v. c. of the instinct of propagation, the love of offspring, the instinct of self-defence, of appropriating, of stratagem, &c. 2dly. Those which belong to man exclusively, and form the barrier between man and brutes, are placed in parts of the brain not possessed by brutes, viz. the anterior-superior and superior-anterior of the front: v. c. of com- parative sagacity, causality, wit, poetic talent, and the disposition to religious feelings. 3dly. The more indispensable a quality, or faculty, the nearer are its organs placed to the base of the brain, or median line. The first and most indispensable — the instinct of propagation — lies nearest the base ; that of the love of offspring follows. The organ of the sense of localities is more indispensa- ble than that of the sense of tones or numbers ; accordingly the former is situated nearer the median line than the two latter. 4-thly. The organs of fundamental qualities and faculties which mutually assist each other, are placed near to each other ; v. c. the love of propagation and of offspring, of self-defence and the instinct to destroy life, of tones and numbers. 5thly. The organs of analogous fundamental qualities and faculties are equally placed near each other: v.c. the organs of the relations of places, colours, tones, and numbers are placed in the same line, as well as the organs of the superior faculties, and the organs of the in- ferior propensities.6 Although the arrangement of the organs is so beautiful, we must not imagine that Gall mapped out the head at pleasure, according to preconceived notions. He discovered one organ after another, just as it might happen, and marked down its situ- ation and size upon the cranium ; and after all left several spots Mr. Combe, in his visit to the Richmond Lunatic Asylum, Dublin, and the pri- sons and lunatic asylums of Newcastle. (Dr. Combe On Mental Derangement : and Ed. Phr. Journal, No. xlvi.) On Idiotism with no defect of development, see Gall, 1. c. 8vo. t. vi. p. 50. e Gall, 1. c. 4to. vol. iii. p. 78. sq., and 8vo. t. iii. p. 208. sqq. So much less have the writings of Gall than those of Dr. Spurzheim been studied in Edin- burgh, that Mr. Scott published these two last principles as his own ; and they thus stand, with great praise, in Mr. Combe's System of Phrenology, p. 534. sqq. *cc 5 376 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF blank, which others have filled with faculties corresponding with those around. The organs are represented, in the engraved heads which he published, as so many prominences ; because each is just as it showed itself to him in single instances where it was extra- ordinarily developed. This habit of representation for distinctness and fidelity of form and size, and that of speaking of individual parts as prominent, gave origin to the vulgar notion of bumps, and those ignorant views which still disgust us in persons who should know better. Often one organ became known to him situated very remotely from the organ last discovered. The set of organs discovered by him turned out as it is, and a strong argument is thus afforded of the truth of his system, He viewed a thousand times what he had remarked, before he was aware of the great general truths just mentioned. " All must be struck," says he, " with the profound wisdom which shines forth in the arrangement and successive order of the organs. This connection is, in my eyes, one of the most important proofs of the truth of my discoveries. I defy those who attribute my determination of the fundamental faculties and of the seat of their organs to caprice or arbitrary choice, to possess a tenth part of the talent necessary for the most obscure presenti- ment of this beautiful arrangement ; once discovered, it displays the hand of God, whom we cannot cease to adore with wonder increasing as his works become more disclosed to our eyes."f f 1. c. 8vo. t. iii. p. 210. sq. See also 4to. vol. iii. p. 80. Mr. Combe (1. c. p. 536.) presents these beautiful remarks as Mr. Scott's, with no other mention of Gall than that the system must thus be the work of nature, and not "of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim." Dr. S. divided all the faculties, after the ancients, into effective and intellectual ; and the former again into propensities and sentiments ; the latter into perceptive and reflective. (I.e. p. 131.) For this he has been said to have " infused philosophy and system into the facts brought to light by observation," (Ed. Phr. Journ. vol. v.) — to possess a power of arrangement which throws light upon every subject." (Star of Bruns- wick, quoted in his Biography, published at Boston, p. 99.) Gall, again, was declared to have no such powers of systematising. What is the truth? Gall disliked artificial systematic division and subdivision, and that justly. His very order of examining is as great a classification as nature will admit. His order was, " as much as possible, that which the Author of nature observes in the gradual perfectionnement of animals." (1. c. 4to. t. iii. p. vi.) Beyond the order which he followed in his writings, nothing could be done ; and, as Mr. G. Combe truly says (Preliminary Dissertation to the Phr. Journal, p. 25.), "as soon as observation had brought to light the great body of facts, and the functions of THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 377 Gall followed this natural order of the faculties. "I conform to the order which exists in considering the inclinations or inferior losophy of the human mind presented itself almost spontaneously to view." Gall saw nothing satisfactory in Dr. S.'s classification. " The most natural and philosophical order," says Gall, " must be that which nature has observed in the successive arrangement of the cerebral parts. But M. Spurzheim begins by establishing new divisions of the faculties of the mind." " The philosophical spirit of M. Spurzheim shines in divisions, subdivisions, sub- subdivisions, &c. ; and this is what he calls infusing more philosophy into the physiology of the brain, than I had the ambition of introducing. By these divisions he has imposed on himself a constraint which totally inverts the gradual succession of the organs. He is forced to jump from one region of the brain to another ; from the disposition to theft, to destruction j from this to construction ; from circumspection, to benevolence ; from benevolence, by a great effort, to veneration ; from supernaturality (he is using Spurzheim's terms), he comes to the external surface part of the forehead, thence to imitation ; from imitation, to the external senses ! Then he retires to the brain towards the frontal region — there again he treats every thing pele-m£le, all in a manner op- posite to nature ; — a perfect monstrosity, which one would believe to be invented with the design of rendering the study impossible. The propensities and sentiments, and often the intellectual faculties, are so confounded together, that it is hardly possible to discover the characteristic signs which distinguish one from another. What more reason is there to place constructiveness among the propensities, than melody, benevolence, and imitation ? Are not amative- ness, philoprogenitiveness, inhabitiveness, attachment, courage, as much sen- timents as self-love, love of approbation, veneration, &c. ? In what sense are perseverance, circumspection, imitation, sentiments ? With what propriety does he exclude imitation, wit, ideality or poetry, circumspection, secretiveness, constructiveness, from the intellectual faculties ? " * Wit and imitation were originally placed by Dr. S. among the intellectual faculties, and then removed to the sentiments in later editions. The Feelings were divided into superior and inferior, and those common to brutes and man and those peculiar to man ; and imitation was ranged with the superior and peculiar to man ! but, no sooner has he done this, than he admits imitation to exist among many tribes of brutes ! (P/ir. Am. ed. vol. i. p. 257.) Wit, the organ of which is amidstthe intellectual, he dislodges for mirthfulness, which he calls a superior sentiment peculiar to man, and given to "render him merry and gay " ! — to be " as gay as a lark," however, I sup- pose, and " merry as a kitten. " He forgets that mirthfulness always implies noise : " " Far from all resort of mirth, . Save the cricket on the hearth." His opinions on this faculty appear to me most extraordinary. In one of his works (Essai Philosophique), he classed benevolence with those peculiar to man ; * 1. c. 4to. vol. iii. p. xxvi. sqq. Dr. Vimont also exposes the faults of Dr. S.'s classification. (1. c. t. ii. p. 106. sqq.) 378 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF qualities ; then those which have more and more nobleness ; and end with the highest sentiment — that which leads us to reverence the divinity." s in another allows it to brutes (Phr. Am. ed.) ; and, having subdivided sentiments into superior and inferior and finished the inferior, saying he has " gone over the affective faculties which are common to men and animals," he begins with the superior, and says the first (benevolence) " cannot be entirely denied " to brutes, (p. 222.) He arranges the five external senses with the intellectual faculties; — " the triumph of his new arrangement," as Gall severely terms it. Dr. S.'s classification had been devised and published ten years before by BischofF. Yes; Dr. S., in all his works and editions, gives his arrangement without a hint that any one had classed the faculties before ; whereas in the work already quoted (Exposition de la Doctrine de Gall, traduite de la seconde edition d'Al- lemand, 1 806), Bischoff's division into three orders will be found, — the first containing the propensities and sentiments; the second, the perceptive facul- ties ; and the third, the intellectual. Three faculties are in the second class, and one in the third, which Dr. S. puts in others j but he himself shifted some occasionally, and the difference is insignificant; and Dr. S.'s invariable silence as to this arrangement, while his own forms a conspicuous part of nearly all his books, is a fact in complete harmony with the rest of his conduct. " I con- ceive it possible to divide them" (the faculties), says Dr. S., "and to establish a new classification ;" " and I established a new division of the mental operations." (Phren. Amer. edit. vol. i. p. 129. sq.) In his first London edition, he most innocently says, " I am now led to think that the objects which are still to be added to our large work must assume a more scientific arrangement, and be considered in a more philosophic manner than Dr. Gall has been accustomed to do in his lectures." (p. vii.) Then follows his most trifling variety of BischofTs arrangement, to which he no where alludes, though he proves his acquaintance with the book in his notes to the Foreign Quarterly, p. 62. The following is Gall's opinion of classification^: — " Every one may arrange the moral qualities and in- tellectual faculties according to his own views of them. They may be divided into sentiments, propensities, talents, intellectual faculties; — pride, for exam pie, and vanity, would be sentiments ; the instinct of propagation, the love of off- spi'ing, propensities ; music, mechanics, would be talents ; comparative sagacity would belong to the intellectual faculties. But there is frequently embarrass- ment in rigorously fixing the bounds of each division. The intellectual faculties and talents, when their organs are very active, manifest themselves with desire, propensity, and passion ; the sentiments and propensities have also their judg- ment, their taste, their imagination, their memory and recollection. The division into qualities and faculties common to man and brutes, and faculties and qualities peculiar to man, is, I confess, of great value in a philosophic point of view ; but," " when the most careful observer dares not decide where the faculties of the brute cease, and those of man begin, this division cannot be con^ sidered satisfactory. The best division, in my opinion, is into fundamental qua- E 1. c. 8vo. t. iii. p. 224. ; also, 4to. vol. Hi. p. 85. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 379 If Gall's is the only satisfactory account of the mental facul- ties, and to me it certainly appears so, this alone is a proof of lities or faculties, and general attributes of these qualities and faculties. In this division, the fruits of the labours of my predecessors are preserved, and, while we avail ourselves of them, we establish the true theory of the primitive and fun- damental instincts, qualities, and faculties of man and brutes." (1. c. 4to. t. iv. p. 344. sq., 8vo. vol. vi. p. 433. sq.) Dr. Spurzheim, in his fondness for changing his names, his arrangement, and his numbering of the organs, introduced confusion without advancing knowledge. To prove his speculative spirit, I may mention that, instead of giving the origin of any of his asserted discoveries, as Gall did, and adding a host of examples, he tells us, in regard to the organ of inhabitiveness, only that a gentleman much attached to his house had a particular spot of his head hotter than any other ; and in regard to the organs of hope, marvellousness, conscientiousness, size, weight, order, time, he neither tells how he discovered them, nor adduces a single proof. Gall was too much of a philosopher to wish others to examine a mere assertion. But, in regard to all the organs discovered by Gall, except that of colour, Dr. S. gives the circumstances which led to the discovery, and a certain number of individual facts ; though but a very small number of those related by Gall. " He has changed the names," says Gall, " but treated the organs according to my principles ; yet in so hasty and feeble a manner, that this part of my doctrine would be deplorable, if it were not established on a better foundation." (I. c. 4to. vol. iii. Preface ; a part which every body should read, for its exposure and de- molition of Dr. S.'s unjust and weak attempts.) His own alleged discoveries may be real ; but the remarkable circumstance I have mentioned tends to create a suspicion that he reasoned himself into a belief of certain faculties, and gave them localities according to their nature ; having learnt from Gall where " per- ceptive " and where " reflective faculties," where " sentiments " and where " pro- pensities," to use his own language, reside. Localisation, after Gall's discoveries, was easy, especially as Gall had not mapped out the whole head, but left blanks where he possessed no facts. He changed even the situation and extent of organs in his last plate. The space allotted by him to marvellousness was originally between wit, imitation, hope, and ideality ; now it is more than twice its former size, and placed between these four and veneration. Covetiveness was placed by Gall, and admitted by Dr. Spurzheim, before cunning and under ideality ; now it is over cunning, and between ideality and cautiousness. Ideality in his first edition was chiefly above covetiveness and before circumspection ; now it is above constructive- ness, and a large organ stands between it and covetiveness. Yet he declares, Jthat, " though marked busts or plates may be numbered differently, the places of the respective organs, once considered as established, have never been altered." (Phr. Amer. ed. vol. i. p. 136.) If he is right as to the new situation of the organ of covetiveness, all the observations which led Gall to its discovery, and originally convinced Dr. S., fall to the ground. Dr. S., in the Notes (p. 62.), says, " that he has been occupied for three years with showing the regularity of the cerebral portions, and with specifying the individual organs 380 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF the truth of his organology. For such an account could not have resulted from imagination ; and observation, unaided by reference and their boundaries ;" " an additional discovery, of which Dr. Gall died in ignorance." Yet Gall, in both his works, refers to the individual convo- lutions which he regards as the organs of the individual faculties. Dr. S, , in these (Notes p. 63.), then says, "that it was he himself who directed phrenologists to attend to the individual regions of the head, in reference to the three lobes of the brain, and to the three regions of the animal propensities, the human senti- ments (among which he puts some not exclusively human), and intellectual faculties (but he admits the five senses among these), rather than to the protuber- ances and depressions, to which Dr. Gall attached himself almost exclusively." Now Gall over and over again speaks of the development of regions (1. c. 4to. vol. iii. p. 85., 8vo. t. iii. p. 221. sqq. ; 4to. voL ii. p. 400. sq., 8vo. t. ii. p. 423. sqq. ; 4to. vol. iv. p. 13. sq., 8vo. t. iv. p. 378. ; 4to. vol. iv. p. 161. sq., 8vo. t. v. p. 191. sqq.), and expressly advises that the size of the whole head should be first observed ; then that of the frontal, occipital, lateral, and sincipital regions ; and lastly the subdivisions of these regions ; and " it will be soon found," says he, " that the best developed organs do not form any of the bumps of the antiphre- nological buffoons, nor prominences like an egg or your fist." (1. c. 8vo. t. iii. p. 221. sqq.) Dr. S. also say s'_ (Notes, p. 63.), that " Gall mostly confined himself to the com- parison of talents, character, and certain modes of acting, with individual cerebral portions ;" and I have heard it often asserted that we owe to Dr. S. only our knowledge of the mutual influence of organs. But Gall insisted strongly upon this, though he left the endless working out of the self-evident effects of the varied proportions of organs to us all. (1. c. 4to. vol. iii. p. 192., 8vo. t. iv. p. 243. ; 4to. vol. iii. p. 298. sq., 8vo. t. iv. p. 253. sq. ; 4to. vol. iv. p. 256. sq., 8vo. t. v. p. 374. sq., 8vo. t. ii. p. 318. sq.) So, in regard to mania, the substance of all that Dr. S. has written upon it may be found in Gall. (1. c. 4to. vol. ii. iii. iv., 8vo. t. i. p. 37O. sq., and t. i. ii. iii. iv. v. passim.) He illustrated and applied Gall's philosophy on the subject of morals, educa- tion, &c. ; but, when he is satisfactory, I see nothing more than is to be found, expressed far more concisely, powerfully, and elegantly in the writings of Gall. The merit of Dr. Spurzheim was that of an able and persevering pupil of Gall. It is possible that, having worked under Gall's direction so long, after he left his great master he discovered a mechanical anatomical point or two — though I know not that he did. It is possible that he discovered the organs of three faculties, which Gall believed to exist — time, and order, and conscientiousness. He had, however, only to look for the spaces left vacant by Gall among the organs of the perceptive faculties to locate time and order ; and he no doubt remembered, as all Gall's acquaintance do, that Gall always said that the organ of time would be found close to that of tune, and had actually left a space there. It is possible, that he established a few more faculties and their organs — weight, size, and hope. But I am not yet certain of the two former. Hope I do not believe to be a primitive faculty. I believe, with Gall, that every THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 381 to development, never produced much that is satisfactory in me- taphysics. It was in fact derived from studying the organisation. faculty desires its gratification, and that its prospect of this, or hope, is regulated by the degree of circumspection and of the intellectual faculties.* He of course had only to place conscientiousness and hope in the spaces left vacant by Gall among the moral sentiments. In regard to marvellousness, Gall had assigned that part of the brain to the disposition to see visions ; but regarded these as only an excess of activity of some fundamental power, and had often discussed with Dr. S. the possibility of a faculty for wonder ; though he refrained from publishing mere speculations. (1. c. 4to. t. Hi. p. xxiv., 8vo. vol. v. p. 345.) Then, as to the organ of inhabitiveness, we must remember that Gall left the space va- cant, and pointed out that animals inclined to inhabit high places had the part immediately above it large ; — that Gall taught the existence of a faculty inclining to particular habitation, and placed that faculty in the region where Dr. Spurzheim has fixed his organ of inhabitiveness. If Dr. S. is correct, he has cleared up what Gall considered unsettled. But Dr. S. could not consider himself certain, as in his last edition he begged phrenologists to make observations on the point ; and the Edinburgh phrenologists actually give to that part the faculty of what they call concentrativeness — the faculty of " maintaining two or more powers in simultaneous and combined activity, so that they may be directed towards one ob- ject." (Dr. S. Phr.y Amer. ed. vol. i. p. 169.) They attempt to reconcile matters by seeing no inconsistency in both views. To this Dr. S. cannot agree, and he satirically says, that, with all possible deference to Mr. Combe's acuteness and greater development of the organ of concentrativeness, he cannot believe the in- clination to inhabit a particular spot, and the power of keeping two or more facul- ties in simultaneous action, to be the same. The publication of such speculations, such deviations from rigid observation — from true inductive philosophy it was that distressed Gall in both Dr. S. and some Edinburgh phrenologists. Dr. S. differed from Gall on certain points regarding the various faculties which he admitted ; but I confess that, so far from improvements, I think that his opinions in general are unsatisfactory or incorrect, and exhibit subtlety rather than depth, and an immeasurably less powerful and philosophic mind than that * " Most authors confound the affections with the passions. By passion I mean the highest degree of voluntary or involuntary activity of any fundamental force. Every passion implies a particular organ ; but this organ produces the passion of its function, only when at the maximum of its activity. It is different with the affections. In the passions, the organs are active, exalted in their fun- damental function ; in the affections, on the contrary, the organs are passive, modified, seized in a particular manner, agreeable or disagreeable. Shame, fear, anguish, sorrow, despair, jealousy, anger, joy, ecstasy, &c., are involuntary sens- ations, passive seizures, either of our nervous system, of one organ, or of the whole of the brain. There consequently can be no peculiar organ for joy, for sorrow, for despair or discouragement, for hope, nor for any affection whatever." (Gall, 1. c. 8vo. t. vi. p, 431. sq.) 382 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF He never once allowed himself to speculate, having early learnt the fallacy of a priori reasoning; but abandoned himself entirely to observation. Gall discovered each organ and its faculty either by meeting with individuals very remarkable for the latter, so that he was led to examine their heads ; or by noticing a peculiarity of form- ation in the head which induced him to ascertain their talents and character. He did not examine remarkable persons accord- ing to the views entertained of the faculties by metaphysicians ; but according to points in which the world at large pronounced them remarkable, — accordingly as they were courageous, avari- cious, kind-hearted, or excelled as poets, mimics, linguists, philosophers. He would never have made his discoveries, had he not met with persons remarkable in these respects. Sometimes the relation between the remarkable faculty or quality and the local development was tolerably obvious, but generally he had to make numerous observations before he found himself right. After having found two individuals remarkable in the same point of character, and cast their heads, he sometimes examined the casts daily for months before he could discover the precise spot in which they agreed. The discovery being now made, a good organologist will give judgments upon character which must astonish, and in- contestably prove the truth of phrenology ; but the difficulty of making the discovery when all was utter darkness must have been extreme.11 The indefatigable industry of Gall, during the whole of a long life, constantly observing all persons he met with, and searching after all who were in any mental respect remark- of Gall. Dr. Lelut has just published a work which he calls Qu'est ce que la Phre- nologie9 and says thatGall's psychological doctrine is "souvent heureusemcnt cor- rig THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 409 " All experience is for it." And on another occasion said, " We know that we are free, and there is an end on't."r Motives depend upon original organisation, sometimes modified by physical influence, internal or external ; and upon external moral influence upon our mental organs. The being who has the most faculties, the greatest equipoise of his faculties, and the most knowledge, has the greatest range of liberty.5 If a person acts wickedly or absurdly from hearing necessity advocated, it is because certain motives become extin- guished in him and his range contracted.1 It results that we should educate, and give as many and as good motives as possible ; and, when we punish, we should punish, not from presuming we have a right to condemn, but for the purpose of giving additional mo- tives to good conduct, where there has clearly not been enough of them." As the strength of individual inclinations and the faci- lity of yielding to them are greatly increased by habit, in order that those of a lower class should not acquire undue force, nor " Upstart passions catch the government From reason, and to servitude reduce Man, till then free," x the necessity for education to consist not of mere precepts and sermons, but of good actions, is apparent. One good act may be more improving than the precept read or heard twenty times. r 1. c. vol. ii. p. 74. * Voltaire, in the article referred to, makes J9., the person who is ignorant of the subject, say, " Mon chien de chasse est aussi libre que moi; il a n^cessaire- ment la volorit^ de courir quand il voit un lievre, et le pouvoir de courir s'il n'a pas mal aux jambes. Je n'ai done rien au-dessus de mon chien : vous me re"duisez a-l'^tat des betes. To which his better informed friend, A., replies, " Voila les pauvres sophismes des pauvres sophistes qui vous ont instruit. Vous voilk bien malade d'etre libre comme votre chien. Ne mangez-vous pas, ne propagez-vous pas comme lui, a 1'attitude pres ? Voudriez-vous avoir 1'odorat autrement que par le nez ? Pour- quoi voudriez-vous avoir la liberte* autrement que votre chien ? JB. " Mais j'ai une ame qui raisonne beaucoup, et mon chien ne raisonne gueres. II n'a presque que des ide~es simples ; et moi, j'ai mille ide"es meta- physiques. A. Eh bien, vous etes mille fois plus libre que lui ; c'est-a-dire, vous avez mille fois plus de pouvoir de penser que lui ; mais vous n'etes pas libre autrement que lui." * See Bishop Butler's remarks on the mischief of the doctrine, Analogy, p. 1. chap. vi. u Gall, 1. c. 4to, vol. ii. p. 100. ; 8vo. t. i. p. 289., t. vi, p. 438. x Farad. Lost, xii. 410 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF The objections on the ground of materialism are not more applicable to phrenology than to the doctrine now universally admitted, — that the brain is the organ of the mind ; and they have been answered. Those who have so little soul as always to ask what is the good of any discovery in nature, may be told that phrenology may be of much service in confirming some moral views which good sense may previously have suggested. Humility and benevolence are two leading duties. If we detect the signs of intellectual deficiency and vice in our own heads, we may learn to think humbly of ourselves ; and, being put in possession of true self- knowledge, endeavour to strengthen what is too weak and repress what is too strong. If we detect the signs of great talents and virtues in the heads of others, we may love them the more as superior and highly favoured beings : whereas, if we detect the signs of great virtues and talents in our own heads, we may learn to give no praise to ourselves, but be thankful for the gift; and, if we detect the signs of vice and intellectual deficiency in others, we may learn to pity rather than to censure. Not revenge, but ex- ample, is the professed, and should be the sole, object of our legal punishments ; — example to the culprit himself and others, or, if the punishment is capital, to others only ; and therefore frauds, which, from being very easily committed, may become very detrimental to society, are punished more severely than those which, caeteris paribus, from being difficult of pecpetration, can scarcely from their frequency become dangerous. Were moral demerit regarded, the fraud easily committed would, caeteris paribus, be punished the most lightly. A vicious man must be restrained, as a wild beast y, for the good of others, though, for aught we know, his faults may, like the acts of the beast of prey, be chargeable rather on his nature ; and, while we feel justified in confining, and the culprit is perhaps conscious how richly he deserves his fate, we may pity in our hearts and acknowledge that we ourselves have often been less excusable. " Teach me to love and to forgive, Exact my own defects to scan, What others are to feel, and own myself a man." z y A man of determined bad principle may in like manner be shunned by the most benevolent, on account of being odious and dangerous ; though they wish him so well as ardently to long for his reformation, and pity his organisation, his education, and the circumstances under which he has been placed. z Gray, Ode to Adversity. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 411 Morality is inculcated by phrenology in the most striking manner. The faculties common to us and brutes are placed the lowest ; the superior faculties above : as though the former should be subjected to the latter. We learn from phrenology what several faculties do certainly exist: and, as nothing exists but for a good purpose, each should be allowed to act. But they should be allowed to act harmoniously, — not one in oppos- ition to another : the love of property not be allowed to oppose benevolence or justice, nor any one intellectual faculty to su- persede the employment of the others. The greater the culti- vation of all the intellectual faculties, the more abundant will be the motives of thought and action, — the freer the will : and the more the moral faculties situated superiorly are cultivated, and the fewer provocations are applied to the inferior, the more will the former guide the individual to his own happiness and that of others. Phrenology, too, may be of the highest use when in criminals there is suspicion of idiotism or insanity. Idiotism often de- pends on deficiency of cerebral development, and many idiots have been executed for crimes when it was not exactly proved that they were idiotic enough to be unfit for punishment, but whose cranial development might have settled the point at once. Many persons also have been executed who should have been considered madmen, but were not because the fact of illu- sion was not made out : yet the extreme preponderance of the development of the organs of the propensities over that of the moral sentiments and intellect would have proved that they were deserving of coercion rather than punishment. Such does the skull of Bellingham, the murderer of Mr. Percival, prove him to have been. In placing confidence in others and forming connections, phre- nology may be of tne greatest use. We might often be at once certain of an intellectual deficiency or a moral objection. Many heads have the development of their various parts so moderate and nearly balanced, that the character will depend chiefly upon external circumstances ; and such will never become remark- able. Although fulness of development does not, like deficiency, give a certainty of the internal force, because it may not depend upon brain or upon good brain ; yet, when the person is known to be of sound body and mind, and not torpid, the force within will, in an immense majority of cases, be correspondent with 4-12 MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF the fulness without.51 Like many other phrenologists, and, in- deed, like Gall himself, I have suffered from having yielded to a Gall divides men into six distinct classes in regard to the moral and intellec- tual faculties : — " In the first class, the qualities and faculties which are the most elevated and are peculiar to man are completely developed, while the organs of the animal qualities and faculties have but a feeble degree of development and activity. " In the second class, the organs of the animal faculties and qualities have at- tained a high degree of activity, while the organs of the qualities and faculties peculiar to man are but little developed and but little active. " In the third class, the qualities and faculties common to animals and those peculiar to man have considerable development and activity. " In the fourth class only one or some of the inclinations or talents is de- veloped in an extraordinary degree, while the rest have only a moderate develop- ment and activity, and are perhaps below mediocrity. " In the fifth class, one or some of the organs are but little developed and re- main inactive, while the others are more favourably developed and active. " Finally, in the sixth class, the organs common to animals and those peculiar to man are almost equally moderate." " When the superior qualities and faculties more peculiar to the human species much exceed the inferior, the man will prevail over the aninqal. The internal movements and all the conduct of these men are conformable to reason, justice, and morality. To judge equitably of the weaknesses of others, to generously pardon offences, to tolerate with indulgence the errors of their minds, to act with integrity, always to labour for the general good, sacrificing their own in- terests, always to render homage to truth with a wise intrepidity, always to be above ingratitude and persecution, always to ascend from effect to cause, and thus always to shelter themselves from prejudice and superstition, &c. &c. — this is the natural tendency of these men, these models, these benefactors of our race. " The contrary is the case with those whose organs of the animal qualities and faculties have a very considerable development and activity, while the organs of the superior faculties have but little development and activity. In these, all is subjected to sensuality and error. The animal impulses are numerous and violent ; and defeat is the more to be apprehended in proportion as the superior faculties and external aid are the weaker. If unhappily the prevailing inclin- ations are of the number of those the excessive activity of which destroys social order, will the philosophic judge be astonished at those men too frequently be- coming the victims of their organisation ? " When the qualities and faculties common to animals and at the same time those peculiar to man are equally active, men result who are placed between the man and the brute. They are stimulated by the one and warned by the other : often humiliated by the one and often exalted by the other ; great in vice and great in virtue ; in many points, they are excellence and wisdom itself; in many others, they are subject to the most deplorable weaknesses and vices. The most opposite qualities frequently render them the most problematical beings : such as THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 413 social impulses and neglected to pay proper attention to the organisation. But the phrenologist, and not phrenology, was in fault. We learn how a person may Jose his memory of names, and of nothing else ; and how any one or a certain number of the intellectual faculties or moral feelings may be over-excited, di- minished, or otherwise damaged : just as one part supplied by one nerve or set of nerves may be palsied, convulsed, or pained ; and Louis XI., Charles V., Philip II., James II., Catherine de' Medicis, who were superstitiously devout, and at the same time the scourge of their subjects. These are the persons who most acutely feel the struggle of the two beings within them. It is Socrates, St. Paul, St. Augustin, who, having the severest battles to fight, may pretend to the most glorious victory of virtue. " "When one or some qualities or faculties, whether animal or human, are endowed with an extraordinary energy, while the others are only moderate, the result is great geniuses, great talents in a limited career, or certain inclinations, whether bad or good, predominant over the others. These talents and inclin- ations constitute the character of the individual, who will have the more difficulty to withstand their impulses in proportion as the other moral and intellectual powers are less active. You have the mere musician, mechanician, and impas- sioned poet ; but you have also the libidinous, the quarrelsome, the thievish, who even, in certain cases, are so impassioned that the excessive activity of such inclin- ations degenerates into real madness, and deprives the individual of the power of controlling them. " You see on the contrary, partial apathies, imbecilities, when, by the side of other qualities and faculties sufficiently developed, one or more organs are but little developed. With such an organisation, Lessing and Tichsbein detest music, Newton and Kant dislike women. " Lastly, in the sixth class, is found the crowd of ordinary men. But, as the organs common to animals occupy the greatest part of the brain, these men re- main limited to the sphere of the animal qualities ; their pleasures are those of sense, and they produce nothing remarkable in any respect. " These six divisions are mixed in a thousand modifications, as happens with all the great divisions of nature. We rarely find the organisation happy enough to bestow upon the faculties of a superior order an absolute power of impressing a favourable direction upon the inferior. We may, therefore, admit it as a truth established by the laws of organisation, that, among men, a very small number find in themselves alone sufficient force or motive to be a law unto themselves, — always to resolve upon acts conformable to the dignity of the most noble inclin- ations, sentiments, faculties of men." (8vo. t. i. p. 320. sqq. See also 4to. vol. ii. p. 133. sqq.) Gall required Dr. Spurzheim to infuse order, system, and philosophy into his discoveries and views ! He belonged to the small and noble class. God grant that increased cul- tivation of man's higher cerebral faculties may enlarge it ! 414- MENTAL FUNCTIONS OF indications of treatment will arise from the fact, just as in the latter cases. We learn how absurd in education it would be to attempt the production of great excellence of a particular kind, on the sup- position that he who can excel in one thing can excel in another, as though it were true, in Dr. Johnson's words, that " Genius is general powers applied to a particular subject;" or that, as Mr. Dugald Stewart said, " particular excellence is the result of par- ticular habits of study or of business." We know by phrenology that all cannot do all ; that the most unfit for one thing may be the most fit for another ; and the organisation will indicate from whom we can expect nothing, and when we may hope for success. Punishment will not be inflicted, nor irksome studies enforced, where nature is at fault and the faculty is not strong enough from deficiency of organ. We are enabled to decide when the pupil is anxious for excellence through good feeling or conceit, and yet cannot by nature succeed in the particular branch which attracts him. We are enabled to adapt our moral management accurately to the moral qualities of each child. In short, in every thing human, by knowing that various intel- lectual and moral faculties exist, by knowing what these are, by knowing accurately in general in what positive and relative strength they are supplied to particular individuals, we are en- abled to act like philosophers, and not with that ignorant bru- tality which has hitherto so much disfigured the education and legislation of the world, as well as private conduct in society. Gall made this noble and philosophical application from the first, as will be seen in both his works. b Others make them daily.6 By phrenology the true mental faculties have principally been discovered ; and, as it shows the true nature of man, its importance in medicine, education, jurisprudence, and every thing relating to society ancj conduct, must be at once apparent.*1 b 1. c. 4to. vol. ii. p. 133—212., 8vo. t. i. p. 319 — 457., and both works passim. c See Dr. Spurzheim's writings ; Mr. Combe's System of Phrenology, and his Essay on the Constitution of Man ; Dr. Combe's work on Insanity; Mr. Simpson on Education ; and the Edinburgh Phrenological Journal, passim. A I shall end the subject of Phrenology with one of those beautiful passages with which Gall's works abound. " I have always been conscious of the dignity of my researches, and of the THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 415 While the brain is evidently the organ of mind, the nerves united with it, and the spinal chord, together with its nerves, are as evidently the instruments by which it affects, and is affected by the other parts of the body, to which these nerves are dis- tributed. By their instrumentality, the brain contracts the volun- tary muscles, influences the functions of every other part when under the operation of the different passions, and receives im- pressions made upon every other part.6 The consequences of divisions of the nerves or spinal chord, fully substantiate these points. If a nerve supplying an organ of sense, as the olfactory, optic, acoustic, or gustatory, is compressed or divided, the organ be- comes insensible to odours, light, sounds, or tastes. If one exciting muscles only, as the common motor oculi, — the internal — or the external motor, — the facial — or the hypoglossal, the will loses power over such muscles ; — over the inferior, superior, and internal extensive influence which my doctrine will one day exert upon human know- ledge ; for which reason I have remained indifferent to all the good or evil which might be said of my labours. They were too far removed from received opinions to be relished and approved at first. A knowledge of them required profound and continued study : every one wished to pronounce upon them, and every one came with opinions and views according to his means of intelligence. All the doctrine is now consecrated to the public. Judgment cannot long remain doubtful. Personal feeling will disappear: the passions will calm, and criticism will have only its due weight. Posterity will not fail to contrast the point from which I started with that at which I stopped. My adversaries have but too distinctly displayed the state in which the various objects of my labours were, for it to be difficult to know what improvement these have derived and will de- rive from my discoveries. What progress in the comparative anatomy, physio- logy, and pathology of the nervous system ! What a fruitful source of irre- fragable principles for philosophical studies ; for the art of learning the disposition of individuals to the best advantage ; for the art of directing the education of youth ! What valuable materials for criminal legislation, based upon a complete knowledge of the motives of human action ! How history will change in the eyes of those who will know how to value it according to the predominant inclin- ations and faculties of the personages who have played the chief parts in it," &c. (1. c. 4to. vol. iii. p. xii. sq., 8vo. t. vi. p. viii. sq.) e In strict language, no part of the body but the encephalon, or what corre- sponds to it in lower animals, can have sensation. The different parts may be so affected, that, by the intervention of nerves between them and the encephalon, the latter perceives the impression made upon them ; but the sensation is in the encephalon, although instinctively referred to the spot which is its source. F F 416 FUNCTIONS OF NERVES. straight muscles of the eyes, the inferior oblique, and the levator palpebrae superioris,— the superior oblique, — the abductor straight muscle, — many muscles of the face, viz. the orbicularis, levator anguli oris, &c. &c. — or the muscular fibres of the tongue. If the spinal chord, or nerves conveying both volition from the brain and impressions to the brain, the supplied parts lose both sense and motion.f For when nerves both convey volition and supply common sensibility, as the fifth and the spinal nerves, they are compound, one portion performing but one function, as is proved by separately dividing the anterior and posterior part of the trigeminum, or the nervous bands, proceeding from the anterior and posterior parts of the spinal chord, before their conjunction; when the division of the former deprives the parts supplied of the influence of volition, and that of the latter de- prives them of sensation. In the case of either these com- pound or the simply motor nerves, if the divided surface, now un- connected with the brain, is irritated (or if, indeed, the parts are not divided, but at once irritated by pinching), contractions occur in the muscles supplied by them ; and, if a sedative is applied to them, some say that the muscles become inert. In the case of the compound nerves too, and in the case also of the division of those nerves which have common sensibility or touch and constitute a part of compound nerves, if the divided sur- face connected with the brain is irritated, acute pain is felt, as if in the part on which the nerve originally terminated s • and, after the removal of a limb, it is common for uneasy sens- ations to be experienced by the patient as if he still possessed his hand or his foot. The nerves which convey volition only, and f These facts are too frequently proved to be doubted ; and, consequently, four cases, in which the spinal chord is said to have been divided without the effect of paralysis, must be suspected of error. (See Metzer's Principes de Me- decine legate, translated, with notes, by Ballard, p. 357. sq.) Another has been quoted from Dr. Magendic's Journal de Physiologic, t. iii., in which the arms were paralysed as to motion, and the lower cervical and upper dorsal chord was a colourless pulp, except two bands between the anterior fissure and the sides ; so that the anterior portion of the chord was continuous (p. 184.), though the posterior was destroyed at one part. But the description is imperfect. Dr. Magendie suggests that the membranes carried on sensation ! g Thus, after the loss of the glans penis, the extremities of the nerves are sens- ible to venereal pleasure, as noticed by John Hunter and Dr. Marshall ; and I once had an out-patient at St. Thomas's Hospital with gonorrhrea, and only an inch of a remnant of penis. FUNCTIONS OF NERVES. 4-17 those of the other four senses than touch, — the nerves of the specific senses, — feel little or no pain when mechanical stimulus is applied ; and these generally have not, like those which furnish and possess common touch or common sensibility, and perhaps all those of the specific senses, a ganglion at a certain distance from their origin.11 There is Gasser's ganglion for the trigeminum, the posterior and larger part of which, including the ophthalmic and superior and inferior maxillary, gives sensibility to the face, and even what common sensibility they possess to the nerves of the specific senses and of motion ; while the anterior and smaller part is not united with Gasser's ganglion, and is a nerve of motion to the muscles of the lower jaw, and some others of the face. There is a ganglion for each posterior nerve of the spinal chord.1 The anterior h See Dr. Magendie's Precis de Physiol. t. i. p. 200. sq. ed. 3. 1 The branch of the trigeminum unconnected with the ganglion was de- clared to be a nerve of motion only, and to belong to the various muscles of the lower jaw, by Dr. Paletta in 1784: and was, therefore, called nervus masticatorius by Dr. Bellinger! in 1818. (Dissert, inaug. Taurini, 1818.) Dr. O'Beirne has shown that the motor portion is more extensively distributed in the muscles of the face ; that, after uniting with the inferior maxillary of the ganglionic portion, so that the two are intimately mixed and all the sub- sequent branches are compound nerves one of which becomes attached to the superior branch of the facial, it is distributed to many muscles of the face besides those of the lower jaw. He hence explains some instances of a certain loss of mo- tion after injury of the ganglionic portion of the fifth, and of continuance of motion after injury of the facial ; — paralysis of the motor branch of the fifth being at- tended by distortion of the face while the patient is at rest, and less when he speaks, laughs, &c. and thus puts in action the muscles supplied by the facial nerve ; paralysis of the facial being attended by distortion only when he puts these in action ; and paralysis of both being attended by constant distortion and an increase of it during these actions. He shows with great acuteness how unsatisfactory and erroneous are many of Sir C. Bell's views and statements respecting paralysis of the face. (New Views of the Process of Defecation, p. 227. sqq.) Dr. Bellingeni appears to have had some vague notion of the functions of the anterior part of the trigeminus and of the facial nerve ; but, since he says that the facial nerve gives animal sensibility as well as motion to the muscles and integuments of the face .(p. 124.), and speaks of the upper branch of the trigeminus as exciting involuntary motion (p. 177. sqq.), I cannot believe that he anticipated Sir C. Bell, who certainly appears to have discovered step by step the office of the ganglionic portion of the trigeminum, and proved that this was a double pair for sensation and motion — the portion devoted to sensation having a ganglionic enlargement, the other none, exactly like the spinal nerves ; although its similarity in structure to the spinal nerves he candidly states to have been pointed out by Prochaska half a century ago, and by Sommerring. ( The FF 2 FUNCTIONS OF NERVES. portion of the spinal chord is nearly insensible, while its posterior portion, and all the ganglionic branches of the trigeminum, are Nerv. Syst. of the Hum. Body, 1 830, p. viii. In this work are various papers presented by him to the Royal Society during the preceding nine years. ) Sir C. Bell also discovered the facial to be a nerve of motion only, though, besides speaking of it as a nerve of voluntary motion, he gave it some properties of ex- pression which are common to all nerves of voluntary motion, and strangely called it a respiratory nerve. Our knowledge of the functions of the anterior and the posterior or ganglionic portion of the spinal nerves, we owe first to Sir C. Bell, and next to Dr. Magendie. In a tract privately circulated by Sir C. Bell in 1811, he stated that, on dividing the posterior spinal nerves, no motion ensued ; but that, on touching the anterior, the muscles of the back were instantly con- vulsed, (p. xvii. sq. ) He concluded that the anterior and posterior portions had different functions, and that the anterior gave motion ; but he went no far- ther : and even fancied that the anterior gave sensibility also, and that the pos- terior might have other functions altogether. Dr. Magendie, many years later, proved that the anterior nerves gave motion only, and the posterior sensation. (Journal de Physiologic, t. ii. ) Had Sir C. Bell been aware of these, — the true functions, — he would not have neglected to set forth a discovery which he views in his later writings as so great. While a branch of the trigeminum was supposed to be a nerve of taste — a special sense, — there was a great want of uniformity in our views of its offices. It resembled the spinal nerves, in having a ganglionic and an aganglionic root. The aganglionic had been shown by Paletta to be for motion only. Every body knew that the ganglionic portion was for sensation. For example, Blu- menbach said, when treating of smell, that the first pair was for this sense, but the trigeminum for the common sensibility of the nostrils. Still the ganglionic portion was thought to be a nerve of motion also, and this was Sir C. Bell's opinion ; for his first experiment seemed merely to corroborate the common belief, that the ganglionic portion was for sensation and motion. After he had made many experiments he concluded it was for sensation only, and, although he is right in regarding it as a nerve of sensation only, he and others appear incorrectly to ascribe a number of facts regarding paralysis of motion in the face to the seventh, that really depend upon the trigeminum, though not upon the ganglionic portion but upon the aganglionic portion, as Dr. O'Beirne has so well shown. In fact, the truth of the ganglionic portion of the trigeminum being for sensation only was in some measure incorrectly inferred by Sir C. Bell from his experiments and cases, exceptions being passed over or unsatisfactorily explained. They all admit, however, of easy explanation, by referring impairments of motion on dividing the ganglionic branches to the extensive ramifications of the aganglionic por- tion in conjunction with those of the inferior maxillary branch ; and, where any paralysis of motion appeared on dividing the superior maxillary branch, to the necessary injury of one head of the levator labii superioris alseque nasi. From reviewing every circumstance, there can be no question that Sir C. Bell's view, of the ganglionic portion being for sensation only, is true. Still he has left FUNCTIONS OF NERVES. 4-19 acutely sensible : the division of the former portion has the same effect as the division of the anterior nerves ; of the latter, as the division of the posterior nerves. The destruction of the centre of the spinal chord by a wire impairs neither sensation nor motion k, nor is pain felt by the experiment: and I may remark that, in experiments on the healthy cerebrum and cerebellum, no the matter confused and anomalous, by assuming the general belief of a branch of this nerve of common sensation or touch serving for a special sense, — for taste. The perfect analogy of the trigeminum to the spinal nerves in having one of its two divisions for common sensation only and one for motion is now established by Professor Panizza, through his demonstration of the glosso-pharyn- geal being the nerve of the special sense of taste, while the branches of the tri- geminum going to the tongue are for its ordinary sensibility, just as those which go to the mucous membrane of the nose endow it with the same common sensi- bility, while the olfactory endow it with its special sense of smell. (See infra, Chapter XXI. ON TASTE.) Dr. Magendie, finding that the division of the trigeminum deprived the nose, eyes, &c. of the sense of touch, so that acrid substances no longer irritated, con- cluded that it gave smell, sight, and taste, and threatened to overthrow the doctrine of the optic nerve being for sight, the olfactory for smell, and so on. He mis- took the loss of common feeling for the loss of the specific sensibility of the eye, nose, &c., and his conclusions have long fallen to the ground. The opinion that there are distinct nerves for sensation and for motion had been entertained ever since the time of Erasistratus by many writers, from the fact of paralytic limbs being sometimes deprived of sensation only, sometimes of motion only, or even, in the latter case, becoming more sensible than previously. In Pouteau's (Euvres Posthumes, published in 1783, vol. ii. p. 532., it was main- tained, but the author remarked that it had long been abandoned by anatomists. He erred in supposing that the nerves of sensation came from the cerebrum, and those of volition from the cerebellum : as Galen erred in saying that the nerves of sensation arose from the brain, and those of voluntary motion from the spinal chord. Certain nerves were known to be for sensation only, as the olfactory, optic, and acoustic ; some for motion only, as the common motor of the eye, the external and internal motor. Sommerring had pointed out that one nerve gave motion to the tongue, another sensation : whence a man might lose his taste and yet move his tongue as before (Him und Nerven, p. 255.) ; and Gall, in 1810, urged that his adversaries would find it difficult to prove that the same nervous filament possessed the power of both feeling and motion ; and that the trigeminum pair, which supplies both sense and motion, has three distinct roots. (Anatomie et Physiologic, t. i. p. 129. sqq.) The morbid sensibility to warmth occasionally observed in paralysis, although the sense of touch be not morbidly acute or be actually impaired, induced Dr. Darwin to fancy there were distinct nerves even for the sensation of temperature. (Zoonomia, Sect. xiv. 6.) k Dr, Magendie, Journal de Physiol. t. iii. p. 153. sq. F F 3 420 FUNCTIONS OF NERVES. sign of sensibility appears on cutting the former to a great depth, or the latter superficially. But the division of the trigeminum, on the sides of the fourth ventricle, has all the effects of its di- vision without, and severe pain attends injury of the interior and sides of the fourth ventricle1, except as you approach the anterior part of the spinal chord ; and there is little sensibility at the cor- pora quadrigemina. The effects of the division of the spinal chord are of course more extensive in proportion as the division is made higher up ; and, if made above the origin of the phrenic nerves, which are the chief agents in causing the contraction of the in- spiratory muscles, and consequently above the origin of all the nerves of inspiration, death immediately ensues.™ Yet, in brutes, after removing the head or dividing the spinal chord, if any limb is irritated, its muscles are thrown into action : thus Sir Gilbert Blane, after such operations in kittens a few days old, found the hind legs to shrink from the touch of a hot wire applied to the hind paws ; and the tail to move when irritated, after the division of the chord below the last lumbar vertebra." More divisions than one do not prevent this effect. If the head of a pigeon is cut off, and the whole brain removed except a portion to which the third pair is attached, and the optic nerve is divided, the iris instantly contracts when the extremity of the optic nerve is pinched.0 Dr. Macartney says that contraction of the iris occurs from light suddenly admitted to the retina after the head is cut off or the eye taken out.? Dr. Magendie also remarks that, when the posterior roots of the spinal chord are irritated, besides signs of extreme pain, the muscles below the part irritated are thrown into action, but only on the same side of the body. All these facts show a peculiar relation between the nerves of i Dr. Magendie, Freds, t.i. p. 237. 3d edit. m It is thus that animals are every day killed by pithing ; in Germany I have never seen oxen killed in any other way : a blow on the back of the neck is sufficient to destroy rabbits. Livy informs us that, at the suggestion of As- drubal, in the battle in which he was slain, when the Carthaginian forces were routed, and their elephants became unmanageable, the drivers destroyed them in a moment by one blow of a hammer upon a knife fixed between the junction of the head and spine. (Histor. 1. xxvii. c. 49.) The division of the phrenic nerve only does not put a stop to respiration. See for instance, Bichat, Recherches Physiol. p. 327. n Select Dissertations on several Subjects of Medical Science. By Sir Gilbert Blane, Bart. M.D. London, 1822. p. 262. 0 Mr. Mayo, 1. c. p. 231. p Report of the Third Meeting of the British Association, 1834, p. 53. FUNCTION OF THE OBLONG CHORD. 421 sensation and motion that originate at the same portions of the nervous systems If the chorda oblongata exists, consciousness and volition be- come evident. Mr. Lawrence saw a child with no more ence- phalon than a bulb, which was a continuation for about an inch above the foramen occipitale from the chorda spinalis, and to which all the nerves inclusively from the fifth to the ninth pair were connected.1" The child's breathing and temperature were natural ; it discharged urine and faeces and took food, and at first moved very briskly, and lived four days. M. Lallemand saw such another which lived three days, and cried loudly.8 M. Ollivier one which not only cried and sucked, but squeezed strongly what was put into its hand.1 Unfeeling vivisectors, however, have not been contented with such facts supplied by nature, but have repeated them by the knife, and found that, if the cerebrum and cerebellum are removed in a living mammiferous brute, and the same portion of the chorda oblongata left, the poor thing cries on attempts being made to give it pain by pulling its whiskers or applying pungent things to its nose or mouth, and it moves its extremities, in order to escape from its annoyances, sometimes for two hours." An adult hedgehog gratified Dr. Magendie by doing all this for two hours. Cold-blooded animals live much longer ; and, the lower we descend in the scale of brutes, the more diffused appear the powers of the nervous system : in- deed, in the lowest there is, strictly speaking, no brain nor spinal chord, but nervous granules, or distinct ganglions and nerves, q Journal de Physiologie, t. iii. p. 154. Dr. Magendie, with Desmoulins, asserted that the spinal nerves of the python thus sprang from but one root. But Mr. Mayo found them arise from two, as in all the vertebrated animals. (Outlines, p. 254.) * Medico- Chirurgical Trans, vol. v. p. 166. sqq. * Obs. Path. p. 86. l Traite de la Moelle Epiniere, p. 155. u Anatomic du Syst. Nerv., par MM. Magendie et Desmoulins, p. 560. Dr. Magendie, for whose head the dogs, cats, and rabbits of France would in his active days have offered a reward, if they had known their own interest, says, " It is droll to see animals skip and jump about of their own accord, after you have taken out all their brains a little before the optic tubercles." And as to " new-born kittens," he says, " they tumble over in all directions, and walk so nimbly, if you cut out their hemispheres, that it is quite astonishing." (Journal de Physiologie, t. iii. p. 155.) Above a century and a half ago, — in 1673, M. Duverney removed the cerebrum and cerebellum from a pigeon, and found the animal " live for some time, search for aliment, &c." (Phil. Trans, vol. xix.) F F 4< 422 PROGRESSION OP which, no doubt, perform the same functions as far as required in those animals, and are, in fact, some at least, brains also to them, but of a different form and accommodated to their structured In the same way the heart is not one mass in the cuttle-fish but three, and in the lowest none exists, — vessels carrying on the circulation. It was, not many years ago, customary to assert that many animals have no nervous system. " It was reserved for the modern spirit of ob- servation," says Professor Tiedemann, "to establish the presence of nerves in many of the most inferior animals — the star-fish, actinia, pyrosoma, ascidia, and some entozoa, in which their existence was denied in Haller's time."y Professor Ehrenberg has lately shown that the infusory animalcules possess nerves and even ganglia, as well as eyes, muscles, and sexual and digestive organs, and pro- bably vessels, though myriads can exist in a dot : the verticella rotatoria being only from yj^ to ¥ J ^ of an inch in dimension.2 In regard to brutes in which nerves are not yet found, Dr. Tiede- mann allows that, " as we perceive in these animals phenomena which take place by the medium of nerves in animals of a more elevated order — that is to say, sensibility and voluntary motion — it is not improbable that, in them, the nervous substance is mixed with the gelatinous or mucous mass, without being demon- strable as a particular tissue." The higher we ascend, the more parts exist above the chorda oblongata, till, rising from fish and reptiles, through the numerous warm-blooded brutes, all distinguished by the relative magnitude of each cerebral part, according to their several mental characters, and seeing the successive additions of cerebral structure and cerebral mass, and of intelligence, we arrive at man, in whom the successive impositions of cerebral matter has reached its maximum, so that the summit of the nervous system, which corresponds with the forehead and vertex, is much larger in him than in any brute a, and his intellect and moral feelings are proportionally x Gall, 1. c. 8vo. t. i. p. 25. sqq. y Systematic Treatise on Comparative Physiology, by F. Tiedemann, M. D. Prof, of Anat. and Phys. in the Univer. of Heidelberg, translated by G. J. M. Gully, M.D., and J. H. Lane, M.D. 1834, p. 64. See my remarks, suprti e, p. 4. z See accounts of Prof. Ehrenberg's discoveries by Dr. Gairdner, and my colleague Prof. Sharpey, in the Edin. New Philos. Journal, 1831, 1833. a See Gall, 1. c. 4to. vol. ii. p. 252. 364. sqq. ; 8vo. t. ii. p. 153. sqq. 365. sqq., t. vi. p. 298. sqq. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 423 gaeater.b According to the smallness of the anterior and anterior- superior portions of the brain, will individual mental superiority to the brute creation be small. Human idiotism may arise from faultiness of texture, or want of power6, but most congenital cases depend upon deficiency of anterior development ; and such idiots, as well as the whole brute creation, may be regarded as examples of cerebral mutilations, made by nature, illustrating the use of the cerebral parts. Attempts to mutilate artificially are not calculated to afford much information. Brutes can generally give no oppor- tunity of minutely observing what mental change has been pro- duced by the removal. For instance, when a writer says that the removal of the cerebellum causes no other effect than sluggishness in the animal, — how does he know that sexual desire is not ex- tinguished? When various portions of brain are removed, how can any inference be drawn, during the short existence of the poor animal, as to the state of its various faculties and inclin- ations ? And when another asserts that, after the removal of the hemispheres and cerebellum, we may make observations whether the animal will copulate or not, how can he ascribe the disin- clination that may occur to the removal, when any circumstances of suffering, — a wound, confinement, or want of food, — will make it very difficult to induce an animal to indulge itself with sexual intercourse ?d It is, besides, difficult, if not generally impossible, 5 In the words of the 94th Number (already quoted above at p. 329.) of the Edinburgh Review, now retracting its assertions : " In the nervous system alone we can trace a gradual progress in the provision for the subordination of one animal to another, and of all to man ; and are enabled to associate every faculty which gives superiority with some addition to the nervous mass, even from the small- est indication of sensation and will up to the highest degree of sensibility, judg- ment, and expression. The brain is observed to be progressively improved in its structure, and, with reference to the spinal marrow and nerves, augmented in volume more and more, until we reach the human brain, each addition being marked by some addition to, or amplification of, the powers of the animal, until in man we behold it possessing some parts of which animals are destitute, and wanting none which they possess." c Gall, 8vo. t. ii. p. 377. d See Gall, 1. c. 8vo. t. vi. p. 210. From page 178. to 288. are excellent re- marks upon the unsatisfactory nature of such experiments as have been made by Fleurens, Rolando, &c. &c. See also 4to. vol. iii. p. 56., and 8vo. t.iii. p. 379. sqq. The first three quarters of the sixth volume should be read by all who are ac- quainted with the writings of these experimenters, or of Tiedemann, Rudolphi, Serres, &c. upon the brain. They will find those writers less meritorious than they imagined. INJURIES OF to remove one cerebral organ entirely and alone. Other parts of the encephalon, &c., are almost certain to be injured6: and, if e " Where is the anatomist or physiologist who precisely knows all the origins, the whole extent, all the ramifications, all the connections of an organ? You remove the cerebellum, at the same moment you severely injure the medulla oblongata and spinalis, you injure the tuber annulare, you injure the tubercula quadrigemina ; consequently, your results relate not merely to all these parts, but to all those which communicate with them, either directly or indirectly. You think you have insulated the tubercles, but these tubercles have connections with the corpora olivaria, the medulla oblongata, the cerebellum, the sense of vision, and many convolutions; the thalami, optici, the corpora striata, are connected below with the crura cerebri, the tuber annulare, the medulla oblongata, the pyramids, and the spinal marrow ; above, with all the cerebral membrane, all the convolutions, the non-fibrous, grey, substance of their surface, with the dif- ferent commissures, as the anterior commissure, the great commissure or corpus callosum j with the fornix, the septum lucidum. Thus there does not exist a cerebral part which we do not know to have numerous connections with other parts. I do not except even the corpora mammilaria, the pineal gland, the in- fundibulum, &c. The connections yet unknown are unquestionably still more numerous." (Gall, 1. c. p. 240. sqq.) Sir C. Bell has lately imitated Gall in ob- jecting to vivisections as a means of discovery.* Gall's nature was most tender. He had a horror of inflicting pain upon poor brutes, and would allow Dr. Ma- gendie to be little more than a canicide. He always kept birds and dogs in his house at Paris ; and I have seen him kiss his horses on alighting from his carriage at his country house, and then stand to receive the caresses of several immense bloodhounds which put their fore legs upon his shoulders. (See his glowing remarks on cruelty to brutes, 1. c. 4to. vol. iv. p. 196., 8vo. t. v. p. 259. sq.) * Phr. Trans. 1834. No doubt in complete ignorance of Gall's writings, be- cause he says that " not one of the great divisions of the brain has yet been dis- tinguished by its function," and alludes evidently to Gall's physiological disco- veries as the " weakest fancies that ever obscured any science." He had said before that Gall's strictly inductive method " is the most extravagant departure from all the legitimate modes of reasoning ;" that Gall, without comprehending the grand divisions of the nervous system, without a notion of the distinct properties of in- dividual nerves, or having made any distinction of the columns of the spinal mar- row, without having ascertained the difference of cerebrum and cerebellum, &c. ( Ph. Tr. 1 823. ) Sir C. Bell must be in total ignorance of Gall's works, more espe- cially as he adopts some of Gall's facts without mentioning his name. His folly as been exposed by Dr. Spurzheim (Appendix to the Anatomy of the Brain. 1830. p. 23. sqq.) It is delightful to find that, even in 1823, Sir C. Bell was harassed by the popularity of Gall's discoveries and the difficulty of keeping his pupils from being converts to phrenology. (Nervous System) p. 122.) We phrenologists, however, must console ourselves with reflecting that his ignorance is not confined to Gall's labours, as he disfigures the Philosophical Transactions (1834, p. 471.) by speaking of " a minute spicula." THE ENCEPHALON. 425 others should not be injured, they may be influenced by the extension of the irritation from the injury f, and by sympathy with the injured parts; just, for example, as we see epilepsy from exciting causes in every part of the encephalon and from exciting causes even in distant organs ; amaurosis is frequently induced by wounds of the supra-orbital nerve, sometimes by wounds of the infra-orbital nerve, and of the portio dura£; M. Fleurens declares that, in cutting the semicircular canals in which the acoustic nerves only are spread, peculiar motions occurred. If the horizontal canal on each side was divided, horizontal movement of the head took place from side to side, and rotation of the whole body. Division of the inferior vertical canals on each side produced vertical movements of the head, and caused the animal to lie on its back. Division of the superior vertical canals caused vertical movements of the head, but the animal lay forwards. The direction of the inferior vertical canal is back- wards, and of the superior forwards. If all the canals were divided, all sorts of violent motions took place.h Some parts which have distinct names are only portions of organs, so that injury of several parts may have the same effect; — we may have blindness from wounding the optic nerves, the tractus optici, or the corpora quadrigemina. Some parts which have distinct names are compound, so that the immediate and obvious effect of injuring them is not the only consequence which would be observed if the others had an opportunity of becoming appa- rent. The chorda oblongata is an instance of this1, and all the double nerves of sensation and motion. k f See Gall, 1. c. 8vo. t. iii. p. 409. sqq., where examples are given. B See many cases in Mr. Wardrop's work, On the Morbid Anatomy of the Eye, vol. ii. p. 179. sqq. The fact is even mentioned by Hippocrates; and, what is singular, the blindness generally arises from an imperfect division of the nerve, and has been cured by making the division complete. The blindness has some- times taken place instantly, sometimes come on very gradually. h M6m. de VAcad. des Sc. t. ix. p. 454. sqq. 1 " The tubercula quadrigemina are a continuation of the bands of the me- dulla oblongata and medulla spinalis. They are also formed by ganglia, one portion of which gives origin to the fibres of the optic nerve. " In the same manner, the medulla oblongata is in a great measure a continu- ation of the spinal marrow, besides containing many collections of non-fibrous substances, which, like so many ganglions, are the origins of many nerves of the highest importance, and relating to very different functions. 426 INJURIES OF Hence the contradictory and strange observations and infer- ences of most experimenters on the brain of living brutes.1 The " The tuber annulare is not only composed of the nervous bundles of the two hemispheres of the cerebellum, or of the commissure of the cerebellum, but is also a continuation of several bundles of the medulla oblongata and spinalis, of the anterior and posterior, or inferior and superior, pyramids, and contains a considerable quantity of non-fibrous substance interposed between the transverse and longitudinal bundles, and giving rise to fresh filaments for the crura cerebri, the tubercles," &c. (Gall, 1. c. 8vo. t. vi. p. 243. sq.) k " You cannot insulate even the nerves of sensation before they are com- plete. The origin of the nerves of taste is confused with the masses of the origin of many other nerves ; the auditory is confused with the nervous and non-fibrous masses of the fourth ventricle ; the optic nerves at first with all the mass of the tubercles, with the corpora geniculata and their attachments, with the crura cerebri, with the grey layer situated immediately behind their junction. The olfactory nerves are at first intimately connected with the grey substance placed upon the interior and inferior convolutions of the middle lobes, with the anterior cerebral cavities," &c. (1. c. 8vo. t. vi. p. 245.) 1 Fontana says that, after removing the brain of a turtle and entirely empty- ing the cranium, the animal lived six months, and walked as before. M. Rolando attempted the experiment repeatedly, but the animal always died as soon as a cut was made behind the cerebellum. M. Rolando says that he "made innumerable experiments upon goats, lambs, pigs, deer, dogs, cats, and guinea-pigs, to ascertain the results of lesion of the tubercles, and parts near the optic thalami, but rarely obtained the same results." M. Rolando says that lesion of the thalam optici causes convulsions; M. Fleurens denies it. (Gall, 1. c. t. vi. p. 191.) M. Rolando found an unsteadi- ness like that of intoxication follow the removal of two thirds of the lobes of the cerebrum from a chicken. M. Fleurens declares that he must have wounded the cerebellum. M. Fleurens protests that the results of the experiments of M. Rolando are contradictory to each other (p. 215.): and, after finding a chicken walk, fly, and swallow, shake its wings, and clean them with its beak, subsequently to losing the hemispheres of its brain, infers that these are the residence of the understanding and feelings, and that the cerebellum is destined to balance, to regu- late motion ; yet birds, after losing these parts, pecked and clawed their enemies, and perched, (p. 266.) M. Rolando considers muscular action to depend upon the cerebellum ; yet Dr. Magendie found animals perform regular motions after losing it. In the Report of the Physiology of the Nervous System, read at the British As- sociation in 1833, in which Gall's name is not once mentioned, the compiler, after saying, " But there does appear sufficient evidence to prove that those volitions, which have motion for an effect, whatever be their origin, whether in the cerebrum, cerebellum, or medulla oblongata, require for their accomplishment the co-operation of the cerebellum," declares further on, that " a duck, whose cere- THE ENCEPHALON. 42? same effects moreover do not occur in the same experiments upon different species of animals. The observation of nature's own mutilations in brutes which have little or no development of parts that are large in others, or in man, is therefore preferable ; and next to this comes the observation of morbid changes of different parts, — a subject, however, incapable of affording information till the faculties had been ascertained by Gall. (See suprd, p.349.sqq.) Still some results of mutilating the living brain appear generally allowed, and are not at all in contradiction to phrenology. The ex- periments of M. Fleurens are allowed by Gall to be very ingenious, and sometimes satisfactory1"; and, with respect to injuring the cerebellum, Gall remarks, " we must never forget that the same part may have its general vital function and its particular animal function. If it is true that the lesion of the tubercles in birds always causes convulsions, it is not less true that the tuber- cles are destined to vision ; and in the same way the cerebellum (connected as it is with the medulla oblongata, &c.) may partici- pate in the vital function of the medulla oblongata and spinalis, may give rise to disturbed motion when injured, and yet have its bellum had been destroyed," by Dr. Magendie, " swam backwards, — could swim only backwards" (p. 69.) : and Dr. Magendie shows that it is requisite to neither sensation nor motion ; for, when, after having robbed hedgehogs and guinea-pigs of their cerebrum and cerebellum, he kindly held a bottle of refreshing vinegar under their nostrils, they rubbed their little noses with their paws ! And he says that he has over and over again seen animals performing very regular movements after he had disburthened them of the whole of their cerebellum. (Precis, t. i. p. 408.) In opposition to M. Fleurens, MM. Foville and Pinel Grand-Champs ascribe to the cerebellum the function of sensation. M. Fleurens, after removing the cerebrum, declared all sensation and vo- lition to be lost. M. Bouillaud found animals so deprived give signs of pain and exert will in endeavouring to escape. (Dr. Magendie's Journal, t. x. p. 36. sqq.) M. Fleurens infers that the lobes of the cerebrum concur as a whole in their functions, and that, when one sense is lost, all are lost. But M. Bouil- laud, on removing the anterior lobes, found that dogs, rabbits, pigeons, hens, saw, smelt, and moved voluntarily; but were indifferent to familiar sounds, persons, places, or things. In fact, he found Gall's assertion true, — that, though sensation was independent of the anterior part of the brain, the faculty called by Gall sense of things (objects as wholes), and those of language, places, and per- sons, were altogether dependent upon the anterior part. The result of M. Bouil- laud's experiments made him a strenuous phrenologist. m 1. c. t, vi. p. 249. 428 INJURIES OF own particular animal functions."" That animals should skip and jump, and eat, after losing their hemispheres, is not surprising, if these parts perform the phrenological functions assigned to them and are not necessary to motion. The chorda oblongata and other lower parts of the encephalon have, no doubt, much to do with motion as well as the chorda spinalis. Accordingly, when the oblongata was pressed in the child mentioned by Mr. Lawrence convulsions occurred ; and the same effect ensued on irritating it, in Gall's experiments and those of Lorry.0 Pressure of it, how- ever, is also said by vivisectors to occasion stupor. Dr. Magendie, who cut living animals here and there with no definite object, but just to see what would happen, informs us, that, 1. Deep cuts of the hemispheres do not affect motion in mam- malia, reptiles, fish, and many birds, any more than their entire removal : but the latter is said to occasion blindness in mammalia and birds, though not in fish or frogs, probably from the arrange- ment of the cerebral parts being different, so that a similar wound affects different organs. Neither a longitudinal section of the mesolobe, nor its removal, has any more effect on motion. 2. If the white substance of both corpora striata is cut away with the hemispheres, the animal darts forward against all objects in its way, and retains the attitude of progression, if prevented.p If the injury is to the grey portion, or to the white of one corpus striatum only, motion is not interfered with. When a thalamus was removed from a poor animal moving forwards after this mu- tilation, it ceased to attempt advancing, but began to turn to the corresponding side ; and, when the other thalamus was next cut away, it became still, with its head inclined backwards.** M. Fode>a had found that the removal of a part of the cerebellum n 1. c. t. iii. p. 385. sq. Dr. Vimont also conceives that the cerebellum is not simple. Finding its processus vermiformis very large in climbing and remark- ably sure-footed animals, he imagines that it will be found somehow connected •with motion. (1. c. t. ii. p. 242.) 1835. Mr. S. Solly lately stated to the Royal Society that he has traced a superficial and a deep-seated layer of fibres from the anterior columns of the spinal chord into the cerebellum. 0 Gall, 8vo. 1. c. t. iii. p. 392. p Yet Drs. Foville and Pinel Grand- Champs fancied that the anterior lobes and corpora striata presided over the motions of the inferior extremities ; and the posterior lobes and thalami over those of the superior. q Report of Brit, Assoc. 1833. THE ENCEPHALON. 429 always caused motion backwards, or a corresponding attitude. Injuries of one side of it paralysed the same side of the body, as the fibres of the restiform bodies do not decussate like the anterior pyramids. r But Dr. Hertwig asserts that injuries of the cerebellum affect the opposite side, just as Gall found removal of the testis affect the opposite lobe of the cerebellum. Dr. Magendie often found animals perform very regular movements after the removal of the cerebellum ; yet he observed that the removal and wounds of it to a certain depth, and of the chorda oblongata s, gave mammalia and birds a tendency to move back- wards, though the same effect does not occur in fish, which, after the loss of their cerebellum, swim as usual. 3. In a vertical section of a crus of the cerebellum, or of the mesocephalon from before backwards, the animal immediately rolled forcibly towards the same side, making sometimes sixty revolutions in a minute ; and the corresponding eye was directed forwards and downwards, the other backwards and upwards. After the division of a crus, animals continued rolling, and with their eyes thus directed, for eight days. If both crura were divided, all motion ceased, and the eyes resumed their natural state. l A similar vertical section downwards of the cerebellum from before backwards half way on one side of the central line, through the whole substance of the arch over the fourth ventricle, or of the mesocephalon upwards, had the same effects, and the motion was the more rapid as the section was nearer to the mesocephalon. When an incision of one half of the cerebellum had set an animal rolling to that side, an incision of the opposite crus arrested the rolling and caused the eyes to resume their natural position. A vertical incision downwards in the median line of the cere- bellum caused the animal to attempt motion, but deprived it of the power of balancing itself. Its eyes rolled and started, and its fore legs were rigid and extended forwards. " 4. If the fourth ventricle is exposed and the cerebellum re- moved, a perpendicular incision in the chorda oblongata on one side r Journal de Physique, July, 1823. s If ever he amused himself by sticking pins in the chorda oblongata of pigeons, the birds thus ornamented by him would walk and fly backwards for above a month! (Precis, t.i. p. 409.) t Journal, t. iv. p. 403. u Journal de Physiol. t. iv. All these points were ascertained on noticing the effect of a wound made unintentionally in a crus. 430 INJURIES OF of the median line, near the outside of the anterior pyramid, will cause a rabbit four months old to turn to the right, if made on the right side ; and to the left, if made on the left. 5. Notwithstanding the decussation of the anterior pyramids, a division of one or both had no sensible effect, except, perhaps, that of retarding motion a little ; the section of the corpora restiformia does not seem to affect general motion ; and a com- plete division of one half of the chorda oblongata neither affects sensibility nor prevents irregular motions, though the power of volition appears lost on the same side. The same phenomena occur in disease. Persons labouring under hysteria or chorea sometimes reel violently or spin round. x Persons have been known to feel an impulse to move forwards or backwards, y An infinite variety, however, of extraordinary and regular movements also occur, and frequently vertigo attends them, whatever their variety. Vertigo cannot be their cause, as they are so various in different cases, and they or it frequently exist alone. From these experiments I draw no inference. The consider- ations already mentioned prevent me from concluding that the parts which are cut are the sole organs concerned in giving origin to the peculiar motions, that their sole purpose is for such mo- tions, or even that peculiar motions depend originally upon them. We can only say, as in the undoubted and numerous cases of amaurosis following an injury of the supra-orbital or infra- orbital nerve, and as in regard to the peculiar motion said by x See Med. Chir. Trans, vol. v. p. 1. sqq., also vol. vii. p. 237. sqq. M. Serres mentions a drunken shoemaker who spun round till he died, and in whom the only morbid appearance was disease of a crus cerebelli. (Dr. Ma- gendie's Journ. t. iv. p. 405. sq.) y In a man who had an irresistible desire to move forwards, tubercles were found particularly at the anterior part of the hemispheres. ( Dr. Magendie, Journal de PhysioL t. iii.) I have seen several epileptic youths with this propensity. They would walk away to a very considerable distance, without knowing why ; and this repeatedly. A hemiplegic young man would walk upwards of 50 miles from home, and be lost for a considerable time. I frequently see persons with a pro- pensity to precipitate themselves forwards. In some there is desire merely to leave their abode, and they walk to gratify this, or travel by some conveyance. Dr. Laurent exhibited a girl at the Academic Royal de Medecine, who, in irre- gular hysteric attacks, rushed rapidly backwards, (Dr. Magendie, Precis de Phys. p. 409. sq.) THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 431 M. Fleurens to occur on division of the branches of the acoustic nerve, that such effects ensue. In hemiplegia, disease is frequently found in a corpus striatum ; and some have endeavoured to prove that paralysis of an upper or lower extremity is attended by dis- ease in this part or that, but the coincidences are not such as to warrant any conclusion. In foetuses full grown, without encephalon or spinal chord z, the circulation, nutrition, secretion, &c. proceed equally as in others, which, besides spinal chord, nerves, and ganglia, possess a brain. a These mutilations by nature are conclusive, and render all vivi- sections on the points unnecessary. Further, the heart and arteries are formed in the foetus before the encephalon and spinal chord, and therefore cannot depend on them for power and excitement. Vegetables absorb, assimilate, circulate, secrete, and in many in- stances contract on the application of stimuli, and yet are not 2 See Morgagni, Ep. 48. No. 50. ; Van Home, Curios. Miscell. Dec. 1. an. 3, obs. 129.: Kerkring, Spic. Anat. obs. 23. ; Littre, Hist, de CAcad. des Sciences, 1701, p. 24. ; Mery, I.e. 1712, p. 38.; Fauvel, 1. c. 1711, p. 26.; Sue, 1. c. 1746; M. Roux, M6m. sur V Anencephalie, 1825; all quoted by Dr. Brachet, Recherches Exp6rimentales sur le Systems Ganglionaire. Paris, 1830, p. 83. sqq. p. 69. sqq., for instances of the absence of the spinal chord. Also, Phil. Trans. 1775. Brainless foetuses are not uncommon. A foetus attached to another has been minutely described by Dr. Mayer of Berlin, in Graefe's Journal, t. x., without brain, spinal chord, or encephalo- spinal nerves. There was one nervous twig accompanying the renal artery, and arising apparently from the renal plexus, which, with the mesenteric, existed and had ganglia. Imperfect foetuses have been seen, with some organs evolved, though not even nerves could be discovered. See Phil. Trans. 1793. See on this subject the excellent remarks of Dr. Marshall, in his works edited by Mr. Sawrey in 1814, and already quoted. a " A girl lived to the age of eleven years, with the use of her senses, and with voluntary motion, weak it is true, but sufficient for her wants, and even for pro- gression." " After death no cerebellum nor mesocephalon could be found." (Dr. Magendie, Precis, t. i. p. 414., and Journal, t. xi.) Here was one of Nature's own mutilations, without mechanical injury or disturbance of other parts ; and, with patience till it occurred, a multitude of innocent animals would have escaped cruel and disgusting vivisections, and an attempt would not have been made to prove that the cerebellum was necessary to motion or secretion, or to prevent involuntary motions backwards. — The girl had prurigo pudendi, and frequently scratched herself. Some antiphrenologists therefore inferred that she mastur- bated and showed sexual desires, although she had no cerebellum ! G G 432 FANCIED FUNCTIONS OF thought to possess nerves. I cannot but believe the blood pos- sessed of vitality ; and, if it be not, still a clot of fibrine sponta- neously becomes vascular without the aid of nerves, though they may be subsequently produced. Muscles, after the division of the nerves which connect them with the encephalon or spinal chord, contract equally as before, when irritated ; nay, if they are over-excited by any means and exhausted, and are then allowed repose, they absolutely recover themselves and obey the stimulus again. In animals liable to torpor, the season of torpidity pro- duces its effects equally upon those muscles whose encephalo- spinal nerves have been divided, and equally if the encephalon and spinal chord, &c. are destroyed. In sleep and even coma, the action of the heart, &c. continues ; and, even after the removal or gradual destruction of the encephalon, spinal chord, or encephalo- spinal nerves, the heart still continues to act and the blood to circulate, provided respiration is artificially supported5, —for respiration depends upon the excitement of the muscles by means of nerves of motion springing from the cervical portion of the spinal chord, and these nerves are excited through the sensation of the want of respiration, conveyed to the chorda oblongata, as Dr. Brachet makes probable, by the pneumono- gastric pair, which appears to give sensibility to the pha- rynx, larynx, oesophagus, stomach, and lungs c, — parts in all b Duverney, whose experiments on a pigeon in 1673 I mentioned at page 421., also removed the cerebrum from a dog, without a fatal result for some time : the removal of the cerebellum was instantly fatal. Yet, by instituting -artificial re- spiration, he sustained life for an hour after the removal of the cerebellum. In one experiment, the dog " lived twenty-four hours, and his heart beat well." The instantly fatal result of the division of the spinal chord he prevented also by artificial respiration, and found that the motion of the heart continued and the animal could move his body. (Phil. Trans, vol. xix.) Spallanzani removed the brain, without injury to the organic functions. (Ex- periences sur la Circulation: ouvrage traduit de 1'Italien, p. 377. Geneve, 1783.) Fontana injured the brain and spinal chord with no more effect. (Sur le Venin de la Viplre. Florence, 1781, t. ii. p. 169.) Experiments, &c., by A. P. Wilson Philip, M.D., and Wm. Clift, Philos. Trans. 1815. Also, Experimental Inquiry, by the former. London, 1826. 3d edit. Dr. Brachet has lately repeated these experiments upon warm and cold blooded animals. (Rech. Exper. p. 73. sq.) And lastly, Fleurens, Memoires de FAcad. des Sc. t.x. 1830. c Dr. Le Gallois ( Experiences sur le Principe de la Vie, p. 247. sqq. 1812) first pointed out that a perfectly anencephalous foetus cannot live after birth, THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 433 which sensation is most important. All the organic or nutri- tive functions proceed : nails grow, wounds heal, vesicatories — that respiration will not take place without the portion of the chorda oblon- gata connected with the pneumono-gastric. The pneumono-gastric are also nerves of motion to the larynx and trachea ; and are distributed to the liver, spleen, kidneys, and duodenum, — probably to convey impressions to them from the brain under emotion, and to give them sensibility enough for sensation under causes of great irritation. The pneumono-gastric on each side gives off, 1 . The superior laryngeal, which runs to the membrane of the glottis (see Mr. Swan, On the Nerves, plate xvi., Expl. of Plates, p. xlviii.), and therefore gives it sensibility, and to the arytenoid museles which close it, as well as the crico-thyroid muscle which raises the cricoid cartilage. (Dr. Magendie, M.6m. sur V Usage de VEpiglotte dans la Deglu- tition, #c.) 2. Twigs to numerous parts in the neck, to the facial, lingual, and three upper cervical nerves, to the cardiac plexuses, the pulmonary plexuses, and the sym- pathetic nerve. 3. The inferior laryngeal or recurrent nerves (see Mr. Swan, 1. c.), which supply " the membrane of the trachea as high as the membrane covering the posterior part of the cricoid cartilage," and the transverse fibres at the back of the trachea, " and ultimately divide into branches which terminate in the lateral crico-arytenoid and thyro-arytenoid muscles," (see papers by Dr. H. Ley, Lond. Med. Gazette, June 20. 1835,) besides giving branches of communication with many other nerves. On account of their supplying the membrane of the glottis^ Dr. Brachet found that, after removing a portion of the pneumono-gastric nerves from which they spring, a ball of orris-root or a few drops of muriatic or acetic acid might be admitted into the trachea of a dog without uneasiness ; whereas, while the nerves were entire, a drop of blood in the trachea induced cough, and the balls and acids most violent cough, which instantly ceased on the division of the nerve, and was succeeded by mucous rattle without expectoration, the mucus no longer exciting sensation, nor the muscles possessing power for its expulsion > and death ensued in less than an hour. (Reck. Exper. p 167.) As the recurrents supply the opening muscles of the glottis, the division of those nerves causes the death of young animals, since in them the rima glottidis is narrow ; in the older, or in animals whose rima glottidis is of such a form that its sides cannot touch, dyspnoea and a croaking sound of the voice instantly follow from their approxi- mation.* * Dr. Le Gallois, Experiences sur le Principe de la Vie. Some think that filaments go from the recurrents to the closing muscles also ; but Dr. H. Ley conjectures, with probability, "that these, together with the ana- stomosing branches of the superior laryngeal and the recurrent, are intended for those rapid and delicate associated actions connected with the voice by which the chordae vocales are rendered more or less tense, and their vibrating portions longer or shorter j whilst the main branches, described by Mr. Swan as termi- G G 2 434 FANCIED FUNCTIONS OF produce blisters, fractured bones and soft parts unite, in limbs which are perfectly paralysed. But the involuntary functions are closely connected with the encephalon and spinal chord ; for the sudden destruction of these parts, or of a certain ex- tent of them, puts a stop to the circulation.4 This, however, The pneumono-gastric next supply the membrane of the bronchiae and air- cells, so that, after their division, an animal may be plunged into water without any uneasiness or effort at respiration, although previously violent struggles ensued ; or the animal may be kept in confined air or nitrogen, and, although it still breathes and laboriously, it gradually dies, we are told, without any suf- fering. We breathe from an uneasy sensation ; but, after the division of these nerves, the want is little felt. Respiration continues for a time, probably from some nervous connection ; for, if the origin of the nerves in the chorda oblongata is destroyed, respiration ceases at once.* Dr. Brachet believes that all ex- citement of the heart by the brain, even though the cause be pain induced any •where, is communicated by the pneumono-gastric ; for excitement of the heart from causes of pain ceased on the division of these nerves, and did not occur if they were divided before their application ; nor would irritation of the upper extremity of the divided nerve, or of the brain, excite the heart. They give sensation, we have seen, and also, according to some, motion, to the stomach. According to Dr. Brachet, the stomach still acts but antiperistal- tically, so that its muscular excitability does not depend upon the nerve, though it maybe acted upon through the nerve. On irritating its resophageal plexus, the cesophagus and stomach contract, and, after its division, their peristaltic action ceases, f d Dr. Le Gallois, Sur le Principe de la Vie ; and Dr. Wilson Philip, Exper. Inquiry. Probably by excessive stimulus, as the voluntary muscles are after- wards insensible to stimuli, although, after a mere division of their nerves, they retain their excitability. nating in the opening muscles of the glottis, are for the purpose of those grosser movements of the rima glottidis connected with respiration and deglutition." * In considering the continuance of respiration after division of these nerves, and the occasional occurrence of rattling and apparently laborious breathing without anv suffering for even a long time before the death of some persons, we must reflect how faint an uneasy sensation causes us almost unconsciously to will an action, — how we wink all day, and hem, without thinking of the sens- ations which excite our will, or thinking of the exertion of our will. A person may have sensation enough in the lungs to make him breathe, and yet not enough to make him suffer. When dogs plunged in water after the division are said to have made no effort to breathe, I presume that the faint sensation induced them to make a faint effort, but was not sufficient to induce them to contend for re- spiration, as they must have done, from the absence of air. f Drs. Tiedemann and Gmelin, Recherches sur la Digestion. Drs. Breschetand Edwards, Arch. Gener. de Mtdedne, 1821. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 435 is no more than happens if any important part of the body re- ceives an injury, or if any unimportant part is extensively in- jured ; — if a leg is crushed or falls into gangrene, the whole system suffers, though a leg may be removed and the system be none the worse.6 The application of stimuli to the encephalon or spinal chord excites the action of the heart, and, even after its removal, of the capillaries : but stimulus to any important part will stimulate others ; and even to an unimportant part, if the stimulus is strong. The passions do the same : but they influence all parts ; and, though a due excitement of the passions is necessary to the health of all parts, it is only because the body thrives best as a whole when each part fully performs its functions. Compression of the brain causes slowness of the pulse and constipation ; but this is only such a sympathetic influence as may exist between any parts. It appears, from Dr. Brachet's experiments, that irritation of the brain affects other parts by means of the pneumono-gastric ; for its division prevented all effects of the brain upon the heart.f The removal of a piece of the pneumono-gastric, or the de- struction of that part of the chorda oblongata with which it is connected or of a considerable portion of the chorda spinalis, heavily impairs the functions of the lungs and of the stomachs, putting a stop, some say to the muscular action of the stomach, others to the secretion of gastric juice and to digestion. The e The hearts of six decapitated robbers beat strongly and regularly for nearly half an hour; and after a man's cerebrum and cerebellum were blown off by an explosion of fire-arms, the respiration and circulation continued above half an hour. (Dr. Brachet, 1. c., p. 80. sq.) f Reck. Exper. p. 118. g Le Gallois, 1. c., and many former writers. Dr. Philip conceives this influence of the brain and spinal chord to be gal- vanic, as he prevented the ill effects of the removal of a piece of the pneumono- gastric nerve upon the lungs and stomach, by supplying these organs with gal- vanic influence. (1. c. p. 210. sqq.) Dr. Brachet, however, equally succeeded by mechanically irritating the end of the portion of the divided nerve running to the stomach. Division of the nerve had no effect if the divided ends lay opposite each other, although a quarter of an inch intervened. (Dr. W. Philip, 1. c. p. 226. sqq.) A mechanical stimulus, or a substance in its nature stimulating, applied to the brain about the origin of the nerves, excites contractions in the voluntary muscles ; a substance in its own nature stimulating excites the heart and capil- laries, when applied to any part of the brain or spinal chord, but requires to be applied to a considerable portion. (Dr. Philip, 1. c.) G G 3 436 FANCIED FUNCTIONS OF animal may continue quietly to eat till the stomach is enormously distended ; and this, no doubt, because the stomach is deprived of its sensibility so that its distension is no longer felt, and the animal, though it must at the same time be insensible to the pangs of hunger in it, continues to eat from habit or the pleasure of masticating. h We need not suppose its muscular power to be destroyed by the injury of the nervous system, because continued eating must produce over-distension, though the power of con- traction be, before the over-distension, unimpaired. Dr. Philip maintains that the injury suppresses the secretion of gastric juice and digestion; but Drs. Leuret and Lassaigne assert that di- gestion proceeds as before, though even six inches of each nerve be removed in the horse ; and Sir B. Brodie and Dr. Magendie found digestion uninfluenced, if the division was made, not in the neck, but close to the stomach ; and, again, Dr. Magendie found digestion proceed in brutes after the removal of the cere- brum and cerebellum. (See suprti, p. 87.) The division or ligature of the pneumono-gastric nerve has been a favourite experiment with endless vivisectors from the time of Galen himself; but I believe that Dr. Le Gallois was the first to point out that the blood experiences no longer the chemical changes in the lungs, but their air-cells become filled with frothy mucus, their substance gorged with blood, and their surface marked with dark patches. The engorgement and black patches result, however, merely from the want of changes in the blood ; and this partly from the animal scarcely feeling the want of respiration ; so that in a rabbit the respirations instantly become very slow, — an instance analogous to the slow breathing of sleep and the much slower of apoplexy, in which states the want of respiration is less perfectly felt ; and partly from the stay of all the mucus in the air-cells and tubes, which, like the stomach, have lost their sensibility, so that, the quantity of mucus not being h Dr. Le Gallois found that, after this division, a guinea-pig would eat, from habit or the pleasure of the mouth, till its belly was as long as its body ; and the O3sophagus would also become distended, sensation being lost and muscular power paralysed. Dr. Brachet kept animals without food, and they showed all the signs of hunger. He divided the pneumono-gastric, and then offered them food. But they were now indifferent to it ; and, on being enticed to eat it, they ate on till the stomach would hold no more and the oesophagus was filled. The cessation of muscular action might be the result of merely the loss of sen- sibility. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 437 felt, none is expectorated, and mucous rattle occurs in the trachea. The blood, consequently, is no longer exposed properly to the air. These changes are declared to happen even after death, if the ex- periment is made as soon as the animal is killed ; but I really doubt this. Every point of the body communicates with the brain by means of nerves: since, on the one hand, every point of the organisation either is sensible or may by disease acquire sensi- bility and communicate painful sensation to the brain1 ; and, on the other, mental emotions, continued or violent, may affect any point. We cannot, therefore, be surprised to see nerves pass between the encephalon or spinal chord and parts which ordi- narily have no sensation and are never under the influence of volition. Indeed, many parts considered insensible are at all times destined to give some variety of sensation, under certain circum- stances, without any morbid sensibility. The want of chemical change in the lungs for less than a minute so impedes the passage of blood through them, that we have an uneasy sensation : the stomach feels hunger, and it, and the intestines, and urinary bladder, feel distension every day in health : the ligaments, un- doubtedly, give a peculiar sensation if a joint is over distended : and the testis or coats of the testis when compressed.k The func- tions of the lungs and stomach could not easily proceed without sensation. In the one we feel the want of air, if we interrupt the function, as we continually do when talking and eating and performing many other acts, in all which we are compelled to attend to respiration by an uneasy feeling : without sensation in the stomach, supplies of food would not be given to it and regulated. The necessity for almost continual sensation in the lungs and stomach explains why a nerve goes directly from the brain to these organs, — the pneumono-gastric. The end of the intestines and the bladder require habitual sensation for their functions, and they are well supplied from the spinal chord. The functions of the rest 1 In nervous disturbance, the parts which carry on the organic functions •without sensation sometimes acquire such sensibility that the ordinary silent processes appear attended with sensations : at any rate, unusual sensations are felt in such parts. k I have compressed the tunica vaginalis and the albuginea when the testis was atrophied after mumps, and great pain was felt. Still, although nothing but membranes appeared left, there probably was a portion of the gland, as pressure of the vas deferens is equally painful. G G 4) 438 FANCIED FUNCTIONS OF of the intestinal tube, of the liver, kidneys, and absorbents, &c. of the abdomen require no sensation in health ; and sensation, there- fore, occurs in them only under unhealthy influences, and they neither require nor have communication with the brain beyond such an amount as all parts possess for occasional sensation and the sympathetic influence of the mental affections of the brain, and that influence which it, like all other organs, exerts at all times on all parts. There is thus a sufficient reason for the presence of encephalo-spinal nerves where there is no volition, and where ordinarily no sensation occurs, without ascribing nutritive or functional influence to them. Although the division of the spinal chord or of its nerves, or compression or disorganisation of these or of parts of the brain, prevents voluntary power over the corresponding muscles, without suspending the circulation, &c. in them, and does not impede the functions of the lungs or stomach ; yet circulation, and, what are dependent upon it, — nutrition and frequently animal heat, — are evidently impaired. Sir Everard Home found that, by dividing the nerves running to the horn of a buck, the temperature of the horn fell about 6° below that of the other, and, as the divided ends advanced in the process of re-union, the temperature rose again towards a level.1 Palsied limbs are often colder than others, or, as Dr. Abercrombie enounces the fact more accurately, are more easily cooled and heated, — follow variation of external tempera- ture more, — than others. Palsied limbs waste, and the ends of the jpalsied fingers are very pale, and the nails blue from time to time, for want of use. Division of the trigeminum pair of nerves close to the brain causes inflammation of the eye and cloudiness of the cornea; and its division at its ganglion Gasseri produces opacity of the cornea and ulceration and destruction of the eye.m The at- tempt to cure morbid sensibility of the horse's foot by dividing its nerves has been relinquished on account of the frequent separation of the hoof after the operation. Injury of the lumbar spine frequently occasions alcaline urine. In hectic fever, sweat breaks forth generally as soon as the patient falls asleep, — as soon as the brain becomes inactive. Some persons have large quantities of acid rise into the mouth, and suffer other dyspeptic symptoms, if they fall asleep after dinner. It is indeed maintained that in paralytic parts the muscles only waste, and 1 Phil Trans. 1826. m Dr. Magendie, Journal de Physiologic, t. iv. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 439 their atrophy is ascribed to want of use. The loss of the hoof after division of the nerves is said by Mr. Youat to occur only when considerable inflammation is present at the time ; that the horse, having no sensation in the part, knocks it about, and in- creases the inflammation to such a point, according to him, that the hoof is detached : he assures me that, if no severe inflam- mation is present at the time of the operation, the hoof is not lost. Now, such among these effects of division or incapacitation in any way of parts of the nervous system as cannot be attributed to indirect circumstances, do not, in my opinion, militate against the numerous general facts already mentioned of the independence of the organic properties and functions upon the nervous system. I do not see that we are justified in considering these results as more than instances of the sympathetic influence of one part upon another. All parts influence each other and the whole sys- tem exclusively of their peculiar functions. The encephalo-spinal nervous system must be like all other parts in this respect : and yet every result of their injury on other parts is strangely re- garded as a proof of dependency upon them. Besides its functional powers and influences, its condition, even as to its structure and organic functions, must sympathetically affect other parts, — a fact too often overlooked, and thus power has been presumed for it without reason. When the kidneys are in such a state that they produce sugar, a mental impulse is destroyed, and the power of the genitals is lost. Under diabetes a man usually has no sexual im- pulse and is impotent, yet no one supposes that the faculty of the brain known as sexual desire, or the vigour of the genitals, depends upon the kidneys. The brain is besides especially connected with every other part of the body, and is one of the most important or- gans which exist. The effect, therefore, which anyinjury of it must have over other parts must be very great. But children live and eat and preserve their temperature for many days, though born without brains ; and we have seen what was borne by brutes in the experiments of Duverney and his imitators. Nay, we have seen that injury of nerves not supplying a part will injure it ; just as the extremities may be absent or removed without injury to the functions at large, and yet diseased states or severe injuries of them may destroy the system. Injury of nerves, just as of any other organs in proportion to their importance, may affect parts, not which they supply, but with which they are connected : 440 FANCIED FUNCTIONS OF amaurosis and even cataract may follow wounds of the nerves belonging, not to the eye, but to the face ; and convulsions may follow wounds of the acoustic nerve. Although disease of the spine injures the renal secretion of urine and causes inflammatory excitement of the mucous membrane of the bladder, disease of the kidney frequently produces such an affection of the corre- sponding part of the spinal chord, and consequent paraplegia Q, that both are ascribable to sympathy only ; for no person would consider the spinal chord as depending on the kidney for its power. Castration prevents the horns of the buck from coming, or from growing longer and being shed ; and the removal of the boar's tusks destroys his violent sexual propensity ° : yet these effects are not thought to show dependence, but merely con- nection. Although the involuntary and unconscious functions do not ap- pear to depend upon the encephalo-spinal system, an argument in favour of their dependence upon the ganglions and ganglionic nerves, properly so called, is the fact, — that the ganglionic system of nerves is formed before the encephalon and spinal chord ; in- deed, the nervous system of the chest and abdomen are fully formed, while the brain appears still a pulpy mass. P These ganglia and nerves, it may be urged, would hardly be formed before the encephalon and spinal chord but for the sake of the organs which they supply, and the functions of which (with the exception of the genitals) are as perfect at birth as at adult age ; while the brain and its mental powers are slowly perfected. Although the encephalon and spinal chord may be absent in monsters nerve to affection of the ganglionic portion and of the facial, and by considering the facial as exclusively controlling all motions those distributed to numerous muscles of the body when the irritation from dyspnoea is extreme. The pneumono-gastric and the rest of the set associated with it at their roots appear to maintain the sympathy between the heart and the rest of the system. — I reply that he allows the ganglionic nerves to be as widely distributed ; and so indeed must be the nerves of sensation, for any vascular part of the body may show sensibility when inflamed. 2. He argues that the nerves of sensation cannot convey sympathy, because this may occur independently of sensation and some sympathising parts have no sensibility. — But all vascular parts may acquire sensibility under inflammation , and therefore all vascular parts must have nerves of sensation. Yet sympathy may doubtless occur without sensation, just as the various nutritive functions occur without it. Still, if the ganglionic nerves are allowed by him to administer to these, they may administer to sympathy. Indeed, sympathy is often the result of sensation only. We do not sneeze unless the sensation in the nose arises to a certain height, — not the sensation of smell, but of touch ; and I may remark that Dr. Fletcher appears wrong in arguing that sensation in the nose does not occur before sneezing, because it is not the sensation of smell. Some sympathies -are sensations and therefore carried on in some measure at least by nerves of sensation ; other sympathies certainly can have nothing to do with nerves of sens- ation, but it does not follow that they must be carried on by the so called respiratory nerves. 3. The occurrence of sympathy during sleep he considers an argument that sympathy is independent of the brain. — No one can doubt that many sympathies are independent of it. Communications of nerves exist independently of the brain : and Dr. Fletcher is correct in condemning the old hypothesis that the brain is necessary to sympathy. Still this does not show that the so called respiratory nerves must be the sole organs of sympathy. 4. He maintains that the manifestation of the effects of sympathy, passion, and instinct, are in proportion to the development of this system. — Certainly, in proportion to the voluntary muscles, which act under instinct and passion, are the nerves which serve these voluntary muscles. Fish, he urges, have, of the respiratory nerves, only the pathetic and the pneumono-gastric, which latter is in part a nerve of motion like the pathetic, and they have it of great size. Fish display the effects of many instincts and passions. Reptiles have, in addition, the glosso-pharyngeal and facial. Similar additions of other nerves are found in other classes. The glosso-pharyngeal, however, is now proved to be a nerve of special sense, and the facial supplies the voluntary muscles of the jaws and fauces, which in fish were supplied by the pneumono-gastric. But I can see here no argument for these voluntary nerves being exclusive agents of sympathy, although they are used as excitants of voluntary muscles under instinct and passion, and in morbid involuntary excitement of these muscles as well as in volition. 5. The structure of the sensiferous and ganglionic nerves is similar; and of I I 464- FUNCTIONS OF of the face concerned with respiration and expression, when the mere descent of the lower jaw which accompanies surprise proves the aganglionic portion of the trigeminus nerve to be, as almost any nerve of voluntary motion may be, a nerve of expression." the motiferous and respiratory. As the motiferous convey a stimulus, so there- fore probably do the respiratory. — Unquestionably those which are voluntary nerves are like all other voluntary nerves. Such are the facial, phrenic, and partly the pneumono-gastric, which are similar to the common motor of the eye, the abductor, and the hypo-glossal. This really tends nothing to the argument. Indeed the analogy does not hold with respect to all, for the glosso-pharyngeal, however similar in structure to nerves of motion, is a nerve of sense. 6. The sensiferous and ganglionic nerves do not transmit the galvanic in- fluence; while the motiferous and respiratory transmit it with facility. — But this proves no more than the fifth argument ; and I know not that all the latter do. 7. A stimulus applied to the trunks of these nerves occasions in general a display of irritation in parts sympathetically connected with them. — I believe this is the case with all nerves of motion, as well as those concerned in the motions of respiration. Stimulation of even nerves of sense will often excite those of motion which are sympathetically connected with them. Indeed, the acceleration of respiration after a time is said to follow the irritation of the glosso-pharyngeal — a nerve of only specific sense, as much as of the accessory and pneumono-gastric. 8. When the respiratory nerves are divided, the effects of passion and sympathy upon the parts which they supply are lost. — This is true of those which convey the effects of volition, — for this they can do no longer, nor, of course, can they convey involuntary any more than voluntary excitement to the muscles to which they run. But the fact amounts to no more than would be true of the division of any nerve of voluntary motion. The division of the glosso- pharyngeal can have no such effect, — for, being a nerve of sense, its sense (taste) only is lost in the part which it supplies. Various disturbances follow the division of the pneumono-gastric, but various ill effects also ensue upon the divisions of the sensiferous fifth. Although I consider Dr. Fletcher's views equally unfounded with those of Sir C. Bell, I must not omit to mention that he puts them forth most candidly and rationally as purely hypothetical, and intended to give way to whatever shall be proposed of a more satisfactory nature. It may be well to mention here that Sir Astley Cooper has lately published an account of the ligature of the two great sympathetic nerves in rabbits, and found no evident effect. One rabbit was killed at the end of seven days, when one nerve was found ulcerated through and the other nearly so ; another rabbit was alive, at the end of a month, when the account went to press. (Guy's Hospital Reports, No. in.) u For his three discoveries Sir C. Bell deserves great praise, and his name will endure as long as the physiology of these respective nerves. But, when NERVES. ;•* 465 credit is given him for having made discoveries, some of which belong to others, and some of which are no discoveries at all, but fancies ; and when so much that to me is unintelligible, so much error, so much want of extensive knowledge, pervade his writings, I cannot refrain from smiling at the expressions splendid, brilliant, profound, luminous, and I know not what others, applied to his opinions by persons who cannot have considered the subjects laboriously, and only imi- tate one another in their belief and their language. The most ludicrous eulogy is in the Report of the Third Meeting of the British Association. Dr. W. C. Henry says, " The honour of this discovery" (that there are distinct nerves of sensation and motion), doubtless, the most important since the time of Harvey, belongs ex- clusively to Sir C. Bell." (p. 62.) Now no new principle was discovered. We knew before that some nerves, as the optic and olfactory, were for sensation only, and some, as the common motor, the external motor, and the internal motor of the eye, and the lingual, for motion only. The only discovery was that two individual nerves were, one for the first function and the other for the second. That no one nerve could be for both sensation and motion had always been evident to reflecting minds. Galen taught his cotemporaries that one set of nerves went to the skin for sensation, and another to the muscles for motion. That Sir C. Bell had no idea that the anterior spinal roots were for motion only and the posterior for sensation only, is evident from the fact that above ten years after he had found motion to depend upon the anterior roots only, his able nephew, the late Mr. John Shaw, who lived with him and acted under him, published a paper * in which he says that his uncle is of the same opinion as Galen, and mentions the experiments of his uncle showing the connection of the anterior roots with motion, but has no idea that they are for motion only and not for sensation also, nor that the posterior are for sensation. His words are, — " These experiments we have often repeated, and always with the same re- sults; but from the violence necessarily used in making them, it has been dif- ficult to ascertain which of the filaments bestows sensibility on the part. It was easily shown that if only the posterior set was destroyed, the voluntary power over the muscles continued unimpaired, but the pain necessarily attendant upon the performance of the experiment prevented us from judging of the degree of sensibility remaining in the part." (p. 148. sq.) Now this paper was read on the last day of April, and printed in July, 1822, and Dr. Magendie's discoveries of the distinct functions of the two roots appeared in August (Journ. de PhysioL); so that, though Sir C. Bell refers to it in triumph (Nervous System, Preface, xxii.) as a proof that he had made the discoveries before Dr. Magendie, it proves precisely the reverse, and exhibits the imperfect state of his views up to the very time of Dr. Magendie's discoveries. Numerous as have been Dr. Magendie's physiological errors, humbly as I estimate his knowledge and reasoning powers, and much as I abhor his cruelty to brutes, I have never known him dishonourable ; and I am satisfied that he knew nothing of Sir C. Bell's original discovery respecting the anterior nerves, for it was communicated in a pamphlet privately distributed : and as to the discovery of the office of the posterior roots, it, and thus the exact division of office between the two, is certainly Dr. Magendie's. Med. Chir. Trans, vol. xii. 1822. II 2 466 FUNCTIONS OF After all, I do not believe the whole discovered ; because filaments from the anterior, as well as from the posterior roots, go to the sympathetic ganglia, and certainly not for motion. Gall had proved, in the last century, that distinct parts of the nervous system had distinct offices. This he taught in opposition to many of the most noted of his cotemporaries : he taught it with respect to the grand nervous organ — the brain, and with respect to the universal divisions of the nerves. (1. c. 4to. vol. i. p. 131. sq.) Sir C. Bell's discoveries are simply individual exam- ples of Gall's great general principle in merely nerves. So little, however, does the gentleman entrusted to report for the Association know of Gall's discoveries, that he not only thus ventured to address it, but, after detailing the unsatisfactory vivisections of Messrs. Fleurens and Magendie, he passes Gall's labours over in silence, and gravely informs the assembled savants that there does not exist any conclusive evidence for referring separate faculties, or moral affections, to distinct portions of the brain." (p. 90.) ! Phrenologists should really not allow the Asso- ciation thus to expose itself. Since the preceding sheets were printed, I have seen the paper by Professor Ehrenberg, alluded to supra, p. 324. 325., in which he asserts, in opposition to M. Raspail, that, by means of the microscope, he has found the fibres of the encephalon, spinal chord, and nerves to be tubular. The following is pretty nearly his own summary of his observations : — 1. The fibrous substance of the brain consists not of solid fibres, but of parallel or fasciculated tubes, dilated at intervals, or jointed, and from ^ to ^^ of a line in diameter. Conveyed from the surface towards the ventricles and basis, increasing in size, and not united by any visible medium, they pass into the spinal chord, which they in a great measure constitute. 2. The brain, a central organ in function, is a peripheral in structure, as Gall had already remarked, and not to be compared with the heart or stomach as central organs. 3. The spinal chord of man, and of all great divisions of vertebrated animals, consists of tubes similar to those of the brain ; but the finer tubes are placed more inwardly, the thicker outwardly. The thicker are continued into the cylindrical tubes of the spinal nerves. 4. The three soft (higher) special nerves of sense, — the olfactory, optic, and acoustic, and the sympathetic, consist of tubes which are collected into fasciculi and surrounded by neurilema. The three are immediate prolongations of the white matter of the brain : the sympathetic has a mixed structure of jointed and cylindrical tubes. 5. The jointed tubes of the brain, spinal chord, and articulated nerves, contain a perfectly transparent tenacious fluid, never visibly globular, the liquor nerveus, which differs from the nervous medulla as the chyle does from blood. Visible motion of this fluid has not been satisfactorily observed : a slow pro- gression, however, is probable 6. All other nervous chords consist, not of jointed tubes, but of cylindrical NERVES. 467 larger tubes, collected into bundles. These tubes are the immediate prolong- ations of the jointed tubes of the brain and spinal chord, for the most part suddenly changed and deprived of their dilatations, and are surrounded by neurilema. In the invertebrata they are from ^ to ^ of a line in diameter : in the vertebrata from T|0 to 5^. They contain a granular, and, as it were, congealed, medullary matter, that by gentle pressure can visibly be forced out from them, after which they appear as empty sheaths, &c. niwr -t 7. Hence the nervous substance consists of jointed tubes carrying the liquor nerveus, and cylindrical tubes with true nervous pith. 8. The brain does not consist of nervous pith. 9. The invertebrata do not possess a spinal chord consisting of jointed tubes without pith ; or, in other words, the invertebrata have no spinal chord, although their abdominal ganglionic chord, which consists chiefly of cylindrical tubes containing pith, may perform the function of a spinal chord. 10. In the invertebrata the jointed cerebral substance and blood globules appear in much less proportion. 11. The jointed nervous tubes are, in relation to the human organisation and their distribution in the animal kingdom, the more important and noble part of the nervous system, and more immediately subservient to sensation. 12. Almost all cerebral terminations (only less obviously in the ear) are pervaded by a network of vessels, and contain large scattered globules, the size of which has a constant ratio to that of the blood globules in the same animal. 13. The structure of the retina, even in man, has been hitherto very erro- neously described. The granular layer of the anterior surface of the retina is pervaded by a network derived from the central vessels. Behind this is placed the expansion of the optic nerve, which consists of jointed tubes, and separates into a peripheral cortical, and a central medullary matter. Many single, scat- tered, club-shaped bodies appear to moderate the luminous impression. Their connection with the jointed tubes of the nerve, Professor Ehrenberg could not clearly make out. He confirms the discoveries of old anatomists mentioned above at page 341, respecting the pulpy (cortical) substance, — that it consists of a thick but delicate vascular network, and a soft substance ; and the latter he pronounces to be finely granular, and to contain numerous insulated larger granules, which are composed of smaller ones, strung on filaments, as far as it was possible to observe them. Near the fibrous (medullary) portion of the brain, the filaments of the pulpy (cortical) substance become more and more evident, and the blood vessels somewhat larger and much less numerous. These observations greatly strengthen Gall's opinion of the pulpy (cortical) substance being the source of the fibrous (medullary) : and Ehrenberg farther states, we see (12), that al- most all the terminations of the cerebral nerves are again contained in a dense vascular network, with scattered globules, which he conjectures to be the nuclei of blood globules, especially as these in the pulpy substance of the brain are pro- portionate to the size of the blood globules of the animal. Gall, it must be remembered, conceives that the nervous fibres originate, not only in the pulpy portion of the encephalon and chord, but in the peripheral extremities, where also pulpy substance, he urges, is found. In the pulpy portion of the ganglia, similar granules have been discovered by Ehrenberg, so I I 3 468 FUNCTIONS OF NERVES. that at least one great use of the ganglia of the sympathetic, as of the encephalo- spinal system, may, with still further probability than I urged at page 451. sq. be to reinforce the substance of the nerves ; and the opinion of Gall respecting the use of the pulpy substance of the nervous system, supported by his most powerful arguments, though rejected on the most silly grounds by Dr. Tiede- mann, has acquired more probability than ever. The series appear to be exter- nally abundant bloodvessels, though fewer and fewer inwards ; next granules, probably the nuclei of blood globules ; and, lastly, the fibrous structure, now pronounced to be tubular. Seobachtung einer auffallender bisher unerkannten Structur des seelenorgans bei Menschen und Thieren. Von C. G. Ehrenberg. Read Oct. 24. 1833. Abhand- lungen der Ifijniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften xu Berlin, 1 834. 169 :•-•";•>• • :'."-i CHAP. XX. VOLUNTARY MOTION. THE processes of every living system, like those of inanimate nature, are carried on with motion. " By ceaseless action all that is subsists." * It is implied in the circulation, secretion, nutrition, and absorp- tion of the minutest vegetable and animal ; and, generally, when observation is possible, the solids, no less than the fluids within them, are seen in these functions to move.b Some contend, though without proof, that the nervous functions are performed with motion of a vibratary kind. The evident motion of the brain from circulation and respiration, and the very much larger quan- tity of blood constantly passing through the brain and other nervous parts than mere nutrition (unless each functional act causes waste of solids) can require, and this in proportion to activity of function, show that in one sense motion is indispensable even to nervous function. The other functions by which fresh substance from without is obtained, the blood purified, the new animal originated, and indeed all those other functions and modes of function which distinguish animals from vegetables, take place with manifest and considerable motion, and, though vegetables have not the power of locomotion, the leaves and flowers of many of them move rapidly and considerably. Now motions of the leaves, flowers, and vessels of plants are evidently the result of life, and are inexplicable by mere gravity, electricicy, &c. No peculiar known structure is united with their movements. Some * Cowper. Task. 6 We witness vegetable fluids passing along surfaces and through cellular structure ; and fluids in some adult animals through such a structure ; and in all before a heart exists, or even vessels at the spot. Many declare that particles move spontaneously not only in blood (Dr. Tiedemann, 1. c. cclxv.), but in the juices of plants (cclxxxvii.), (cccclxxxiii. sqq.) (alsodlxx.). Perhaps some of these motions are to be explained by the absorption and emission of fluid, some by evaporation, some by chemical processes altering the position of particles, and some by extraneous impulse. In many animals we shall see that the movements of fluids upon surfaces arise from the vibration of hair-like projecting bodies, termed cilia. I I 4 470 VITAL MOTION. animals consist of substance as soft as mucous or gelatinous tissue ; for instance, the polypi, most radiaria, some entozoa and the infusoria: yet the former will swim or crawl, attach or detach themselves, and seize prey; the infusoria swim rapidly, turn, and avoid each other, and possess distinct muscles. Sedatives and stimulants affect these movements of vegetables and of such animals like those of large animals. Such vegetables and animals, as well as minute insects and infusoria, which evidently perform what in large animals we should term muscular movements, show that living structure, though so soft that it cannot be regarded as precisely similar to the flesh of large animals, — to muscular fibre, — to what is termed muscle, is capable of living contrac- tion. Such minute voluntary actions are attended, Raspail de- clares, in one infusory animalcule — the rotifer, by thickening during contraction of the muscular cylinders running from its head to its tail, and by tenuity of them when they lengthen.0 In animals possessing muscles, many parts, not apparently muscular, contract, and instantaneously and forcibly, by a living force. Such are minute vessels and canals of all kinds. These lose their con- tractile power, like muscles, immediately or soon after death. Some structures are most adapted for contraction, as muscles ; others not at all, as tendons and bones : but others, though not evidently muscular, possess the faculty in various degrees ; and to expect distinct muscular fibre in every excitable part would be erroneous. The vital power of motion, whether sensible, as in the heart and voluntary muscles and the leaves and flowers of many vege- tables ; or insensible, (except by its effect on contained fluids) as in the minute vessels of vegetables and animals, may have the term excitability restricted to it (see supra, p. 25.), and thus will be distinguished from sensibility, to which the idea of motion is not necessary, as seen in the terminations of the optic and olfactory nerves, though motion may follow sensation ; and sensation again is not necessary to motion, for not only do many animal motions oc- cur without sensation, but vegetables are utterly destitute of sens- ation. The term irritability was peculiarly given by Haller d to the c 1. c. § 497. Dr. Tiederaann says that, with a microscope and strong lens, he observed contractions and expansions in the simplest infusoria, 1. c. dlxxv. though previously he had asserted that neither could be detected in them, cccclxiii. d " See Haller on the irritable parts of the human body, Commcntar, Soc. Sc. Gotting. t. ii. VITAL MOTION. 471 excitability of parts which both move evidently from the applica- tion of stimuli, and possess distinct fibres ; and he therefore said that muscles only are irritable6, though other animal parts, as well as vegetables, possess excitability, — move independently of gravitation, or chemical or electric circumstances, or mechani- cal impulse. To deny this power, styled also by Haller visinsita or propria, to parts which may not show muscular fibres, or which may not move evidently on the application of a stimulus, would be absurd ; yet Haller did this. To avoid confusion, the term myotility is given to the power of instant and evident con- traction of fibrous parts on the application of a stimulus : it is And Nov. Commentar. Getting, t. iv. Among innumerable other writers on the same subject, suffice it to quote the following : — Zimmerman, De irritabilitate. Gott. 1751. 4to. Oeder, on the same. Copenhagen, 1752. 4to. J. Eberh. Andrea?, on the same. (Praes. Ph. Fr. Gmelin.) Tubing. 1758. 4to. As well as three entire Collections of writings which related to the great controversy excited throughout Europe in consequence of the Gottingeu publications. SulV Insensibilita e Irritabilita, Dissertazioni transportate da J. G. V. Petrini. Roma, 1755. 4to. Sulla Insensitivita ed Irritabilita Halleriana opuscoli raccolti da G. B. Fabri. Bologna. 1757 — 59. iv. vol. 4to. And what were published under Haller's inspection, Memoires sur la Nature sensible et irritable des Parties du Corps Humain. Lausanne, 1756 — 59. iv. vol. 12." e Our countryman, Dr. Glisson, whose portrait we possess in the College of Physicians, was the first who absolutely ascribed animal movement to a specific power, which he termed irritability, (De Natura Substantive ener- getica, sen de Vitce Natura. London, 1672. 4to.), — to a property of being influenced by excitants ; and he distinguished it from sensibility. He pointed out that it might occur without sensation, with sensation, or through the will, — " Irritatio est perceptio, sed sensatio est perceptio perceptionis." Yet his facts, for his statements of the existence of such a living power were no theory but facts, found no supporters, Dr. Tiedemann remarks, (1. c. dxxvi.) " among his contemporaries, blinded as they were by the system of chemistry and iatro-mechanics, and were only justly appreciated in the following century." Dr. De Gorter pointed out that the former is possessed by all parts of living bodies and by vegetables also. (Exercitationes Medicee quatuor. Amstel. 1 734. 4to. Ex. Med. quinta. Amst. 1748. 4to.) Dr. Glisson had allowed excitability even to the blood and humours, and Dr. Gaubius of Leyden afterwards did the same. (Institutiones Pathologiac. Leyden, 1758. 4lo. p. 169.) 4-72 MUSCLES. synonymous with the two words — muscular contractility ; but we must regard the power as the same with that which produces the motions of the minute vessels of all kinds of minute or gelatinous animals, and those rapid motions of some animal and vegetable parts which show no fibres, — we must regard it as a form of ex- citability. The term irritability should have a more extensive meaning than excitability: for, while this implies motion, irri- tability implies the general power of being affected by irritating causes, whether manifested by direct motion or by other changes which show either sensation or an operation distinct from what is seen in inanimate bodies : it is in truth vital affectibility in the largest sense.f " The muscles, which are the immediate organs of by far the greater number of our motions, form the greatest bulk among all the similar parts." " They are distinguished from other similar parts chiefly by two characteristic features, the one derived from their structure, the other from their remarkable powers. «« Their fleshy structure is formed of moving fibres, sui generis, and of a very faint red colour, and every muscle may be resolved into fibrous bands, these into bundles of fibres, and these again into very fine fleshy fibres and fibrils. " Every muscle possesses a covering of cellular membranes, which is so interwoven witn its substance as to surround the bands, the bundles, and even each particular fibre and fibril. " Every part of the muscles is amply supplied with blood-vessels and nervous threads. The latter appear to deliquesce into an invisible pulp, and unite intimately with the muscular fibres : the former are so interwoven with the fibres that the whole muscle is red and acquires its own paleness only by being washed. "Most muscles terminate in tendons11, which are fibrous1 parts, but so different in colour, texture, elasticity, &c., as to be readily distinguished from muscles : thus disproving the opinion of some, — that the tendinous fibres originate from the muscular. This error arose chiefly from the circumstance of the muscles of infants f In my own use of terms, at note (e) p. 24, 25. supra, irritability and irritation, should be substituted for excitability and excitement. * " See Ad. Murray, De Fascia Lata. Upsal. 1777. 4to." h " See Fourcroy, Mdmoires de TAcademie des Sciences de Paris , 1785, p. 392.; and 1786. p. 38." 8 " Albinus, Annotat, Academ. 1. iv. tab. v, fig. 2." MUSCLES. 473 containing a greater number of fleshy fibres, in proportion to the tendinous, than those of the adult." " They are in general divided into hollow and solid. The first, not directly subject to the will, belong more to the vital and natural functions." They are the heart, one of the coats of the alimentary and respiratory canals, of the urinary bladder, and of some blood-vessels j and are seen in a few other parts. They shorten and narrow the cavity or canal which they surround. " Among the second," which are subject to the will, " there is much variety. For, not to allude to difference of size, there is great diversity in the disposition of their bands and fasciculi, the direction of their fibres, the proportion of the fleshy to the tendinous part, their course, mode of insertion, &c. " The greatest number are long, and their fleshy bellies," lying outside solid parts, and passing over one or more joints, "terminate at each extremity in tendinous chords, inert, and destitute o contractility, and fixed to different bones, which, while con- tracting, they move in the manner of levers." The movable solids are drawn towards each other, if of equal mobility and size; if not, that which is movable or more movable and small is drawn towards the other. " The commonly received law — that a muscle during its con- traction draws the more movable point of insertion to the more fixed, must be considered, as Winslow justly remarksk, perfectly relative and subject to various limitations. Thus, for example, sometimes the one point, and sometimes the other, may be the more movable, accordingly as the united action of many different muscles may render the opposite more fixed." " While a very few muscles are destitute of tendons, such as the latissimus colli, an equally small number are not inserted into bones," but into soft solids, as into the lips, palate, tongue, pharynx, nose, eye, ears, genitals. These approach the hard part during contraction. " A property common to all muscles is to become shorter, more rigid, and generally unequal, and, as it were, angular, during contraction," gaining in thickness what they lose in length. Dr. Tiedemann argues that, in contracting, a muscle acquires greater density, because it will support or raise a weight which would tear it after death. This, however, shows only the more k « Mem. de VAcad. des Sc, de Paris. 1720." 4-74- MUSCLES. perfect composition of the part during life than after death. A muscle, however, may act, without shortening or growing thicker. If we hold, or act upon, a resisting body without moving it, the muscle, though in action, does not shorten. Again, a muscle may be made to shorten without contraction. We can bend the extremities of a person asleep, and thus his flexors be pas- sively shortened. " To attempt, with J.and D. Bernouilli and other mathematical physicians, to reduce the shortening of muscles to a general admeasurement, is rendered impossible, by the great difference, among other causes, between the hollow and solid muscles in this respect, and between the solid muscles themselves, v. c. between straight muscles (such as the intercostals) and sphinc- ters." Some have peculiar actions, dependent upon figure, situation, &c., " and, consequently, varying so much as to be referable to no general laws. " To cite one instance out of many, that action of certain muscles is peculiar and anomalous which seldom occurs alone, but nearly always subsequently to, or simultaneously with, the action of some of a different order. Such is that of the lum- bricales, when, during rapid motions of the fingers, they follow the action of other muscles of the metacarpus and fore-arm; and of the lateral recti muscles of the eyes, the adducens of either of which seldom acts unless simultaneously with the abducens of the other eye. "And, on the other hand, although the action of the flexors is generally so much stronger than that of their antagonists — the extensors, that, when the body is at rest, the arms, fingers, &c. are a little bent, this docs not so much depend upon the strength of the contraction of the flexors, as upon the voluntary relaxation of the extensors for our own relief. "Every muscle has, moreover, a peculiar mechanism1, adapted to the individual motions for which it is intended. " Besides the determinate figure of each, many other kinds of assistance are afforded to their peculiar motions, v. c. by the biirsce mucos 1. c. §494. sqq. c Phil. Trans. 1810, p. 2. sqq. d Two curious cases are related in Drl James Johnson's Med.-Chir. Review, Oct. 1834, of the action of muscles occurring with a cracking noise like that of snapping joints, and with pain. MUSCLES. 479 which lines them, as in the case of the heart and blood-vessels, the alimentary canal, and other hollow muscles, nor does light act upon the iris but upon the retina, arid the influence of emotions, sudden or continued, on the action of all involuntary muscular parts, whether large, like the heart and as in the alimentary canal, or minute, as in the capillary vessels, must be communi- cated by nerves. Some vivisectors say that a stimulus applied to the nerves of an involuntary part do not excite it; others assert the reverse. But any stimulus applied to a nerve belong- ing to a voluntary muscle, mechanical or pungent, heat or elec- tricity, excites it instantly to action, and will excite it after pricking or cutting the fibres themselves has ceased to produce contraction.6 Stimulation still further back, of certain parts of the chorda spinalis or oblongata, or of the brain, has the same effect. Division of the nerves or spinal chord, great compression, dis- integration, any thing which prevents continuity of influence from the brain to the termination of the nerve in the muscle, destroy the power of the will. The contractility of the muscle is of course unimpaired ; it contracts equally as before, if a stimulus is applied to it or to the portion of the nerve connected with it. Yet, some contend that the very power of contraction depends upon nerves. They adduce the influence of poisons, applied to the nerves, in destroying the irritability of muscles to which they are distributed, and declare that, even if strong poison is applied to the nerves of muscles detached from a living animal, the muscles cannot afterwards be excited, f But Fontana discovered that the portion only of the nerve that has been in contact with alcohol is incapacitated from conveying stimulus ; so that, if the stimulus is applied to the nerve farther on, the muscle contracts as at first, s Even had not Fontana made this discovery, the effect could have been ascribed to the trans- mission only of the effects of the poison along the nerve, and could, like the effect of mechanical and all other irritation of the nerves upon muscles, have shown only the connection and influence between the two. Dr. Whytt discovered that, if an animal is poisoned by opium, the effects pervade the system much e Whytt. Physiol. Essays, ed. 2. 1761. p. 249. Sensibility. f Dr.Bostock. Elemen. Syst. of Phys. ed. 3. p. 179. Dr. Tiedemann, ccccxlii. « This was fully confirmed, in regard to other narcotics, by Dr. C. Henry, Edinb. Med. and SurgicalJournal, 1832. No. CX. p. 17. K K 480 MUSCLES, more if the brain and spinal chord are entire, than if they are previously removed : and the inference is clear, that the nerves more readily transmit the effects of the poison than other parts, and not that the muscles lose their excitability through the loss of the nervous influence ; because the destruction of the brain and spinal chord has not the effect of poison. § Another fact of the same kind is the immediate cessation of the action of the heart or of the intestines by the injection of poison into their cavities, while its application to their external surface operates slowly upon them. h Far greater nervous connection must exist between their inner surface than their outer surface and their muscular fibres, because these are destined for stimulation by their contents, and not by matters on the exterior ; and thus the effects of poisons will be more readily transmitted by the inner than the outer surface, just like the effects of all stimulating causes. Detached muscles contract under the application of various stimuli of all kinds, and this looks as if their power of contraction is their own. When a detached muscle can be excited no longer, a little rest enables it to become excitable again : and the alternations may be repeated many times. Nay, if a muscle is not detached, but merely all its nerves divided so that its life is preserved, its excitability may be exhausted and recovered for some days.1 The power continues longer after separation in cold than in warm blooded animals ; in voluntary muscles than in the involuntary ; and Dr. Whytt discovered, also, that, when an g Whytt himself infers that " opium does not only destroy the moving power of the muscles of animals, by intercepting the influence of the brain and spinal marrow, but also by unfitting the muscular fibres themselves, or the nervous power lodged in them, for performing its office." " It destroys their powers, by means of that sympathy which they have through the brain or spinal marrow, with the nerves to which the opium is immediately applied." Experiments made with Optuyn on living and dying Animals. First published in Ed. Physical and Literary Essays. 1755. (r.) I may remark that he found the nearest part of the nervous system to be the most affected ; for, when a solution of opium was inserted into the large in- testines, " dogs not only lost the power of motion sooner in their hinder legs than in their fore ones, but also were insensible of any pain in them, and yet howled strongly when their ears were pinched." (m.) h Dr. Munro Secundus, and Dr. Wilson Philip ; confirmed by Dr. C. Henry, 1. c. Still Whytt found opium to poison the whole system sooner if injected Into the peritonaeum than into the stomach or rectum. 1. c. Exp. 21, 22, 23. 1 Report of the Fourth Meeting of the British Association. 1835. p. 671. sqq. MUSCLES. 481 animal is poisoned by opium, the actions of the involuntary muscles of the heart and intestines continue after the voluntary muscles have ceased to contract on the application of the scalpel k; the power continues longer in the muscles of the young than of the old ; of the well fed than of the ill fed ; in warmth than in cold ; in atmospheric air and oxygen than in irrespirable gases ; and strong stimuli, chemical agents, or narcotics, applied to either muscles or their nerves, rapidly annihilate their powers.1 Repeated stimulation exhausts a muscle more slowly if its nerves have been divided, because, while the nerves are in connection with it ra, the stimulus affects them also and thus the muscle indirectly as well as directly. If the power of contraction de- pended on the nerves, the division of the nerves, by cutting off the supply of power, should hasten exhaustion. Vegetables have no nerves, and yet exhibit striking movements. If a muscle, in a mean state of extension, is divided transversely in the living body, the two portions instantly separate ; and Bi- chat found that they separate just as far if its nerves have been previously divided, — another fact in harmony with the opinion of the contractility of muscles being inherent. To ascribe mus- cular excitability to the nervous system, is but an individual instance of the ascription of the vital properties of all parts to the nervous system, — an opinion which I endeavoured to refute at page 4-31. sqq. supra. n Still the contraction of voluntary muscles is not only excited by nerves at the moment of volition, but preserved constantly to a certain point by the encephalo- spinal nerves of motion, because, if connection with them is de- stroyed, or the portion of the encephalon or spinal chord with which they unite is disorganised or compressed, the antagonist muscles, as those of the face, overpower them, or the sphincter of the rectum or bladder is no longer able to retain. Thus in hemiplegia the muscles of the mouth half draw their antagonists k Of course galvanism to their nerves is equally inoperative. Dr. C. Henry, I.e. p. 16. 1 Dr. Tiedemann, 1. c. ccccxlv. m Dr. Wilson Philip, Exp. Inquiry, p. 100. u Whytt, in opposition to Haller, contended that the susceptibility of excite- ment in muscles, — the recognition of stimulus, — depended altogether upon their nerves ; and that stimuli excite them by producing an uneasy feeling in them or their nerves. Essay on the Vital and Involuntary Motions of Animalt. Edinb. 1751. K K 2 482 MUSCLES. towards them : in perfect paraplegia, the sphincters of the rectum and bladder no longer retain their respective contents. Some persons, as Cuvier, and since him Dr. Tiedernann, allow excita- bility to be inherent in muscles, but contend that it is always acted upon through the medium of nerves. It is, however, a mere assumption that, if stimulus can be applied to muscular structure, directly, the presence of nerves is indispensable. Distension acts directly on the muscular fibres; but, with this exception, the functions of muscles are excited intermediately, and therefore through nerves. The constant tension of muscles is called their tone. After the retraction of the two portions of a divided muscle, these will contract further on stimulation, and relax again to the length they had after retraction. If overstretched, as by a tumour or other cause, muscles lose much of their forced length immediately on the removal of the cause, but may not completely recover for some time ; and such shortening is said by Prevost and Dumas not to be accompanied by a zigzag di- rection of their fibres, though this appears in them as soon as farther contraction is excited by galvanism. If a muscle not overstretched is divided transversely in several places before its life has ceased, each portion necessarily retracts and necessarily grows harder and heavier. When this is done with fish, it is called crimping, and the retraction is, as might be expected, heightened by immersing the portions in cold water. When fish are to be crimped, they are knocked on the head as soon as caught, that they may crimp the better. This impairment of their nervous powers preserves the power of the muscles, which would other- wise be lost in the struggles of the poor animal : but, if the con- tractility of muscle depended upon nervous energy, it should impair the effects of crimping. This retraction on transverse di- vision takes place only during life or very soon after death, because muscles grow rigid when life has ceased. The latter rigidity is unattended by contraction : it is a mere consolidation, and unfits the fibres for contraction from any cause. Mr. Mayo says that the injection of warm water into the arteries of a muscle induces sudden rigidity.0 I presume that, like the coagulation of the blood or of albumen, it is a merely chemical change. When death occurs under circumstances which prevent the coagulation of the blood, the rigidity of the muscles is said to be equally prevented. 0 Outlines of Human Physiology, ed. 3. p. 38. MUSCLES. 483 If a muscle has been much distended, it does not contract readily at first. This we notice in the case of the urinary bladder : when the urine has been retained too long it stops, after flowing for a short time ; and flows again when the bladder has a little recovered itself. Leeuwenhoek believed that over-distension of the heart might cause sudden death : and he probably was right, for sometimes nothing is seen in cases of sudden death but extreme distension of the right half of the heart, and Professor Coleman, after hanging and drowning animals, found the right auricle and ventricle turgid with blood, and the auricle insusceptible of irri- tation ; but, on opening one of its veins and allowing blood to escape, the application of stimulus in a few minutes induced con- traction of the auricle.P Pressure upon a muscle facilitates its action. Thus the over-distended bladder, and the uterus after delivery, contract better if the hand is placed over them ; and a moderate ligature is often employed by those who are about to make much exertion with particular muscles. When a muscle is weakened by excessive action, a peculiar unpleasant sensation is experienced, termed fatigue. The weaker the system, the sooner is this sensation experienced. General weakness at the commencement of disease is usually attended by this sensation of weariness, though, when disease is over and mere weakness remains, it is commonly not felt till exertion is made. Distress of mind will bring on this sensation. When a set of muscles is much more exercised than usual, they at first become stiff and painful : but these conditions soon cease, not- withstanding equal exercise is persevered with. All muscles increase by use ; so that, if a man has spent much of his life in some mechanical occupation which requires the action of particular muscles, these are easily distinguished through their disproportionate magnitude. It is thought that the mus- cular fibres of the urinary bladder increase by exercise more than any others ; a continued obstruction to the exit of the urine calls them into such exertion that the inner surface of this organ often resembles that of a cardiac cavity. The heart also frequently grows inordinately from obstruction to the exit of its blood. But this organ, above all other muscular parts, will grow inordinately from mere morbid disposition. In the heart this hypertrophy may produce much distress, if any undue excitement occurs ; p Lectures on the Blood, by James Wilson, F.R.S. London, 1819. K K 3 484 VOLUNTARY AND whereas, in another muscle, the overgrowth may be a matter of no importance. In different persons, different muscles may be better developed and stronger than others: and some persons have their general voluntary muscular system remarkably developed. When this is the case, there is usually a disposition to employ the more powerful parts freely, and thus exercise farther augments them. From the most ancient times some men have performed extraordin- ary feats of strength. Milo of Crete, after killing an ox with his fist, carried it through the stadium, — a space of 625 feet ; and, when the pillar which supported the roof of his master's school gave way, he saved Pythagoras and the scholars from destruction by supporting the roof himself till they escaped. The Jews had their Sampson; and at our shows I have seen a man support a table with many persons upon it and even carry it some little distance between his teeth. Muscular strength appears by Dr. Edwards's experiments to vary at different periods of the day, and to be much affected by diet. By means of the dynamometer he found it increase during the first half of the day, and decrease during the latter ; to be in- stantly increased by a moderate and nutritious meal, except in the weak, in whom the immediate effect of a meal was depression of the strength. Mere water, especially warm, and sugar and water, also instantly diminished the strength. Gelatine, well flavoured with the skin and odorous parts of meat, gave the greatest strength. 502 VOLUNTARY MOTION. which it had penetrated from side to side ; and when it is considered that the animal was then moving through a medium even a thousand times more dense than that through which a bird cleaves its course at different heights of the atmosphere, and that this was performed in the same direction with the ship, what a conception do we form of this display of muscular power !" (On Mus- cular Motion. Select Dissertations, p. 281.) Muscular strength is proportion- ally much greater in smaller animals. " A flea can draw from seventy to eighty times its own weight, whereas a horse cannot draw with ease more than three times its own weight." (1. c. Haller, El. Physiol. L. ix. S. iii.) A flea weighs less than a grain, and will clear an inch and a half at a leap ; and Americans have calculated that if a man, weighing about 150 pounds, could leap in proportion, he would be able to spring 12,800 miles, and so jump with ease from New York to Cochin China. In some animals of very slow motion, as the tardipedes, the chief artery of the extremities is found split into many parallel trunks, instead of remain- ing as one and branching forth. (Sir Anthony Carlisle, Phil. Trans. 1810.) In the fore leg of the lemur tardigradus, sixty brachial arteries exist. The con- nection between this circumstance and slow motion is unknown. 50S CHAP. XXI. VOICE AND SPEECH. AN important operation of muscular motion is in producing sounds by means of those parts through which the air passes in respiration. The vocal mechanism may be considered as consisting of lungs, or bellows, capable of transmitting, by means of the connecting windpipe, or trachea, a current of air passing through an appa- ratus called the larynx, which is placed on the upper part of the windpipe. This apparatus, though of very small dimensions, is capable of producing sounds in great variation of pitch, quality, and intensity, which are afterwards converted into the articu- lations of speech by passing through a cavity consisting of the pharynx, mouth, and nose. The larynx is the organ of voice. It consists of several carti- lages united together by ligaments and articulations, and supplied with a variety of muscles, by which they may be moved together or separately, according to the modifications of the voice. E m C H, the thyroid cartilage ; H, its upper horn ; C, its lower horn, articulated to the cri- coid ; A n B C, the cricoid cartilage ; A K, the crico-thyroideus muscle. 504- VOICE AND SPEECH. Above the pile of cartilaginous rings which compose the wind- pipe is placed the cricoid cartilage ; the thyroid cartilage embraces the cricoid, and is articulated to its sides so that its lower horn turns round on a point as a fulcrum. Two small cartilages called the arytenoids are articulated to the upper external edge of the cricoid, and the vocal ligaments are stretched from the thyroid to the arytenoids. The aperture between the edges Bird's-eye view of the larynx from above. G E H, thyroid cartilage, embracing the ring of the cricoid r u X w, and capable of turning on the axis x z, which passes through the lower horns C, seen in the preceeding figure ; N F, N F, the arytenoid cartilages ; T V, T V, the vocal ligaments. From N to X run the right lateral crico-arytenoid muscle, the left having been removed. of the vocal ligaments is called the glottis ; and in all the theo- ries which have been advanced it has been admitted that the vocal sound is produced by the breath passing through this aperture, though different explanations have been offered of the way in which the voice is produced. Ferrein compared the vocal ligaments to violin strings, and the current of air which puts them in motion to a violin bow ; the different sounds he attri- buted to various tensions of the ligaments. Dodart found an analogy between the glottis and the embouchure of a flute ; the pitch of the sound he supposed to depend on the size of the aperture. Biot thought the way in which the sound of the voice was produced more analogous to a reed, and particularly to that kind of reed which has but lately been introduced into a variety of musical instruments, Savart has lately endeavoured to prove that the sounds of the voice are produced in the same manner as in a lark-whistle, and that the pitch depends on altering the tension of the elastic sides of the small conical tube formed by the part of the larynx immediately before this aperture. There can be no doubt as to the way in which the sonorous vibrations are produced in the larynx. If a piece of silk riband. VOICE AND SPEECH. 505 or a strip of paper, parchment, or any other flexible substance, be stretched between the fingers or otherwise, and a current of air either from the mouth or a bellows be directed against one of its edges, a clear musical sound will be produced, varying in pitch according to the tension given it ; and, if a riband of thin Indian rubber be employed, the sound will very much resemble that of the voice, and be capable of an extensive range by varying the tension. The itinerant exhibiters of Punch employ a silk riband stretched between two arched pieces of tin, and, placing this between the tongue and the palate, they without sounding the voice pronounce all the articulations of speech by whispering, and imitate the various inflexions of the voice by pressing more or less on the thin sides, thus increasing or diminishing the tension of the riband. Dr. Darwin was the first who appears to have re- cognised the resemblance of this instrument to the ligaments of the glottis. The vibrations of an elastic ligament set in motion by the air being thus sufficient to account for the production of the voice, we have only to examine the particular disposition of these ligaments in the larynx, and the precise way in which the air acts upon them. Each vocal ligament, stretched between the aryte- noid and the thyroid, presents a sharp edge turned upwards and inwards. Mr. Willis of Cambridge a has shown that, if a current of air be made to pass between two stretched surfaces, they will vibrate only when their free edges are parallel ;— if they be turned either outwards or inwards, the air will pass without producing any sound. He hence infers that a certain position of the edges of the ligaments is necessary for the air issuing from the lungs to cause them to sound, and this vocalising position is determined by the twisting motion of the arytenoid cartilages. " That every degree of motion in the glottis is directed by the numerous muscles of the larynx is proved by the beautiful experi- ment of tying or dividing the recurrent nerves, or the pneumono- gastric b, and thus weakening or destroying the voice of animals." 8 Of the Mechanism of the Larynx. Camb. Phil. Trans. 1832. b " Respecting this celebrated experiment, anciently made by Galen, consult among others W. Courten, Philos. Trans. No. 335. Morgagni, Ep. Anatom. xii. No. 20. P. P. Molinelli, Comment. Institut. Bonon. t. iii. J. Haighton, Memoirs of the Medical Society of London, t. iii." 506 VOICE AND SPEECH. But for the operation of the nerves I refer to my former observ- ations on the pneumono-gastric nerve at page 4-33. " Man and singing-birds have the power of whistling. In the latter, it is accomplished by a larynx placed at each extremity of the windpipe and divided into two portions. The former, though possessing a single and undivided larynx, has probably learned to imitate birds by the coarctation of his lipsc," which, however, serves only as an embouchure to the column of air contained within the mouth and larynx. The varieties of intonation entirely depend on the alterations of the tongue and on the corresponding motions of the larynx. For the higher sounds the tongue is brought for- wards and the larynx raised, and for the lower sounds the tongue recedes and the larynx is depressed. " Singing, which is compounded of speech and a musical modulation of the voice, I conceive to be peculiar to man and the chief prerogative of his vocal organs. The power of whistling is innate in birds ; many of them may easily be taught to pro- nounce words, and instances have been known of this even in dogs. But it is recorded that genuine singing has once or twice only, and then indeed but indifferently and with the utmost difficulty, been taught to parrots ; while, on the other hand, scarcely a barbarous nation exists in which singing is not common " Speech is a peculiar modification of the voice, adjusted to the formation of the sounds of letters by the expiration of air through the mouth or nostrils, and in a great measure by the assistance of the tongue, applied and struck against the neighbouring parts, the palate and front teeth in particular, and by the diversified action of the lips.e c " The larynx, even among the most savage people, is capable of imitating the sounds of brutes. Consult, v. c. Nic. Witsen, Noord en Oost — Tartarye, ed. 2. Amst. 1705. vol. i. p. 165., respecting the inhabitants of New Guinea of the southern hemisphere, called Papus. And J. Adair, History of the Ame- rican Indians, p. 309., respecting the Choktah tribe of North America." d " I have in my hands the testimony of most respectable travellers, in regard, for instance, to the inhabitants of Ethiopia, Greenland, Canada, California, Kamtschatka, &c., and therefore wonder at the assertion of Rousseau, — that singing is not natural to man. Dictionn. de Musique, t i. p. 170. Geneva, 1781. 12mo." e « See Rich. Payne Knight, Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet. Lond. 1791. 4to. p. 3." VOICE AND SPEECH. 50? " The difference between voice and speech is evident. The former is produced in the larynx ; the latter by the peculiar mechanism of the other organs above described. " Voice is common to both brutes and man, even immediately after birth, nor is it absent in those unfortunate infants who are born deaf. But speech follows only the culture and employment of reason, and is consequently, like it, the privilege of man in distinction to the rest of animal nature. For brutes, natural in- stinct is sufficient f: but man, destitute of this and other means of I am indebted to the powerful Dr. Conyers Middleton for the knowledge of two cases of distinct articulation with at least but little tongue. (An Enquiry into the Miraculous Powers, c|-c. Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. p. 148. 4to.) In bis exposure of the pious deceptions of weak and wicked Christians during the first centuries of the Christian era, he notices a pretty tale of an Arian prince cutting out the tongues of some of the orthodox party and these being as able to talk as before ; nay one ( 0 hominum impudentia /), who had been dumb from his birth, gained the faculty of speech by losing his tongue. Granting the fact, and even that the tongues were completely extirpated, he refers, for the purpose of proving there was no miracle in the case, to two relations of similar instances by medical men. (Jussieu, On Speech without a Tongue. Mem. de VAcad, des Sciences. 1718. p. 6.) Professor John Thomson found the speech little impaired after bullets had carried away more or less of the tongue. (Report of Observations made in the British Hospitals in Belgium, after the Battle of Waterloo ; with some Remarks on Amputation.) Louis, Richter, Huxham, Bartholin, and Tulpius mention similar cases. An instance of good articulation after the loss of the apex and body of the tongue quite down to the os hyoides occurred in this country, and was seen by the Royal Society. (Account of a Woman who spoke fluently without a Vestige of Tongue. Phil. Trans. 1742. p. 143. Dr. Parson's Account of Margaret Cutting, who had lost her Tongue. Phil. Trans. 1747. p. 621. f Mr. Herbert, in a note to White's Natural History of Selborne, p. 227. says he saw Col. O'Kelly's green parrot, about 1799, which sang, perfectly, about fifty different tunes, solemn psalms, and humorous orjow ballads, arti- culating every word as distinctly as a man, without a single mistake, beating time with its foot, turning round upon the perch, and marking the time as it turned ; if a person sang part of a song, it would take it up where he left off; and, when moulting and unwilling to sing, turned its back and said, " Poll's sick." The dog to whicli Blumenbach alludes was seen and heard by Leibnitz (Op. vol. ii. p. 180. ii.), who declares it pronounced all the letters of the alphabet except m, n, x, and thirty German words ; was three years old when it went to school, and required some years for finishing its education. Locke, however, goes farther than Leibnitz, for he relates a story in his Essay on Human 508 VOICE AND SPEECH. supporting his existence independently, enjoys the prerogative of reason and language; and following, by their means, his social destination, is enabled to form, as it were, and manifest his ideas, and to communicate his wants to others, by the organs of speech." The elements of which all the spoken languages of mankind are composed consist of the modifications given sometimes to the breath, and at other times to the voice, during their passage through the cavity of the mouth ; these modifications are prin- cipally effected by the altered positions of the lips and tongue with respect to the fixed parts of the containing cavity. The classification of these articulations into vowels and con- sonants has been generally recognised. The vowels are formed by the voice, modified, but not inter- rupted, by the varied positions of the tongue and lips. Their differences depend on the various proportions between the aper- ture of the lips and the internal cavity of the mouth, alterable by the different elevations of the tongue. The vowel aw (as pro- nounced long in all, and short in got) is formed by augmenting the internal cavity by the greatest possible depression of the dorsum of the tongue, and, at the same time, enlarging the se- paration of the lips. Departing from this sound there are two series. In one the external aperture remains open, and the internal cavity gradually diminishes by the successive alter- ations of the tongue ; in the other the positions of the tongue are successively the same as in the first series, but the aperture of the lips is diminished. The approximation of the lips produces a more sensible effect as the inner cavity is more enlarged ; hence two modifications of the first sounds of the second series are easily recognised, whilst only one variety of the others is readily appreciable, as will be shown in the following table.? Each of these vowels may be long or short, according to the duration of its sound in a syllable. Understanding, (book ii. p. 27.) on the authority of Prince Maurice, and believes it too, of an old parrot that held a rational conversation. 8 For the more open sounds, the jaws are generally more separated ; but this is not indispensable. VOICE AND SPEECH. 509 TABLE OF VOWELS. First Series. — The lips fully open. Second Series. — The lips partially open. Third Series. — The lips nearly closed. As pronounced As pronounced As pronounced Long, in Short, Long, in Short Long, Short, in in in 1. aw caught, fall folly 6. o coat 11. 00 cool full 2. ah father, car dull 7. o cowrt 3. ae nae ( Scotch) man 8. eu bonheur (Fr.) 4. a fair" met 9. eu affrewx (Fr.) * 5. e feet, the fit 10. Expressed in Z German by it, e - en * in Danish and | Swedish by i, in Dutch and French by u. The above table exhibits all the most usually pronounced vowel sounds, but practised ears might distinguish others intermediate in each series. When these vowels are sounded, the soft palate is raised so as to prevent the voice from issuing through the nasal channels; when, on the contrary, the soft palate is depressed, the partial escape of the breath through the nostrils modifies all the preceding sounds in a very evident manner. To distinguish these two modes of articulating the vowel sounds, we may adopt Dr. Darwin's terms, orisonant and narisonant vowels. Consonants may be divided into continuous (sometimes called liquids or semi-vowels) and explosive. For the latter, the breath or voice is stopped in its passage through the mouth ; for the former, it is allowed a free passage, though the apertures are more narrowed than for the vowels. But the most comprehensive and important division of these articulations is into aspirates and sonants ; the modifications of the breath being meant by the former term, and those of the voice by the latter. In ordinary speaking these are mingled together to form the elementary syllables of language. The aspirates, or sounds indicated by the characters p,/, sk, s, th (in Ming), t, k, II (Welsh), differ from the sonants, or those represented by h This vowel is much used by the Irish in pronouncing such syllables as bate fait, &c ., for our English words beat, faith, &c. 510 VOICE AND SPEECH. b, V) z (in azure,) z (in puzzle), M, (in the), d, g (in gay), /, only by the latter being accompanied with the vocal sound. Every sonant has its corresponding aspirate, though many of the latter are unknown to the English language ; such are the aspirates corresponding to the sonants r, m, n, ng (in song), &c. When forming the component parts of syllables, the aspirates, as well as the sonants, are always articulated with sonant vowels. An aspirate vowel, followed by its vocal enunciation, is always represented by the character h, but it is never pronounced se- parately, except in whispering. The consonants, like the vowels, are divided into orisonant and narisonant. The only narisonant consonants in our language, are those corresponding to the orisonant explosives b, d, and g (in gay), — viz. m, n, and ng (in song). By this mode of pronun- ciation the sounds are rendered continuous. TABLE OF CONSONANTS. Continuous. Explosive. Aspirates. Sonants. Aspirates. Orisonants, Nari sonants. 1. / V 10. P b m 2. y 11. t d n 3. sh z &.; 12. k g ng in azure. in gold. in song. 4. s z in zany. 5. th th in £Aink in the 6. (not used) r 7. 11 I 8. I infiZfe(Fr.) 9. ch g in loch in sagen (Scotch) (German) nac/«(Ger.) gemis(Sp.) i This table shows that, for all the consonants employed in the English language, only ten positions of the mouth are required, the modifications being effected by other means. Among the modifications not already described, may be particularised the reduplication of the 10th, llth, and 12th sounds; the first occa- sioned by the vibratory motion of the lips, the others by that of the tongue. VOICE AND SPEECH* 511 Observations. Sound, 1. — The lower lip presses on the upper teeth, but allows the air to escape between them ; a similar sound is produced by allowing the breath to pass through the lips when nearly closed. 2, 3, 4-, 5. — These sounds may be considered as the continuation of the first series of vowel sounds ; for, by placing the mouth in the position for e (5.), and continuing to elevate the back part of the tongue, and, at the same time, to curl its tip, these sounds will be successively produced. 6,7, 8. — These sounds diiFer from the preceding four, inasmuch as that the back part of the tongue does not approximate to the palate ; the mouth being placed for the second vowel, the front of the tongue is elevated so as to touch the palate just above the teeth ; for the r, the point is drawn back, so as to allow the air to escape ; and for the /, the point is firmly pressed against the palate, and the breath escapes by the two sides; for the / (inn7/e), the air escapes with more difficulty. 9. — These are used in the Gaelic and German, but not in English. ]0, 11, 12. — These sounds are produced by the forcible escape of the breath, or voice, after a complete obstruction by the lips or tongue. The obstruction by the lips gives p> or b; that by the front of the tongue above the upper teeth, i, or d ; and that by the back of the tongue against the palate, k, or g ; these different articulations may therefore be distinguished as Labial, Dental, and Palatal. When the sound escapes through the nostrils it becomes continuous; the wz, w, and ng are therefore not explosives. The alphabetic characters, invented as visual and permanent representations of the articulations of speech, are very inadequate to effect the purpose intended. In the English language there are but five characters to indicate all the varieties of the vowels, viz. #, e, «, 0, u-. Of these, one only is pronourrced, when uncom- bined, as a pure vowel ; this is e, — the 5th sound in the table of vowels: the other four are diphthongs or combinations of two vowels ; a is the 4th and 5th ; i is the 3d and 5th ; o is the 6th and llth; and u is the 5th and llth. When constituting parts of syllables, the same character represents many different vowel sounds. The consonantal characters are not quite so arbitrary, though among these there are some simple sounds expressed by two let- ters, and others which have no character to denote them ; and on the other hand there are several redundant letters representing M M" 512 VOICE AND SPEECH. two simple sounds :f,v,r, I, p, t, k, b, d, m, and n, are generally constant in their signification. The simple sounds represented by two characters are sh, th (in think), th (in the], and ng (in song). The single characters representing more than one sound are s (in sea, his, sure, and vision); 2 (in zany and azure); g (in gay and George). The redundant letters are, c (having the sound either of s or k) ; q (k followed by the eleventh vowel) ; j (compounded of d and the second pronunciation of the z, — the same as the g in George); and x (standing for ks, or z). Y, as generally pronounced, and iv, are not consonants ; the first represents the 5th, and the second the llth vowel of the table, when immediately succeeded by another vowel. The consonants will be best compared by articulating them all, uniformly preceded or followed by the same vowel ; asje, she, se, the, pe, te, ke, &c. or ef, esh, es, eth, ep, et, ek, &c. It is by no means improbable that the progress of modern art may present us at some future time with mechanical substitutes for orators and preachers. For, putting aside the magic heads of Albert the Great and Roger Bacon, Kratzenstein actually con- structed an instrument to produce the vowels *, and De Kempelin has published a full account of his celebrated speaking machine which perfectly imitated the human voice. k The celebrated French mechanician, the Abbe Mical, also made two heads of brass which pronounced very distinctly entire phrases ; .these heads were colossal, and their voices were powerful and sonorous. The French government refusing, it is said, in 1782, to purchase these automata, the unfortunate and too sensitive inventor, in a paroxysm of despair, destroyed these masterpieces of scientific ingenuit}'. More recently, Mr. Willis of Cambridge has pub- lished a very interesting essay on the vowel sounds, in which he describes an instrument for producing them, and at the same time explaining their physical causes. My excellent and highly distinguished friend Professor Wheatstone, to whom the analysis of the elementary sounds I have above given is due, and whose valuable assistance in this section, as well as those on vision and hearing, I am proud to acknowledge, has also made many ex- periments illustrating the mechanism of speech, and succeeded in reconstructing and improving De Kempelin's machine. ' Observations sur la Physique, par Rosier, Supplement, 1782. p. 758. k Ueber den Mectanismus der Menschlicken Sprache. Vienna, 1791. VOICE AND SPEECH. 513 As I have now fully explained the various articulations used in oral language, it only remains for me to investigate the dif- ference between the inflexions of the voice in singing and in speaking. The various muscular adaptations of the larynx render it ca- pable of producing every inflexion of musical tone within a certain compass, seldom exceeding that of two octaves. In singing, sounds, each constant in its degree of tune, follow each other according to the rules of melody ; while in speaking^ the voice slides up and down, and " does not dwell distinctly, for any per- ceptible space of time, on any certain level or uniform tone, except the last tone on which the speaker ends or makes a pause." Provincial dialects, and even individual modes of speaking, differ much in the extent and nature of these slides. Steele has en- deavoured to establish a system of notation for these inflexions, and other modifications of the voice necessary to be observed by the orator, and has by this means proposed to perpetuate the most splendid specimens of histrionic, forensic, and senatorial eloquence.1 To proceed farther with this subject would be an infringement on the province of philology. "We must just mention certain other modifications of the human voice, of which some, as hiccup and cough, belong more properly to pathology than to physiology, but are very common in the most healthy persons ; and others, as crying and laughing, appear peculiar to the human race. " Many of these are so closely allied as frequently to be con- verted into each other ; most also are variously modified. " In laughter there is a succession of short, and, as it. were, abrupt expirations."111 In it, there is more or less noise at each little expiration, from a mere sort of rustling sound to loud peals; the mouth is more or less lengthened, and its angles drawn up, and in extreme laughter it is opened still more by the descent of the lower jaw ; if hearty, the tears run over, the head, and even the body, shakes, respiration is interrupted, and 1 Prosodia Rationatis ; or, An Essay towards establishing the Melody and Measure of Speech, to be expressed and perpetuated by peculiar Symbols. 2d. edit. London, 1779. m « Fn Lupichius, De Risu. Basil. 1738. 4to. Traitedes Causes Pkysigues et. Morale^ du.Rire. ., Arnst 1783. 8vo." r:., MM 2 ' .- • T 514 VOICE AND SPEECH. actual pain of the sides and diaphragm is felt. n Some of our comedians have absolutely agonised me. It arises from drollery, the anticipation of gratification, or actual gratification, or tick- ling ; it is also common in hysteria and insanity. Smiling is the first degree of the same changes of the mouth. " Coughing is a quick, violent, and sonorous expiration, follow- ing a deep inspirations." • In coughing, the mouth opens that the air may rush in that direction, since the current is not re- quired in the nostrils as in sneezing, and these would not afford sufficient vent. The glottis lessens just before the expiration, and the transverse muscular fibres of the trachea lessen its diameter and thus increase the force with which the expelled air rushes.? Coughing is induced by the very slightest irritation of the larynx. But irritation of any part of the respiratory appa- ratus may occasion it, as well as irritation of a distant part influencing the respiratory apparatus sympathetically. It some- limes arises from a morbid sensibility of the nerves, so that I have known it occur for months at the full distension of every in- spiration, except during sleep ; and in other instances on the slightest touch of the outside of half the chest. There are many varieties of the sound and respiratory actions of cough* rt Snoring is " said by Blumenbach to be " a deep, sonorous, and, as it were, tremulous inspiration^ from the vibration of the velum pa^ati during deep sleep." We can, however, snore volun- tarily while awake ; and, by allowing a portion of the tongue to rise into contact with the velum, I can snore so that the sound shall proceed from vibrations of the nose as well as of the velum, evident both to the ear and to the fingers placed upon the nose. I can also increase the proportion of the nasal vibrations at plea- sure, by allowing more of the tongue to rise into contact with the velum and palate, and cause them only to take place, even if the mouth is closed* and, if it is closed, snoring is always more or less nasal. In sleep, snoring may be palatal or nasal, or both in various proportions. The sound, as well as its situation, varies accordingly as it is palatal or nasal, or more one than the other. n " Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides." L* Allegro. 9 "J. Melch. Fr. Albrecht, (Praes. Hallero) Experimented in vivis awmaKbus circa tu&is orgttna exploranda institicta. Getting. 175 1/ 4 to." » Sir C. Bfell, PAef. Treats. 1832. p. STJOv sqq. VOICE AND SPEECH. 515 " Sneezing, generally the consequence of an irritation of the mucous membrane of the nostrils," though the glare of the sun upon the eyes will produce it, "is a violent and almost con-, vulsive expiration, preceded by a short and violent inspiration." q In sneezing, the opening of the fauces is lessened, and the head bent back, that the current may be directly through the nostrils, in which the irritation generally exists. t( Hiccup, on the contrary, is a sonorous, very short, and almost convulsive, inspiration, excited by an unusual irritation of" the stomach, and Blumenbach says only of " the cardia."r In hiccup, I think that, after the inspiration has proceeded a certain length, the glottis closes, and the diaphragm endeavours in vain to contract farther. " In crying there are deep inspirations, quickly alternating with long and occasionally interrupted expirations. » " Signing is a long and deep inspiration, and the subsequent expiration is sometimes accompanied by groaning. l " Nearest in relation to sighing is gaping", which is produced by a full, slow, and long, inspiration, followed by a similar ex- piration, the jaws at the same time being drawn asunder, so that the air rushes into the open fauces and the Eustachian tubes." We gape chiefly during fatigue or hunger; when we are but half awake, either before or after sleep ; and in ague and hysteria, " It occurs from the blood passing through the lungs too slowly: v. c. when the pressure of the air on the body is diminished, as upon very high mountains." A peculiar feature of gaping is the propensity it excites in others to gape likewise. This is uni- versally remarked. But the fact is included in the more general fact of gaping being excited by merely thinking of it, whatever be the means of association by which it enters into our thoughts, whether by seeing it represented in a picture, by reading of it, or having it mentioned to us. If this is the case, the view of others gaping may well be supposed sufficient to excite it. •q « Marc. Beat. L. J. Porta, De Sterriutatione. Basil. 1755. 4to.'^ r " C. J. Sig. Thiel, De Singultu. Gutting. 1761. 4to." 3 "J. F. Schreiber, De Fletu. L. B. 1728. 4to." 1 " Dav. C. Em. Berdot, De Susplrio. Basil. 1756. 4to." u "Just. Godofr. Giinz, (Praeside Walthero) De Oscitaiio7ie. Lips. 1738. 4to." M M 3 516 VOICE AND SPEECH. Dr. Brachet contends that the muscular power of the extreme bronchial twigs and air cells operates both in these violent and in the ordinary degrees of respiration. He divided the spinal chord in the neck of cats so that respiration ceased and was continued artificially. He then applied hellebore to their nostrils, and little expiratory shocks took place, very evident and necessarily inde- pendent of the respiratory muscles. x Haller is well worth reading on these subjects, y Most authors assert that the opening of the glottis enlarges at inspiration and lessens at expiration; but Dr. H. Ley makes it probable that, in simple and undisturbed breathing, the glottis remains open.2 In strong muscular efforts the glottis closes, that the chest may be immovable. Swimming and leaping are shown by M. Bourdon to be impossible unless it is closed ; for he pre- vented them by inserting a tube into a wound made by him in the trachea of poor brutes. Although, with the exception of mocking birds, brutes make no articulate sounds, they have a language perfectly intelligible to one another. They make one noise to express joy, another terror, another to summon their young, &c., and comprehend the meaning of sounds made by us, not only of an inarticulate kind, but also articulated. The sagacity of some dogs in this respect is astonishing. " They learn to understand not merely sepa- rate words or articulate sounds, but whole sentences expressing many ideas. I have often spoken," continues Gall, " intentionally of objects which might interest my dog, taking care not to mention his name, or make any intonation or gesture which might awaken his attention. He, however, showed no less pleasure or sorrow, as it might be ; and, indeed, manifested by his be- haviour that he had perfectly understood the conversation which concerned him. I had taken a bitch from Vienna to Paris; in a very short time she compre- hended French as well as German, of which I satisfied myself by repeating be- fore her whole sentences in both languages."3 An accurate observer of nature, and one familiar with brutes, Hogg, the late Ettrick shepherd poet, to substan- tiate the same opinion, relates the following anecdote. He was going to visit * 1. c. p. 298. sq. y El. Physiol. lib. viii. sect. iv. p. xxx— :xl. z London Medical Gazette, June 27, 1834. • Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, t. v. p. 49. sq. VOICE AND SPEECH. 517' a friend for a fortnight, but was desirous that a particular dog should not ac- company him, as it was always " breeding some uproar." While the animal was near him he mentioned his intention to his mother in the evening. The dog was to be locked up till some time after he had started. But in the morning, when the time came, it was not to be found. " The d — 's in that beast," said he, " I will wager that he heard what we were saying yesternight, and has gone off for Bowerhope as soon as the door was opened this morning." A great flood had taken place in the night, so that the Yarrow was impassable, and Hogg had to go by St Mary's Loch, and cross in a boat. But though it appeared impas- sable by any living creature, the dog had swam it early in the morning, and was found by Hogg, " sitting, ' like a drookit hen,' on a knowl at the east end of his friend's house, awaiting his arrival with great impatience." b As the exertion of every power is a gratification, brutes take an intense pleasure in making the noises of which they are capable. The singing of some birds, and the chattering and squalling of others, are examples of this. The voice of some small brutes is, like the muscular powers of others, far greater than in large animals proportionally, and of some even absolutely. A grasshopper, weighing an eighth of an ounce, may be heard at the distance of the sixteenth of a mile ; and Americans have calculated that a man, weighing as much as 1600 grasshoppers, were his voice in proportion, would be audible at the distance of 1000 miles, and when he sneezed would cause the house to be in danger of falling, as the walls of Jericho tumbled at the sound of the trumpet, b Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Feb. 1824. M M 4 518 CHAP. XXII. THE EXTERNAL SENSES IN GENERAL, AND TOUCH IN PARTICULAR. " THE other office of the nerves we found to consist in com- municating to the sensorium" (or organ of the mind) " the im- pressions made by external objects. This is accomplished by the external senses, which are, as it were, the watchmen of the body and informers of the mind." The external senses are usually considered to be five : — Touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing. But our feelings referrible to sensation or consciousness are very numerous. Besides our strictly mental feelings, we have a great variety of feelings in the body at large. To say nothing of hunger and thirst, we may feel weak or strong. The sensation of weakness is very distressing, and often complained of in the epigastric region. The removal of this makes us cognisant of a feeling of which otherwise we think but little, — a feeling of general support and mutual elastic resistance, as it were, between all the particles of the frame : and exhaustion makes us conscious of what was the com- fort of this feeling. We feel the state of our muscles, whether they are relaxed or contracted, or at least the position of the parts which they move. We feel the state of tone or exhaustion of muscles. We feel heat and cold in their various degrees, pains, and endless uneasy sensations of distension, weight, prick- ing, smarting, &c. &c., a large number of which are usually referred to the sense of touch. But the sensation induced me- chanically by the contact of something with us is properly called touch. Forms of sensation may be peculiar to certain parts. " The five external senses alone belong to our present subject. For to regard, with Gorter, the stimulus which inclines us to relieve the intestines," &c., as so many distinct senses, is unne- cessary minuteness, as Haller long since observed.3 ' " J. De Gorter, Exercitatwnes Medico, iv. Amst. 1737. 4to." EXTERNAL SENSES. 519 By means of the external senses only do we learn the existence of the world around us. " With every sense an animal discovers a new world ; thus creation is to it increased or diminished ac- cordingly as its senses are more or less numerous." " Provided with senses, it enters into communication with the university of nature, and associates with surrounding beings ; a continual action and reaction are established between animate and inanimate na- ture." b They are the seat of almost constant gratification. Without them, indeed, we should not only be ignorant of the surrounding world, but our mental faculties would never come into operation. We could not judge of objects of sight, hearing, or touch, by our lower intellectual faculties ; nor would our higher intellectual faculties come into play, nor our various inclinations be called forth. Some writers, hardly deserving the name of philosophers, have been misled by these truths, and declared that the external senses give rise to our intellectual and moral powers. Were this the case, persons of acute external sense, and those numerous savages and brutes which surpass us in one external sense or other, would be the most eminent in intellect. Gall found it necessary to refute these errors at length.0 Not even can an organ of external sense give rise to a sensation, except in the brain, or what is tantamount to brain in every brute. Gall observes that, " 1. Every nerve of sense has its particular origin: no one arises from- the brain, or from another nerve ; but the filaments of each proceed from particular masses of pulpy substance. " 2. Each nerve of sense differs from the others in size, struc- ture, colour, and consistence. «* 3. The apparatus of some nerves are more or less compli- cated, more or less numerous in the different kinds of animals. " 4-. There is no proportion, either direct or constantly uni- form, between the size of the brain and of the nerves. " 5. There is no fixed proportion between the nerves of sense in the different kinds of animals, nor in individuals of the same species. " 6. The female has not nerves of sense larger or smaller than the male. b Gall, 1. c. 4to. vol. i. p. 149. £ Ibid..ll. cc. 4to. vol. i. p. 223. sqq. ; also p. 149, sqq. 8vo. t. i. p. 114. sqq. 520 EXTERNAL SENSES. " 7. In different species of animals, and in individuals of the same species, the nerves of sense are developed and decline at very different periods. " 8. No decussation of any other nerve than the optic is at present known, and its decussation is not found in all species of animals. " 9. The corresponding nerves of each side communicate toge- ther by commissures, and in other parts of the brain by branches.'' Again, that, " 1. To the functions of the senses, material instruments are indispensable. " 2. That the nerves merely communicate the irnpfession of the external world to the brain that it may be modified by this. " 3. Every nerve of sense can receive but certain impres- sions, and the functions of one sense cannot be performed by an- other. " 4. The delicacy of every sense is ordinarily proportionate to the perfection and development of the apparatus, and probably also to the number of apparatus. " 5. The particular functions of the senses have not the same force in different species of animals, nor in different animals of the same species : the animal which has acute sight may have dull hearing. " 6. The nervous system of the senses may, like other systems, acquire a higher activity by unusual irritants, from inflamma- tion, &c. " 7. The derangement of the functions of the senses that follow lesion of the brain do not affect the opposite side any more than those of the spinal chord, at least according to my present experience. "' 8. The functions of the different senses manifest themselves at different periods, according to the development of these organs. It is asked how, and for what purpose, some animals are born with senses perfectly developed, at least with the eyes and ears open, and others with them closed. This peculiarity is not always in relation to the power of using the extremities more or less promptly ; for the new-born child is as incapable of loco- motion as the new-born puppy. " 9. All the functions of the senses gradually decline in old age." According to some physiologists this is the result only of the TOUCH. 521 organs of the senses becoming habituated to external impressions, so that these are continually less and less strong. But in old age the functions of the senses grow weak, because the organs of the senses diminish. The nervous filaments, and their nutrient sub- stance, waste, as well as the pulpy substance in general, and all the nerves begin to atrophy. Hence Pinel did not find, in the labyrinth of deaf old men, the soft substance which exists in men who hear. Hence the nerves of old persons are much smaller than of those in the vigour of life. As this diminution does not occur at the same time in all the nervous system, it follows that all the functions do not decline equally at the same time, as would be the case if they declined more and more only by habituation to impressions. Some even explain by habit the fact of our having in health no sensation of what is passing within us in our organic Or automatic life. I should ascribe this rather to an original de- sign of nature, which probably accomplishes it by the tenuity of the filaments that communicate between the nervous system of the chest and abdomen and the nervous system of the vertebral column, the senses, and the brain. " 10. The doubleness of any sense does not prevent our sen- sation of objects from being simple : in the same manner our consciousness is single, notwithstanding the five different functions of the senses." A sensation lasts a certain time after the exciting cause has ceased. Thus, if a piece of wood, with one end ignited, is whirled round, we see a luminous ring ; the sensation produced by the wood in each point of the circle continuing till the wood arrives at that point again : a rocket forms a train. A sensation is sometimes renewed, as when, after having looked at the sun, we close our eyes and its figure returns. According to the law of all vital excite- ment, sensations are more acute the less they have been excited, and vice versa. Thus, after having been in a strong light, we at first see nothing on entering a darkened apartment, but gradually dis- tinguish objects in it, and, on returning into the light, find the. glare very disagreeable : the same tepid water feels warm to one hand previously immersed in cold water, and cold to the other previously placed in warm water. " Touch merits our first attention, because it is the first to manifest itself after birth, its organ is most extensively spread TOUCH. over the whole surface, and it is affected by many properties of external objects." " It is less fallacious than the rest of the senses, and by culture capable of such perfection as in some measure to supply the deficiency of others, particularly of vision, a The direct pleasure of the sense of touch is far more exquisite than of any other sense, and is therefore employed by nature for the raptures of sexual intercourse. " The skin, whose structure we formerly examined, is the general organ of touch.e The immediate seat of the sense is the papillae of the corium, of various forms in different parts, com- monly resembling warts f, in some places fungous ff, in others filamentous.1' The extremities of all the cutaneous nerves ter- minate in these under the form of pulpy penieilli." The nerves of general sensibility, and as far as we know of touch in particular, are the ganglionic portion of the trigerninum and the ganglionic or posterior spinal nerves and all their ramifi- cations. " The hands are the principal organs of touch, properly so called, and regarded as the sense which examines solidity ; and their skin has many peculiarities. In the palms and on each side of the joints of the fingers, it is furrowed and free from hairs, to facilitate the closing of the hand : and the extremities d "Consult Rol. Martin, Schwed. Abhqndl, vol. xxxix. 1777. G, Bew, Memoirs of the Society of Manchester, vol. i. p. 159. Ch. Hutton, Mathematical Dictionary, vol. i. p. 214." *' Lecat speaks of a sculptor, Ganibasius de Volterre, who, being blind, felt faces, and then modelled them in clay. The man of Puiseaux, born blind, estimated the distance of the fire by the degree of heat, and of bodies by the action of air upon his face, Saunderson, by exploring a series of medals with his hands, distinguished the genuine from the spurious, although the latter were so well counterfeited as to deceive a connoisseur with good eyes ; and he judged of the accuracy of mathematical instruments by passing the ends of his fingers upon their divisions. Like the blind man of Puiseaux, he was affected by the least vicissitude of the atmosphere, and could perceive, especially in calm weather, the presence of objects not more than some paces distant." Gall, J. 4to. vol. i, p. 222, '..« « F. I3e Riet, De Organo Tactus, L.B. 1743. 4to. reprinted in Bailer's Anatomical Collection, t. iv. " f " Dav. Corn, de Courcelles, Icones Musculor. Capitis. Tab. i. fig. 2, 3." g " B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Acadein. 1. iii. tab. iv. fig. 1,2." h « Ruysch, TJiesaur. Anat. iii. tab. iv. fig. 1. Thes. vii. tab. ii. fig. 5. B. S. Albinus, I.e. L. vi. tab. ii. fig. 3,4." TOUGH. 523 of both fingers and toes are ridged internally by very beautiful lines rnore or less spiral * ; and are shielded externally by nails. " These scutiform nails11 are bestowed upon man and a few- other genera of mammalia only (we allude to the quadrumana which excel in the sense of touch)1, for the purpose of resisting pressure, and thus assisting the action of the fingers, while exa- mining objects* " They are of a horny nature, but on the whole very similar to the epidermis. For under them lies the reticulum, which in negroes is black m ; and under this again is found the corium, adhering firmly to the periosteum of the last phalanx. These constituent parts of the nails are striated lengthwise. The pos- terior edge, which, in the hands, is remarkable for a little lunated appearance, is fixed in a furrow of the skin ; and the nails, grow- ing constantly from this, are protruded forwards, so as to be per- fectly renewed about every six months." Dr. Breschet considers that the organ of touch is not a mere nerve, but that an apparatus exists as in the eye and ear : — that, like the optic nerve entering the sclerotic, the nerves of touch lose their neurilema on entering the cutis and derive a new covering from its outer part, and then, terminating in a round extremity or projecting papilla, are covered by a thin layer of epidermis indispensable to the sense of touch." Weber has shown that the tactile power of the skin is not pro- portionate to its sensibility. Thus the mammae are easily tickled, » "Grew, Phil Tram. No. 159." k " B. S. Albinus, Ann^at. Academ* 1. iu tab. vii. fig. 4, 5, 6." 1 cercopitheci, and lemures, the apices of whose fingers in their four hands are very soft, and marked, as in the human subject, with spiral lines. " Physiologists have disputed whether the sense of touch is bestowed on any besides man and the quadrumana." " On one side, I would grant to both parties that the snowy hands of a delicate girl must enjoy a milch more exquisite sense of touch than what I call the fingers of brutes-. But, on the other, I have frequently seen simias and papiones possessing much softer fingers, and using these fingers to explore surfaces much more dexterously, than many barbarous nations and innumerable persons among the lower orders of Europeans whose hands have been hardened by labour." m " B. S. Albinus, De Habitu el Colore ^thiopum, fig. 3." " Nouvdles Recherches sur la Structure de la Pcau, par M. G. Breschet. Paris, 1835. TOUCH. and susceptible of great pain when irritated, and yet arc very mo- derately endowed with the sense of touch. The armpits, flanks, soles, and other ticklish parts have a comparatively slight power of distinguishing objects by touch. " Who was ever made to laugh by tickling the ends of his fingers ? and yet they are possessed of a tactile accuracy far exceeding that of any other portion of the skin." Mere sensibility exists in all the surfaces and solids, and under disease may give sensations ; and in some internal parts, as the upper and lower part of the alimentary canal, we continually have sensation : but, whatever be the irritation of the stomach or bowels or larynx, substances within them are felt very indistinctly. The different parts of the skin vary exceedingly in. their tactile power. Weber remarks that, if the skin of a person whose eyes are shut is touched with the two points of a com- pass an inch asunder, he at once perceives that he is touched in two places. But, by moving the points nearer and nearer to each other, the skin feels at length as if touched by simply one body, and this body feels as if rather longer in the line of junction of the points of the compass. There is, however, the greatest difference in different parts as to their power of still feeling that there are two bodies when these are approximated. The tips of the fingers and of the tongue distinguish the bodies at the small- est distance ; while the middle of the arm and thigh, the centre of the cervical and dorsal spine, cease the soonest to distin- guish at large distances. In himself Weber found the tip of the tongue distinguish two bodies, as well in their horizontal as per- pendicular direction, till their distance from each other was with- in half a French line; the inner surface of the tips of the fingers within one, &c. He lays it down as a law, that, the more gifted with touch are any portions of the skin, the greater will the distance appear of any two bodies from each other though placed at the very same distance. Thus, " if the points of a compass, distant from each other one or two lines, applied to the cheek, just before the ear, be then moved successively to several parts of the cheek, we shall find, on approaching the angle of the mouth, that the points will appear to recede from each other;" or, if the ends of the forefinger and thumb are held together, and their tips passed in a TOUCH, 525 line from the ear to the upper or under lip, they will feel more and more distant from each other as they approach these. If the points of the compass, kept at the same distance from each other, are applied to two contiguous surfaces, enjoying vo- luntary motion, as to the two lips, they will appear more distant than when applied to one surface : in fact in the case of the lips, though, when distant from each other half a line, they appear as two, yet, if applied to one lip only, they appear as one. Nay the points, though at the same distance from each other, will seem more distant when applied to two portions of the skin differing in structure and function, than when applied to portions resembling each other, even though more sensible. Thus, if the points are placed one upon the inner surface, and one upon the red outer part of the lips, they appear more distant from each other than when both are applied, though at the same distance, on the outer red surface which is so much more sensible. When the points of the compass are placed horizontally on the axis of a limb, they are distinguished as two more clearly than when placed vertically. But the reverse occurs, if they are placed on the trunk.0 He finds the left hand more sensible of temperature than the right in most persons, probably from its epidermis be- ing thinner through less use. When the hands, being of the same temperature, were plunged into separate vessels of hot water, as the person lay in bed, the left hand was believed to be in hotter water, though the temperature was two degrees lower than that of the water in the other vessel. A difference of one third of a degree is readily detected by the hand if placed successively in two vessels of water. The judgment is more ac- curate when the temperature is not much above or below the •usual temperature of the body ; water at 98° being more readily distinguished from water at 100°, than water at 120° from water at 118° ; just as sounds are best discriminated when neither very acute nor base nor loud. A large surface receives stronger impres- sions than a smaller. If the forefinger of one hand is immersed 0 I have always been struck with the erroneous judgment I form of the spot of the trunk, or arras, or legs, in which an itching or tingling is felt. So satisfied in general am I that I cannot put my finger on the spot where I feel the tingling, unless I use my eyes, that I have frequently amused myself with observing what a blunder I was sure to make. 526 TOUCH. in water at J04-0, and the whole of the other hand in water at 102°, the cooler water will be thought the warmer : and water, borne by a forefinger, will seem to scald the whole hand. Minute differences are appreciated by plunging the whole hand successively into two vessels of hot water, which are impercep- tible to a single finger. Differences of temperature and weight are best ascertained when the perceptions are not simultaneous, but successive : just as is the case with differences in objects of taste, smell, and hear- ing. If an acid and a sweet substance are applied to the tongue with pencils in rapid succession, they are nicely distinguished : but not if applied together. It is the same if two vials of odorous fluids are applied to the nostrils ; and two notes are always better distinguished if struck in succession than together. Vision is no exception, because, although we compare two lines best when placed side by side, we in fact do not view them simultaneously, but in rapid succession ; since nothing is seen accurately unless its image falls on the retina at the extremity of the optic axis. Persons differ greatly in their power of estimating weight, and practice increases it considerably. Men accustomed to estimate weights by poising them will distinguish a difference of a thirtieth part in two bodies. They use the same hand for each weight in instant succession. The intervention of a few seconds does not prevent accuracy. A true estimate may be made although the second weight is poised twenty seconds after the first ; but an in- terval of forty seconds prevents accuracy. The sense of sight is more accurate, for a well-practised eye will distinguish a differ- ence of a hundredth part in the length of two lines : and the ear surpasses the eye, for a well-practised musical ear will distinguish between two sounds differing only ^^, — the number of vibrations being calculated that are made by the sounding bodies in a given time. If two lines differ only -jJ-r in length, the difference may be perceived although the one is looked at fifty or sixty seconds after the other. If they differ ^1T, an interval of thirty-five se- conds may elapse. If they differ ^, an interval of three seconds is the longest compatible with accurate judgment.? Not only does touch appear too general an expression for the p De .Pulsu, Resorptione, Auditu et Tactu* Annotatwnes Anatomdcce et Physio- logicte, auctore Henrico Ernesto Weber. Lipsiae, 1834. ; and Dr. Graves '.s Analysis of it, in the Dublin Journal vf Medical Science, March 1836. TOUCH. 527 endless feelings of which we are susceptible, but some feelings, apparently referred with justice to this sense, are considered by many writers as referrible to other modes of sensation. Dr. Spurzheim^ says, " It may still be asked whether feeling produces ideas of consistency, of hardness, of softness, of solidity and fluidity, of weight and resistance ? I think it does not. For the mind to examine these qualities employs the muscular system- rather than the sense of feeling properly so called." This opi, nion accords with that of Dr. Brown r, who states, " The feeling of resistance" (of which he considers the qualities enumerated above as modifications) " is, I conceive, to be ascribed, not to our organ of touch, but to our muscular frame, to which I have already directed your attention, as forming a distinct organ of sense ; the affections of which, particularly as existing in com- bination with other feelings, and modifying our judgments con- cerning these (as in the case of distant vision, for example), are not less important than those of our other sensitive organs. The sensations of this class are, indeed, in common circumstances, so obscure as to be scarcely heeded or remembered by us; but there is probably no contraction, even of a single muscle, which is not attended with some faint degree of sensation that distinguishes it from the contractions of other muscles, or from other degrees of contraction of the same muscle." This opinion was originally advanced by the profoundest phy- sician among my predecessors at St. Thomas's Hospital, — Dr. Wells8, in the following words : — " What is there within us to indicate these positions of the body ? To me it appears evident, that, since they are occasioned and preserved by combinations of the actions of various voluntary muscles, some feeling must attend every such combination, which suggests, from experience, per- haps, the particular position produced by it. But in almost all the positions of the body, the chief part of our muscular efforts is directed toward sustaining it against the influence of its own gravity. Each position, therefore, in which this takes place, must be attended with a feeling which serves to indicate its re- lation to the horizontal plane of the earth." Sir C. Bell has repeated these opinions, but without any refer- q Phrenology. T Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind. 2d edit. 1824. p. 480. 5 Essays, 1818. p. 7O. K N 528 TOUCH. ence to Dr. Wells or the other two physicians, although he shows himself acquainted with Dr. Wells's writings.1 " Why are nerves, whose office is to convey sensation, profusely given to muscles, in addition to those motor nerves which are given to excite their motions? To solve this question, we must determine whether muscles have any other purpose to serve than merely to contract under the influence of motor nerves. For if they have reflective influence, and if their condition is to be felt or conceived, it will presently appear that the motor nerves are not suitable internuncii betwixt them and the sensoriurn. I shall first inquire if it be necessary to the governance of the mus- cular frame, that there be a consciousness of the state or degree of action of the muscles? That we have a sense of the condition of the muscles appears from this : that we feel the effects of over- exertion or weariness, and are excruciated by spasms, and feel the irksomeness of continued position. We possess a power of weighing in the hand ; what is this but estimating the muscular force? We are sensible of the most minute changes of muscular exertion, by which we know the position of the body and limbs, when there is no other means of knowledge open to us. Ifa rope- dancer measures his steps by the eye, yet, on the other hand, a blind man can balance his body. In standing, walking, and run- ning, every effort of voluntary power which gives motion to the body is directed by a sense of the condition of the muscles, and without this sense we could not regulate their actions, and a very principal inlet to knowledge would be cut off."0 Weber illustrates this opinion of Dr. Wells, by supporting the hands of a blindfolded person on cushions, and placing unequal weights upon them. If the difference is great, it will be felt. But, if it is small, it will not be noticed till the hands are raised, — till the muscles feel what resistance they have to act against. Weber found in most men a more accurate sense of the amount of pres- sure on the left side than on the* right. A minute substance in contact with the skin is always judged to be perpendicularly situated in regard to it, as rays of light are always seen in 3 1 The British Association has allowed the compiler of the report on the Phy- siology of the Nervous System, to refer to Sir C. Bell alone on this point, with- out any allusion to the previous writings of Dr. Wells, Dr. Brown, or Dr, Spurzheim. u Phil. Trans. 1826, TOUCH. 529 direction perpendicular to the point at which they impinge on the retina. It may be said, that, if a hair is pulled, we do not conceive it to be pulled perpendicularly whatever be the direction. But Weber replies that we judge here of the direction by the direc- tion of the muscular effort necessary to keep the head steady at the time. If muscles are not called into play, but the head is held steady by one person while another presses firmly around the hair, the direction, whatever it be, in which the hair is pulled, cannot be judged of. We have seen that Dr. Spurzheim thought he had established a cerebral organ for judging of these sensations of weight or re- sistance. x The varieties of the feelings both of consciousness and sensation in the animal kingdom must be infinite. Brutes probably have sensations from the external world of which we are insusceptible, and those especially which are minute are no doubt sensible to external circumstances, which are far too delicate to produce an impression upon us. Every animal is destined for a certain pecu- liarity and amount of sensation from certain substances and circumstances, in accordance with the destination of its mode of existence. Brutes will feel the approach of changes in the weather long before we are aware of what is coming ; and know even the direction of a coming storm. All brutes most probably have the sense of touch : and the more delicate and soft the external parts which come in contact with surrounding substances, * Gall is very philosophical and eloquent in overthrowing the doctrine of ex- cellence of touch being the source of superiority of intellect, and of this sense especially rectifying others and giving us a better knowledge of the external world, 11. cc. 4to. p. 208. sqq. 8vo. t. i. p. 85. sqq. Those who have not read both his large and octavo work may not be aware for what absurdities he had to oppose Buflfon, Condillac, Cuvier, Herder, Richerand, Vicq d'Azyr, blind followers of Anaxagoras and Galen. As philosophers have ascribed the superiority of man's intellect to his hand, and of the elephant's to its trunk, the constructiveness of the beaver to its tail, and the ferocity of the tiger to its teeth and claws, the poor man may be excused who was lately executed at Chelmsford, and left the following directions : — "I, Edward Clarke, now in a few hours expecting to die, do sincerely wish, as my last re- quest, that three of my fingers be given to my three children, as a warning to them, as my fingers were the cause of bringing myself to the gallows and my children to poverty." The request was complied with by the surgeon. Ex- aminer. April 23. 1837. N N 2 530 TOUCH. £he more delicate and acute, with an equal supply of nerves, will be the sense. Many without hands, as organs of touch, have other organs to compensate for their absence. " "We observe, even from the polygastric animalcules, that organs are developed at the anterior part of the body, which appear to be adapted to communicate sensations corresponding with those of touch in the higher animals. They have long cilia, almost already developed into tentacula ; and those ten- tacula, so common in the class of zoophytes, appear to be endowed with great delicacy of feeling. Those fleshy and sensitive tentacula and tubular feet of the radiated animals continue up through many of the succeeding classes of animals, becoming jointed in the articulated classes, where they form palpi and antennae ; and in the soft molluscous classes they again assume the form and name of tentacula, — soft, sensitive, and fleshy, without any jointed appearance. We ob- serve remnants of those sensitive organs even in the class of fishes in the form of processes or filaments still disposed as organs of touch around the mouth." " Many fishes and higher animals are covered with dense scales which must deaden the general sense of touch over the surface of their bodies : other fishes have the lower part of the head, the lower part of the abdomen, the circum- ference of the mouth, and other exposed parts, covered with a naked, delicate, and soft integument, which will compensate for the want of development of the arms and hands as organs of touch. But in the land amphibious animals, and in all the higher vertebrata, we observe the anterior extremities to become more delicately organised, and fit for communicating delicate impressions of the forms, densities, and other physical qualities of external bodies ; and in proportion to the high nervous sensibility, the vascularity, the flexibility, and the softness of the hands and other external cutaneous parts, will that common sense of touch become increased as we pass up through the vertebrated classes to man, who surpasses all inferior animals in the exquisite and equal development of all his organs of sense, and in the perfection of all those higher organs of relation by which animals are more immediately connected with outward nature." (Dr. Grant's Lectures. Lancet, No. 569.) 1 presume that the tongue must be considered as an organ of touch as well as of taste ; and the snout in the mole and pig ; the moist upper lip in the rhinoceros ; the proboscis of the elephant ; and the lower end of the tails of apes called sapajous. The whiskers of the "feline and other mammalia probably serve to make the proximity of bodies known to the animal. The seal has a very long infra-orbital branch of the fifth pair, with about forty branches, which are distributed to the upper lip, and many of which have been traced by Blumenbach to the roots of the strong whiskers." (Manual of Comparative Anatomy, translated by Messrs, Laurence and Coulson, p. 259. sq.) 531 CHAP. XXIII. TASTE. * W E perceive tastes by the tongue, and in some degree," says Blumenbach, in conformity with the common opinion, " by the other neighbouring internal cutaneous parts of the mouth, espe- cially by the soft palate, the fauces, the interior of the cheeks, and lips ; by them, however, we taste only what is acrid and very bitter" :" and Dr. Vimont says that, on touching the lips, inside of the cheeks, and the palate, with a very concentrated solution of common salt, with strong vinegar, and pure alcohol, their respec- tive tastes were not experienced, while he instantly had the taste of each when brought in contact with the upper surface of the tongue. b The most careful and extensive experiments have been made by M. M. Guyot and Admyrauldc, and they declare the lips, the internal surface of the cheeks, the hard palate, and the pha- rynx, to be utterly destitute of taste ; the soft palate to be also destitute, except at one spot, commencing about a line below its union with the hard palate, descending to within three or four lines of the base of the uvula, and extending indefinitely on each side till lost insensibly ; and the tongue to be destitute at its lower part and all its dorsal surface. So that the only seats of taste are the small space in the soft palate, that portion of the base of the tongue behind a curved line drawn with its concavity for- wards and passing through the blind foramen, and the whole of the circumference of the organ, on the upper part of which the sense extends a little farther towards the middle of the organ, espe- cially near the apex, than on the lower ; and the portion at the a " Grew, Anatomy of Plants, p. 284. sq. Petr. Luchtmans, De Saporibus et Gustu. L.B. 1758. 4to. p. 58. sqq. J. Gottl. Leidenfrost, De sensu qui infaucibus est, ab eo qui in lingua exercetur, diverse Duisb. 1771. 4 to." b Trnite de Phren. vol. ii. p. 138. sq. 0 Mtmoire sur le Siege du Gout, chez VHomme, Paris, 1 830. N N 3 532 TASTE. apex has a more acute taste than the rest of the circumference. These gentlemen remark that the seats of taste, as ascertained by them, are the most favourably placed for the exercise of the sense. Substances have the apex of the tongue applied to them as soon as they are moistened by the lips ; the softer portions fall during mastication, some within the alveolar arch in contact with the cir- cumference of the tongue, and others without it, but these are im- mediately pressed over to the circumference of the tongue by the cheeks; while the food is compressed between the dorsum of the tongue and hard palate, going through a kind of mastication for which the firmness and moderate sensibility of the dorsum render it peculiarly fit, the fluid portions are expressed and run over to the circumference; and, finally, the bolus, when properly moistened iand fit for deglutition, is pressed between the base of the tongue and the central gustatory space in the soft palate. " The chief organ of taste is the tongue d, agile, extremely ready, changeable in form ; in its remarkably fleshy nature, not unlike the heart ; and endowed with far more excitability than any other voluntary muscle.6 " Its integuments resemble the skin. They are, an epithelium, performing the office of cuticle; the reticulurn Malpighianum f ; and a papillary membrane, but little different from the corium. " The integuments of the tongue differ from the skin chiefly in these respects — in the epithelium being moistened, not by the oily fluid of the skin, but by a mucus which proceeds from the foramen caecum of Meibomiuss and the rest of the glandular ex- pansion of Morgagni h, and, secondly, in the conformation of the papillae, which are commonly divided into petiolated, obtuse, and conical.1 The first are in very small number and situated in d " Sbmmerring, Icones Organorum Humanorum Gustus. Francof. 1808. ol." e " This fact, contrary to the opinion of others, I have proved by dissection of living animals, and by pathological observation. Specimsn Historic NaturaKs ex auctoribus classicis ittustratee. Gotting. 1816. 4to. p. 4. sqq." f " In dogs and sheep with variegated skin, I have commonly found the reti- culum of the tongue and fauces also variegated.'* 8 "Consult Just. Schrauer, Observat. et Histor. from Harvey's book De Gene- rations AnimaUum. p. 18*V' h " Morgagni, Adversar. Anat. Prima. Tab. 1." 1 " Ruysch, Thesaur. Anat. I. tab. iv. fig. 6. B. S. Albinus, Annotat. Acad. 1. i. tab. 1. fig. 6 — 11." TASTE. 533 a lunated series at the root of the tongue ; the others, of various magnitudes, lie promiscuously upon the back of the tongue, and chiefly upon its edges and apex.k The tongue is furnished with nerves by the lingual branch of the fifth pair 1," by the hypoglossal, and the glosso-pharyngeal. The first gives common sensibility; the second, motion ; the latter, the sense of taste : as is shown by Dr. Panizza. m The glosso-pharyngeal or gustatory nerve commences by two, three, or more filaments, from the chorda oblongata, at a part of Sir C. Bell's respiratory tract, unluckily, and emerges between the corpora olivaria and restiformia.n It has no communication with the other nerves of the tongue : and gives off no muscular filaments. It is distributed to the mucous membrane of the tongue, epiglottis, tonsils, and upper part of the pharynx. It com- municates both with the vidian or recurrent pterygoid nerve of the spheno-palatine ganglion, or at least a branch of it runs some way with a branch of this, and with a branch of the facial, or at least runs also with this ; for I cannot conceive nerves of sen- sation and motion really to mingle in their course and form a third nerve, however they may mingle in ganglia or the en- cephalo-spinal mass or in plexuses, in order that the nerve of sensation may influence the nerve of motion, which must still run on, I imagine, afterwards distinct, as before : it communicates with the pneumono-gastric, superior cervical ganglion, and with the pharyngeal plexus, in all probability for influencing these parts : and we know how great is the sympathy of the organs of taste with the pharynx and stomach, &c. Blumenbach correctly states that "the ninth pair0," lt which also supplies the tongue P, appears intended rather for the various move- k " Consult Haller's excellent description of the tongue of a living man, in the Dictionn. Encyclopedique. Yverdon, vol. xxii. p. 23." 1 " J. Fr. Meckel, De Quinto Pare Nervorum Cerebri. Getting. 1748. 4to. p. 97. fig. 8. n. 80." m Ricerche sperimentali sopra i nervi. Lettera del Professore JBartolomeo Panizza al Professore Maurizio Bufalini. Pavia, 1 834. * Gall, 1. c. 4 to. vol. i. p. 102. 0 " J. F. W. Bohmer, De Nono Pare Nervorum Cerebri. Getting. 1777. 4to." p " See Haller, Icon. Anatom. fasc. ii. tab. 1 . letter g. Monro, On the Nervous System. Tab. xxvi." N N 4 534 TASTE. ments of the organ, in manducation, deglutition, speaking, &c.p«v, mind, and Xoj/o?, a discourse, and I understand by it the doctrine of the special phenomena of the mind, and of the relations between the mental dispositions and the body, particularly the brain." Now, Dr. Forster, in his Recueil des Ouvrages et des Pensees d'un Physicien et Metaphysiden, par Thomas Forster, Francfort sur le Mein, 1836, p. 12., proves that he himself gave the name: "I introduced my friend (Dr. Spurzheim) to the converzationi of Sir Joseph Banks, which were held every Sunday evening in Soho Square, and to many other men of science ; but the greatest benefit I rendered him was to give him a suitable name for his system. In 1816 I published my Sketch of the Phrenology of Gall and Spurzheim, London, 1816; — a name which the science has never lost." MESMERISM. 691 time before his death possessed the power of gradually reducing the action of his heart till it became imperceptible and for half lectually and morally, for me to condescend to notice. Materialism is as great a horror to him as phrenology ; and he fancies that mesmerism proves the existence of a soul independent of body, and is doing wonders by weaning people " from the deadly error of materialism and infidelity, and giving birth to a sound and re- ligious faith." (Vol. ii. p. 176. ) He is thus ignorant that materialists may not only believe in God, but in the divine authority of Scripture; and more honour Scripture by looking implicitly in full faith to it alone, as God's authority, for their belief in a future state, than those who endeavour to make its declarations more pro- bable by fancying a soul immortal in its own nature and independent of matter, when the Scripture tells us we shall rise as matter, — with bodies, and go to heaven with bodies, where Christ, God himself, sits bodily, — as matter, flesh, blood, and bones, in the words of the Church of England. (See my arguments at pages 39. sqq., 360. sqq.) He supposes that, when Negretti had dressed a salad and then ate first cabbage and then tart instead, without perceiving the trick, and did not know that he was drinking water when he had called for wine, his " soul only was busy, without any co-operation of the body." (Vol. i. p. 344. sq.) Negretti's im- material soul was resident in his brain, however, at the time, because Ne- gretti was eating and drinking and doing a great many things with his body set in action by his brain, which was evidently hard at work. He conceives that in sleep there is always dreaming, — that the soul can never sleep, but is always at work; and that, when we are conscious of dreaming, it is only that the soul is struggling to manifest its independent activity without the co-operation of the bodily organs. (Vol. ii. p. 121.) It is a pity that the soul does not suc- ceed ; for, when acting only half followed by the brain, it works much worse than when completely so, our dreams being generally absurdities. (See supra, p. 626.) I wonder why we should not recollect what our soul does in sound dreamless sleep without the co-operation of the brain : surely it must have memory. I wonder why, if it works so well without the brain, nature entangles it in a brain at all. In mesmeric sleep-waking he contends that all has proceeded without the brain. The sleep- waker " remembers nothing, because the soul acts perfectly without the body, and every thing has taken place out of the brain, since we have seen that the fluid goes in search of objects." (Vol. ii. p. 159»; vol. i. p. 302.) In the subsequent fit, however, all is remembered, and yet the fluid must be again gone out in search. It must, therefore, be at home and abroad at the same time. So powerful does he believe the soul unencumbered by, body to be in sleep-waking, that he actually declares not only that he is not aware of a sleep-waker perishing in the dangers which he frequently encounters, but that " so long as he is left undisturbed in his proceedings he acts fearlessly and is safe,4' — " that he is protected from injury by other means and guarantees of security than those by which his conduct is regulated in his ordinary waking z z 3 692 MESMERISM. an hour he appeared really dead. Bernier informs us that In- dian Bramins and Fakirs can throw themselves into somnam- state." I have frequently read in the newspaper of persons opening the window and being dashed to pieces in their sleep. But, waving this, we saw that Negretti struck himself against a door which was shut without his knowledge, and once hurt himself severely against a wall (p. 640. ) : that Galen was awakened by striking against a stone : and that Mr. Dubree in his sleep threw himself out of the window and broke his leg. Besides the soul must be very stupid in sleep-waking, while it is doing the more wonderful things, — seeing with the surface, it is not aware of half that is existing and doing around. ( See for instance supra, p. 635. 637. 640. sq.) Supposing that persons perceive, independently of touch, by their surface, this shows no immaterial substance independent of matter to be at work, for the material surface is con- cerned in the operation. If the mesmerised person has intelligence of the past, present, and future, in regard to others as soon as they are put into relation with him by contact or intermediate communication, the unconnected, detached, imma- terial substance must be a strange substance, which, to do these wonders, requires material bodies and their conjunction. At any rate, there is no detached im- material essence at work. But I am weary of such nonsense. Any person of common discernment, unbewildered by fancies and unfettered by the intolerance of conceit and prejudice, must perceive that all the phenomena of sleep-waking are the effects of disorder of the matter called nervous system ; coexist or are variously interchanged with all kinds of disorders of this part of the animal body; and are often attended by common bodily symptoms — heat, pain, throbbing, flushing of the head, &c. ; and arise from the same causes as other nervous diseases, — mechanical injury, derangement of some distant part, &c. j and are sometimes hereditary. Brutes are influenced by mesmerism like human beings ; and even vegetables, and inanimate matter. If mesmerism can act at a dis- tance, so, let us remember, can gravitation, affinity, and other properties of inanimate matter. The soul, in the mesmerised, has disconnected itself from the brain! the fluid (is the fluid the soul? is not fluid still matter?) has gone out in search of objects! Where is it? and when out, how happens it to learn so little? to see only what is passing with respteot .to certain persons? to see only one person perhaps dying? or does the soul of the dying person go to its friends for a moment and show itself in those remarkable cases of the fancied sight of dying distant friends ? The soul flies out under the manipulations of the magnetiser, and then flies away home again, knowing its way to the original skull, like a little material dickybird. Mr. Colquhoun's views are fit only for old divines and nursery maids. An enlightened Christian will scorn the support of any thing for his revelation but its plairi evidences ; these he will consider all-sufficient ; and above all will he scorn the assistance of mesmerism, when he reflects, — a fact which Mr. Colquhoun does not mention, that some of the greatest mesmerists, — those who believe things which I will not believe till I see them, but which he believes, -^contend that all the prophecies of the Old and New MESMERISM. 693 bulisra, and even teach the art.f Cardanus professed to be able to place himself in ecstatic insensibility. $ St. Austin tells of a priest, named Restitutus, who could become insensible and lie like a dead man whenever he pleased, insensible to blows, punctures, burning, though if persons spoke loudly he heard something like distant sounds. h We have a modern account of a similar nature: — A man in India, "is said by long practice, to have acquired the art of holding his breath by shutting his mouth and stopping the interior opening of the nostrils with his tongue ; he also abstains from solid food for some days previous to his in- terment ; so that he may not be inconvenienced by the contents of his stomach, while put up in his narrow grave ; and, moreover, he is sewn up in a bag of cloth, and the cell is lined with ma- sonry and floored with cloth, that the white ants and other insects may not easily be able to molest him. The place in which he was buried at Jaisulmer is a small building about twelve feet by eight, built of stone ; arid in the floor was a hole about three feet long, two and a half feet wide, and the same depth, or perhaps a yard deep, in which he was placed in a sitting posture, sewed up in his shroud, with his feet turned inwards towards the stomach, and his hands also pointed inwards towards the chest. Two heavy slabs of stone, five or six feet long, and broad enough to cover the mouth of the grave, so that he could Testament, and all the miracles relating to the animal frame, were only so much mesmerism, and that Christ was but an extraordinary mesmeriser. A celebrated living mesmerist asserted this in a public lecture at Montpellier, and the people soon afterwards took up stones to stone him and endeavoured to drive him out of their city. Mr. Colquhoun himself quotes at great length a fierce tirade against the Bible, calculated, I should think, to produce great irreverence of the book. Mr. Colquhoun would have rendered real service to mesmerism, if, instead of compiling so much rubbish, and displaying such ignorance and credulity, with a dogmatism and coarseness (vol. i. p. 136. ; vol. ii. p. 162. sqq.) which have prevented me from being at all delicate with respect to him, he had col- lected unquestionable facts only and gone to work experimentally, like a phi- losopher, and communicated his results to the public. * Ceremonies et Coutumes rSligieuses, t. vi. p. 188. 8 " Quoties volo, extra sensum quasi in ecstasin transeo." Dererum varietate, ], viii. c. 43. h De civitate Dei : all quoted in Isis revelata, vol. i. p. 146. sq. 694? PERIODICAL PHENOMENA. not escape, were then placed over him, and I believe a little earth was plastered over the whole, so as to make the surface of the grave smooth and compact. The door of the house was also built up, and people placed outside, so that no tricks might be played nor deception practised. At the expiration of a full month, that is to say this morning, the walling of the door was broken, and the buried man dug out of the grave ; Trevelyan's moonshee only running there in time to see the ripping open of the bag in which the man had been enclosed. He was taken out in a perfectly senseless state, his eyes closed, his hands cramped and powerless, his stomach shrunk very much, and his teeth jammed so fast together, that they were forced to open his mouth with an iron instrument to pour a little water down his throat. He gradually recovered his senses and the use of his limbs ; and when we went to see him was sitting up, supported by two men, and conversed with us in a low, gentle tone of voice, saying that ' we might bury him again for a twelvemonth if we pleased.' " The narrator is Lieut. A. H.Boileau, an officer of engineers, employed on the extensive trigonometrical survey of India. The Indian is now alive, and he voluntarily agreed with Esur-Lal, one of the ministers of the Muharawul of Jaisulmer, to be buried for a month. There may be after all some trick ; but Cornet Macnaghten once suspended him for thirteen days in a close wooden box. Previously to his interments he takes milk only, and of that no more than is sufficient to support life : and during it his hair ceases to grow.1 BESIDES sleep, various diurnal revolutions take place in the ani- mal system. We have seen that the pulse is generally thought to be quicker in the evening than in the morning : that the form- ation of carbonic acid in the lungs was found by Dr. Prout in experiments upon himself to increase from daybreak to noon, to decrease from noon to sunset : that muscular power in Dr. Edward's experiments increased during the first half of the day and decreased in the latter. I have noticed for twenty years a 1 India Journal of Medical and Physical Science. SLEEP. 695 diurnal revolution in my intellect and feelings : in the morning my intellect is stronger, as is that of all persons necessarily after repose ; but in the evening all my social feelings are strikingly more acute. I often am deeply distressed in the evening, when reflecting on the loss or absence of those dear to me, arid at the misfortunes of others not connected with me, till the very mo- ment I go to bed and fall asleep ; and in the morning can reflect upon the very same things with coolness, and perhaps am indisposed to reflect upon them at all. Again, brutes have their seasons, — periods in which certain propensities become ungovernable, — for travelling, for singing, building, for the joys of love. Morbid phenomena frequently have periodical recurrences — fever, pain, epilepsy, &c., — and the intermission may be hours, days, weeks, months, years. All brutes, probably, except those whose life is of very short duration, sleep. They sleep, however, at different periods of the twenty-four hours ; so that according to their waking period they have been divided into diurnal, crepus- cular, and nocturnal. Though darkness is not the cause of sleep, its effect upon diurnal birds is strikingly shown, if darkness supervenes in the day : I have been amused to see my birds go to sleep in the morning during a solar eclipse, and awake again when it was over. Those which prey by night, like the cat, see better in darkness from the structure of their eyes, and pass the greater part of their time in sleep ; while those which do not, are awake the greater portion of the twenty-four hours. The former are said to reverse their natural habits if in captivity, and to sleep at night. Carnivorous brutes sleep more than herbivorous. Most brutes, we are informed, sleep longer in winter than in summer. Brutes generally have a certain character of sleep ; all hares, cats, birds (a goose is a far better night watch than a dog), &c. being light sleepers : bears, badgers, turtles, &c. heavy sleepers. Some, as the hare, always sleep with their eyes open (Dr. Macnish, p. 25. sqq.): some sleep well standing, and horses have been known to stand for thirty days. Those which eat at long intervals, as ^some reptiles, have been observed to sleep for days after their enormous meal. Plants have been said to sleep, from periodic changes in the position of an entire leaf or of the several leaflets of which a compound leaf is formed. The leaf stalks bend upwards or downwards, so that the flattened surface of the leaf is elevated or depressed : the upper surface of some leaflets and the under of others is brought together. These changes are influenced by light and heat, but not primarily induced. For, in a darkened room, the leaflets of sensitive 696 HYBERNATION. plants periodically fold and open : if excluded from light by day, and exposed to strong lamp-light by night, the periods of sleep become irregular at first, but generally, at length, the leaves close by day and open at night. The alternate opening and closing of flowers is analogous, but take place at different periods in different species, and not at the same period with the same changes in the leaves. An acacia has closed its leaves and expanded its flowers at sunset, and expanded its leaves and closed its flowers at sunrise. (Prof. Henslow's Prin- ciples of Descriptive and Physiological Botany, in Lardner's Cyclopaedia, p. 17 1 . sq. ) The functions of plants are very periodical : leafing and flowering occur at certain periods. The regular return of the seasons influences their periodicity, but there is a natural independent tendency to it which, though assisted by the vicissitudes of the season, causes the changes of individuals to be considerably accelerated or retarded. (Prof. Henslow, 1. c. p. 149. sq.) The phenomena of hybernating animals, which grow dull on the approach of winter, and at length fall asleep, continuing so till the return of mild weather, and generally endeavouring to be as little exposed to noise, motion, and all causes of excitement, and to lose as little heat during the approaching cold as possible, by coiling themselves up and getting into holes and warm situations, covering themselves with leaves, &c. (and all the classes of animals, except birds, contain species that have the faculty of living in this state), are precisely analogous, though very different in degree, to those of common sleep. The sensibility and all the functions are lessened, the temperature becomes nearly as low that of the surrounding medium, the circulation slow, respiration almost or quite impercep- tible, and digestion suspended. Although all activity is thus reduced in the hybernating state, vitality becomes more tenacious, — is less easily extinguished. Mangili cut off the head and neck of a marmot in the state of hybernation in March, and put it in spirits, yet movements were evident in it at the end of half an hour, and galvanism produced strong contractions in pieces of voluntary muscles three hours after they had been cut off ; and even four elapsed before their excitability was much diminished : the heart beat for three hours after de- capitation. He made the same examination in June with a marmot which had been out of hybernation two months ; the muscles showed little excitability under galvanism at the end of two hours, and the heart ceased to beat in fifty minutes after decapitation. (Annales de Museum, t. x. p. 453. sqq.) This is what we should have expected. The augmented tenacity of life, which allows food, air, and heat to be dispensed with in whole or in part, is likely to pervade the muscles and indeed every part of the frame; just as the necessity for air, food, and heat is in all other cases proportionate to the want of tenacity of excitability in muscles and of all vital properties. The sensibility is not so dimi- nished but that " the slightest touch applied to one of the spines of the hedge- hog immediately roused it to draw a deep and sonorous inspiration ; the merest shake" induces a few respirations in the bat. (Dr. Marshall Hall, Phil. Trans. 1832.*) * This gentleman endeavours to show that an inverse ratio prevails between respiration and irritability, in which word he includes both tenacity and sus- HYBERNATION. 697 This torpidity is produced by a deficiency of external excitants, usually by cold and want of food, and, in the language of Brown, is a state of direct debility, while our ordinary sleep is one of indirect debility, — exhaustion. No struc- tural peculiarity is discoverable, which enables certain animals to exist in the torpid state. Such animals at all times produce less heat, and vary more with the surround- ing medium, than others, so that Dr. Edwards in an hour cooled a dormouse 36° by surrounding it with a freezing mixture, which caused a reduction of not more than 5° or 6° in adult birds and guinea-pigs exposed to it for even a longer time. (1. c. p. 154. sq.) Some which do not hybernate resemble them in this inferior power; mice, for example, which, therefore, at all ages and seasons make themselves nests, (p. 259.) On the other hand, hybernating animals are not all equally deficient in the power of resisting the influence of surrounding low tem- peratures ; dormice are the most so, marmots the least ; so that animals which preserve their own temperature in low media, and those which readily follow the surrounding temperature, are not widely separated, but insensibly run into each other, (1. c. p. 257. sq.) to say nothing of the inferior power of the newly-born among many of the former, and among all if born before full time, and of the various degrees of this power in different adults, and in all at different seasons of the year. (See section on animal heat.) Cold produces sleep in all, and if the sleep is indulged, death is the result in those which cannot hybernate. Those which can, become more and more torpid, by the mere continuance of the same degree of cold. A very intense degree of cold has been found actually to arouse animals in a state of torpidity, but the excitement of the functions could not con- tinue long, and death ensued, (p. 398.) It appeared necessary that respiration should be suspended in an experiment of M. De Saissy, who, by mere cold, could not produce torpor in a marmot till he closed the lid of the vessel in which it was placed, (p. 154.) Hence, exposure to carbonic acid, hydrogen, &c., in this state, was found by Spallanzini to have no ill effect upon a torpid marmot. (Rapports de VAir, t. ii. p. 207.) Yet respiration has often seemed not to cease entirely. (See Dr. Reeve, Essay on the Torpidity of Animals.) The blood has been found in a certain degree coagulated in torpid bats. (Hunter, On the Stood, p. 25.) Cold, at any time of the year, will produce the torpid state, but want of food must greatly assist in lessening the power of maintaining temper- ature. On the other hand, a continual good supply of food and warm temper- ature increases their power of evolving heat, and enables them to resist the power of cold, so that, by domestication, some cease to hybernate in the winter. (Dr. Edwards, 1. c. p. 472.) Dr. Edwards found that the temperature of hybernating animals sinks considerably during sleep, even in summer, (p. 473.) Fish, and other cold-blooded animals, will survive an intense torpidity. " The fish froze," says Captain Franklin, " as fast as they were taken out of the nets, ceptibility. I conceive that the whole is but one fact : — that animals which retain their powers well under privations, must be those which require less frequent and less abundant supplies of food, air, &c. ; and that respiration is less in them from the less necessity of stimuli to support the system. 698 HYBERNATION. and in a short time became a solid mass of ice, and by a blow or two of the hatchet were easily split open, when the intestines might be removed in one lump. If in this completely frozen state, they were thawed before the fire, they recovered their animation." " We have seen a carp recover so far as to leap about with much vigour, after it had been frozen for six and thirty hours." (Journey to the Polar Sea, p. 248.) Izaak Walton ( The Complete Angler, p, 257.) quotes Gesner for the fact of some large breams being put into a pond which was frozen the next winter into one mass of ice so that not one could be found, and all swimming about again when the pond thawed in the spring, — a thing " almost as incredible," says the sentimental sinner, as Lord Byron calls him, " as the resurrection to an atheist." Insects easily bear torpidity from cold. In Newfoundland, for example, Captain Buchan saw a frozen lake, which in the evening was all still and frozen over, but, as soon as the sun had dissolved the surface in the morning, was in a state of animation, owing, as appeared by close inspection, to myriads of flies let loose, while many still remained " infixed and frozen round." Ellis also mentions that a large black mass, like coal or peat, upon the hearth, dissolved, when thrown upon the fire, into a cloud of musquitoes. (Quarterly Review, 1821, April, p. 200.) Those insects which hybernate are not thought by Kirby and Spence (Entom. vol. ii. p. 460. sqq.) to prepare for and enter into that state solely from cold, &c., as they do so when the season comes round, although the weather be as warm as previously, and do not before this period, though the temperature chance to be as low as it usually is in the season of hybernation. Some animals become torpid on being deprived of moisture, — the most simple infusoria, rotifera, vibriones for instance. A common garden snail falls torpid if put in a dry place, and may be revived at any time by the application of a little water. Moisture has revived some animalcules after a torpidity of twenty-seven years. (Spallanzani, Opuscoli di Fisica animate e ve- getabile. ) The same is true of some of the most simple vegetables, as mosses. The microscopic wheel animal, after remaining three or four years as a shri- velled point, capable of being broken to pieces like a crystal of salt, is still re- coverable by a drop of water : and the eel of blighted corn (vibrio), after twenty or thirty years. Yet electricity destroys their capability of resuscitation. Most vegetables become torpid in winter. Many lichens and mosses, dried in her- baria, have been restored to life by moisture after a century or two. Seeds and bulbs which have remained for centuries in the bowels of the earth have sprung into life on being thrown into a more congenial soil : and bulbs, taken from the hand of a mummy found in one of the pyramids, after having been immured between two and three thousand years, produced unknown plants when sown in one of our botanic gardens. (Dr. Fletcher, 1. c. P. ii. b. p. 144.) Still more lately, a writer of rank, Baron Herberstein, who was twice ambas- sador in Russia from the Emperor Ferdinand, informs us, in his Commentaries on Russian History, that, in the northern parts of Muscovy, near the Oby, on the borders of Tartary, a people called Leucomori hybernate " like tortoises, under ground," " quite frozen," from the 27th of November to the 2Sd of April, when u they come to life again." No specimens have yet been imported into this country. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. On the Recent Improvements in the Art of distinguishing the various DISEASES OF THE HEART. With Copper-plates, illustrating the chief structural changes. On the EFFICACY OF HYDROCYANIC ACID in Affections of the Stomach, &c. &c. The INTRODUCTORY LECTURE of a Course upon State Medicine. An ADDRESS delivered in the University of London, on the Opening of the Session of 1832-3. 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