The Functions of the, Brain
:Type:REVIEWS :author:David Ferrier, M.D., F.R.S.
London Smith, Elder, & Co.
Dr Ferrier is well known as an indefatigable and painstaking cerebral physiologist, and in his recent work we have a detailed and comprehensive account of all that is known relating to the functions of the nervous system. He also furnishes us with the particulars of the experiments which he has recently made, with the view of elucidating some of the most difficult problems in physiology. He has moreover, in common with other physiological psychologists, had the presumption to suppose that the recent researches and conflicting experiments made both in this country and on the Continent, with regard to the precise centres of sensation and motion, warrant us in inferring that the mental faculties are but functions of the brain. Whilst fully admitting the credit due to Dr Ferrier for his unwearied industry, we are at a loss to understand the exaggerated and unqualified praise which has been accorded to him by the medical press. One recent reviewer in the Lancet asserts that Dr Ferrier “has thrown a flood of light” on his subject. He fail to see this, and fear that the flood of light existed only in the imagination of the writer. We are glad to find, howevei, that Dr Ferrier himself does not speak in so confident a man- ner, for he modestly and candidly observes, in referring, in his introductory chapter, to recent researches, that ” W e are still only on the threshold of the inquiry; and it may be questioned whether the time has even yet arrived for an attempt to ex- plain the mechanism of the brain and its functions. There have been no great discoveries since those of Sir Charles Bell and Marshall Hall. Modern observers have only followed in the wake of Sir Charles Bell; they have done little more than trace the nervous tracts of sensation and motion which he discovered, somewhat nearer to the periphery of the brain.
Moreover, the conclusions drawn by Dr terrier from his numerous experiments rest on insufficient grounds. In electri- fying different parts of the cerebral substance, it is very possi- ble that the currents do not excite the cells, but the contiguous nervous fibres. It must also be remembered that if a cineritious portion of the brain be cut away, movements may be caused by electrifying the white texture of the convolutions. If, then, the centres of motion and sensation cannot be determined, what right have Dr Ferrier and other physiological psychologists to assume that they can locate the higher faculties of the mind in the grey cortex of the brain ? One of the highest authorities, Dr. Brown-Sequard, has concluded, after years of patient research, that the brain acts as a whole and not in parts. It does seem most illogical to suppose that a substance like the grey cortex of the brain, which is of a uniform structure throughout, can be portioned out into different organs ; and yet we are expected to believe that one portion is the seat of what is named ideation f a manufactory of ideas) another of memory, and so on. This is a revival of Grail’s system, and the diagram of a skull, mapped out in divisions, given in Dr Ferrier’s book, reminds us of the phrenological busts which were so conspicuous many years ago in Deville’s shop in the Strand.
Before concluding, we cannot refrain from noticing a useless and inconclusive experiment which Dr Ferrier made on a monkey. After removing the whole of the occipital lobes of its brain, he gravely tells us that it impaired the animal’s appetite. The wonder is that poor Jacko, after such a shock to his nervous system, had any appetite left.
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