CHAPTER I. 



MATERIAL AND METHODS OF EXAMINATION. 



Material. 



IT was my original intention when this investigation was begun to rely solely on normal 

 material, but as the work grew and points bearing on cortical localisation multiplied, it 

 became more and more plain that the value of the research would be immeasurably increased, 

 if as many points as possible concerning individual areas, and suggested by the normal 

 appearances, were amplified and verified by an examination of the brain in diseased conditions 

 which might be supposed to occasion alterations in those areas ; this has been done, and 

 I hope it will be agreed that the results more than justify the additional labour expended. 

 Further, at the time when I was devoting attention to the motor area, some brains from 

 the anthropoid ape family came to hand and their examination has supplied a useful and 

 instructive check to many of the findings in the human subject. 



The material, therefore, is divisible into three categories, namely, normal human, normal 

 comparative, and pathological. 



A. The Normal Human Material consisted of three cerebral hemispheres completely 

 examined for both nerve cells and nerve fibres, three hemispheres completely examined for 

 fibres only and two hemispheres partially examined for nerve fibres and nerve cells. 



The ages of the individuals ranged from 19 to 48 years. 



I must explain that six of the above-mentioned hemispheres were taken from persons 

 who died while of unsound mind in Rainhill Asylum ; two only came from a sane individual, 

 and were supplied from Mill Road Infirmary by the courtesy of Dr Nathan Raw, they were 

 removed from a male aged 36, certified as being of the average standard intellectually and 

 physically, and as dying from acute lobar pneumonia after an illness of seven days. It 

 may be urged that the mere fact of a person having suffered from insanity is sufficient in 

 itself to condemn the brain as unsuitable material for an investigation of this description. 

 In reply to this, while I confess on looking back that I should have preferred that more 

 brains in the series were from individuals free from mental disorder, it is almost needless 

 for me to say thai I should m.it have continued to employ the insane brain had I not 

 felt that the objections to its use were based more on sentiment than reality, and had I 

 not convinced myself from a lengthy experience in the pathological laboratory attached to 



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