RECENT NEUROLOGICAL PROGRESS. 287 



implying too much or indicating too little. Authorities 

 who represent in some respects the poles of opinion on 

 cerebral physiology, nevertheless agree in deprecating 

 altogether such nomenclature as "motor cortex," "sensory 

 cortex ". The view no doubt in the minds of all has been 

 that of a "through" station, " diastaltic " to use the old 

 terminology ; but some in laying stress on the outcome (on 

 the "expressions" as Waller says) have briefly used the 

 word "motor" (Ferrier), while others laying stress on the 

 ingoings (the "impressions") have briefly written "sensory" 

 (Schiff). For all this difficult aspect of the subject, and 

 indeed for many others, the reader should turn to the lucid 

 essay by Waller, 1 a critical exposition of the whole matter 

 and the best. In concluding here the brief notice of 

 Munk's experimental observations and teaching it must 

 however be remarked that, believing the occipital, the tem- 

 porosphenoidal and the Rolandic regions of the cortex to 

 be of co-equal physiological valency, he unlike many does 

 not exclude from the Rolandic region the "seat of con- 

 sciousness ". 



An interesting point, which it would be especially 

 interesting to hear Munk discuss, though nowhere so far as 

 I know does he allude to it, is the long difference of 

 latency discovered by Schafer 2 to exist between the reaction 

 upon the same muscles as obtained, from the occipital or 

 from the parietal regions, both according to Munk on the 

 same physiological level. 



It is notable that the activity of reactions involving the 

 cortex, if we examine them in measure of sensation (so far 

 as that is possible, i.e., by least observable difference 

 between two sensations), increases most rapidly for stimuli 

 nearest to liminal intensity. - If, taking Munk's view of the 

 Rolandic cortex, we then assume the Weber-Fechner law 

 holds also true for its centrifugal discharges, these, even if 

 forwarded still in obedience with the law by spinal cells, 

 will when arriving at muscle evoke, to judge by the curve 



1 Brain, p. 329, 1892. 



2 International Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, 1888, vol. v., pt. iv. 



