

252 Evolution and Adaptation 



Romanes, who later went over the same ground, in part 

 under the immediate direction of Brown-Sequard himself, has 

 made some important observations in regard to these results, 

 many of which he was able to confirm. 



He did not repeat the experiment of cutting the cord, but 

 he found that, to produce epilepsy, it was only necessary to 

 cut the sciatic nerve. The " epileptiform habit " does not 

 appear in the animal until some time after the operation ; it 

 lasts for some weeks or months, and then disappears. The 

 attacks are not brought on spontaneously, but by " irritating 

 a small area of the skin behind the ear on the same side of 

 the body as that on which the sciatic nerve had been divided." 

 The attack lasts for only a few minutes, and during it the 

 animal is convulsed and unconscious. Romanes thinks that 

 the injury to the sciatic nerve, or to the spinal cord, produces 

 some sort of a change in the cerebral centres, " and that it is 

 this change — whatever it is, and in whatever part of the 

 brain it takes place — which causes the remarkable phenomena 

 in question." 



In regard to Brown-Sequard's statements, made in the 3d 

 and the 4th paragraphs, in respect to the results of the 

 operation of cutting the cervical sympathetic, Romanes had 

 not confirmed the results when his manuscript went to press ; 

 but soon afterward, after Romanes' death, a note was printed 

 in Nature by Dr. Hill, announcing that two guinea-pigs from 

 Romanes' experiment had been born, " both of which ex- 

 hibited a well-marked droop of the upper eyelid. These 

 guinea-pigs were the offspring of a male and female in both 

 of which I had produced for Dr. Romanes, some months 

 earlier, a droop of the left upper eyelid by division of the 

 left cervical sympathetic nerve. This result is a corroboration 

 of the series of Brown-Sequard experiments on the inheritance 

 of acquired characters." 



Romanes states that he also found that injury to a par- 

 ticular spot of the restiform bodies is quickly followed by a 



