BROWN-SEQUARD ON THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM. 267 



XXIX.— Course oe Lectures on the Physiology and Patho- 

 logy of the Central Nervous System. Delivered at the Royal 

 College of Surgeons of England, in May, 1858, by C. E. Brown- 

 Sequard, M.D., F.K.S., &c. &c. London. Williams and Norgate. 

 8vo. pp. 276, 1860. 



" These Lectures contain the results of the work of almost all my 

 life, since I began to study medicine,''' so says Dr. Brown- Sequard 

 in his preface : those, therefore, who have studied the numerous 

 memoirs of this able Physiologist, will expect to find little absolutely 

 new in the pages of this book. That large class of readers, however, 

 whose varied occupations prevent them from following such investi- 

 gations through the reports of societies and the pages of periodicals, 

 will be glad to find embodied in one volume, the most important 

 results of the labour of Dr. Brown-Sequard's life. Since the year 

 1S38, Dr. Brown- Sequard, has devoted all his disposable time to the 

 study of the great questions connected with the physiology of the 

 nervous centres. How vast, during this period, have the changes 

 been in the aspects of many of these questions ; how different the 

 views put forward both as to the minute structure and functions of 

 the nervous centres; how discordant the opinions of the ablest micro- 

 scopists ; how inconclusive the reasoning of various physiologists ! All 

 this shows, at least, the amazing intricacies and difficulties which 

 surround the subject, and when we look to the records of the past, 

 and contemplate the alterations which we are now forced to make 

 concerning opinions and views, which some twenty or thirty years 

 ago were regarded as perfectly established, we indeed perceive the 

 folly of attempting to dogmatize upon such questions. If we turn to 

 the ' Eeport on the Physiology of the Nervous system,' presented to 

 the British Association at its Cambridge meeting in 1833, by Dr. 

 "W. C. Henry, of Manchester, we find that although this was the work 

 of a most careful and accomplished gentleman, many theories were 

 assumed by him as having been at that time unquestionably proved, 

 which are now overturned. In the concluding recapitulation of that 

 report, as among the "most important facts that have been/idly 

 ascertained in the physiology of the nervous system," the author 

 asserts, that the function of the spinal cord is simply that of a con- 

 ductor of motive impulses from the brain to the nerves supplying the 

 muscles, and of sensitive impressions from the surface of the body to 

 the sensorium commune ; and that these two vital offices reside in 

 distinct portions of the spinal medulla, the propagation of motion in 

 its anterior columns, the transmission of sensations in its posterior 

 columns. How changed upon this subject are the ideas of to-day ! 



Before entering upon an analysis of the opinions of Dr. Brown- 

 Sequard, on the physiology of this nervous centre (the spinal cord), 

 it may not be amiss to state what other views have been put forward, 



