LITERARY NOTICES. 



Visual Cortical Areas of Laura Bridgeman. 



In the Journal of Psychology for August, Professor Qonaldson dis- 

 cusses the data toward the location of the cerebral visual area derived 

 from measurements of the thickness of the cortex on the two sides as 

 compared with that of similar areas of normal brains. It will be remem- 

 bered that vision in the left eye was lost at the age of two years, while 

 that of the right persisted up to the eighth. It was assumed that the 

 thinning of the cortex was due to an arrest of development, that this 

 thinning would extend over the entire visual area, that, in the regions 

 compared, the disturbance in vision was the principal influence acting to 

 arrest unequally the growth of the cortex, that the cortex would be most 

 thinned on the side of the brain opposite to the eye and nerve affected, 

 and that the visual area in the normal brain gradually merges into the 

 surrounding areas. The outline of the area thus determined is described 

 as follows: "Commencing where the cephalic stipe of the interparietal 

 sulcus cuts the mantle-edge and passing latero-cephalad along the latter 

 to its junction with the inferior ventrocentral sulcus, the boundary then 

 takes the shortest line to the ascending ramus of the first temporal sulcus, 

 following this to its union with the sulcus from the mesal end of which 

 an arbitrary line turns toward the fourth temporal sulcus, running paral- 

 lel with this sulcus it cuts the gyrus lingualis so as to leave the ventral 

 third of the latter in connection with the fourth temporal sulcus and con- 

 tinues to a point just ventrad of the cephalic end of the calcarine fissure, 

 which it joins by an arbitrary line running dorsad, it then passes caudad 

 along the calcarine fissure to the junction of the same with the parieto- 

 occipital sulcus, and finally along this fissure to the mantle-edge, then 

 cephalad along the latter to the point of departure." The author claims 

 a close agreement with the area determined by Gowers by the method of 

 limited lesions. " The cuneus and occipital lobe form the most funda- 

 mental portion of the visual area, hence would be earliest developed and 

 more resistant to disturbing influences." In the outermost area the alter- 



