Literary Notices. xxi 



impressions are made or memories are accumulated depends on the in- 

 tensity of the impression or stimukis as well as on the lack of compet- 

 itive impressions. This may mean that the amount of irradiation of 

 the stimulus is the factor. At any rate it is easily intelligible that the 

 vestiges will be first disturbed and that they may in time be renewed, 

 explaining the frequent return of the power of localization and coordi- 

 nation where the tactile sense is not wholly destroyed. 



The anatomical structure of the cortex is, so far as can now be gath- 

 ered, conformable to the necessity imposed by the construction of the 

 pathological data. Not only is each cell brought into rapport with 

 many others by the neurodendrites but these connections are in both 

 rank and file. For every cell that gives rise to a kinesodic fibre or 

 neuraxon there are many which form its sphere of influence. It is in 

 accord with the dynamic theory of nervous action to suppose that in 

 the reaction between the numerous aesthesodic cells inter se and the 

 other reaction between these cells and the motor initiatory cells is the 

 immediate occasion of consciousness. c. l. h. 



Is the Decorticated Dog Conscious i 



It is unfortunate that so few of the students of brain anatomy and 

 physiology are also acquainted with the first principles of psychology. 

 The result of this one-sided furnishing is often a deplorable inability to 

 construe the results of experiment and pathology. If this were all, the 

 result would have less significance but upon the false conclusions thus 

 reached a superstructure is often raised, vitiated throughout by the 

 same fundamental fallacy. In no instance has this lack of psychologic- 

 al insight been more evident than in the various attempts to explain the 

 results of total or maximal extirpation of the hemispheres. Every one 

 will, of course, think at once of the celebrated instance of nearly com- 

 plete removal of the hemispheres by Goltz and the subsequent reports 

 by that author and Dr. Edinger. After eighteen and a half months it 

 would seem that the immediate results of the operation could safely be 

 considered as eliminated and the results, excluding degeneration phe- 

 nomena, might be taken as those normal to the brain minus the hem- 

 ispheres. Even so, the purely physiological questions are by no means 

 as simple as might be supposed from current discussions. For one 

 thing, the great inhibitory influence of the cerebral hemispheres being 

 removed, nothing is more certain than that the infracortical centres 

 would not operate in the same way that they normally do in the unin- 

 jured brain. Again, the effect of the concentration of stimuli intended 

 for the great terminal projection system upon one of a lower order 



