344 MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS. 



we find, that such experimenters not only disagree among themselves, but 

 different experiments performed by the same physiologist contradict each 

 other. Some of the more particular points which have been thus attempted 

 to be established are a relation between injuries of certain deep-seated cere- 

 bral parts, and the disturbance of equilibrium in muscular motion. Thus 

 Fodera found that removal of part of the cerebellum was followed by motion 

 backwards, but removal of the whole cerebellum caused the total disap- 

 pearance of the power of motion. Magendie, however, found that a duck 

 deprived of its whole cerebellum could still swim, but only backwards; while 

 division of one crus of the cerebellum in an animal, was attended by the 

 curious phaenomenon of a constant rotatory motion of the body on its axis 

 towards the side wounded. Flourens, who was one of the earliest investi- 

 gators in this line, details many such experiments, and acknowledges a very 

 curious and unexpected result, which, in fact, at once exposes the liability to 

 fallacy in attempting to draw conclusions from such experiments. He found 

 that division of the semicircular canals in the ears of birds (or rather the 

 membranes lining these canals) was followed by abnormal motions, resemb- 

 ling those consequent on dividing certain of the deeper seated parts of the 

 brain; so that the conclusion was irresistible, that these canals had the same 

 right to be regarded as regulators of muscular motions as any parts of the 

 brain, a conclusion obviously absurd, and which could not have followed had 

 the method of investigation been correct. Bouillaud, in instituting experi- 

 ments of this description, has devoted a particular series to investigating the 

 functions of the anterior lobes of the brain, and although the result at which 

 he has arrived is too vague and general to advance our knowledge much, still 

 it is so far satisfactory as to lead to something like a determinate result, and 

 one that is in accordance with results obtained by other modes of investiga- 

 tion. According to Bouillaud, ablation of the anterior part of the brain was 

 always attended by a state resembling idiotcy, the power of discriminating 

 external objects being totally lost, although the faculties of sensation seemed 

 still to exist; and hence the conclusion that the anterior part of the brain is 

 the seat of the several intellectual faculties. Bouillaud was so far fortunate 

 in this experiment, that in removing the anterior lobe of the brain he sepa- 

 rated a part which possesses a distinction of function; — but how vague the 

 information imparted— no attempt to locate a single one of " the several 

 intellectual functions," the seat of all of which is placed in this anterior part. 

 Such attempt, however, must have been vain by such a method, and the 

 amount of information obtained by vivisection must after all be allowed to 

 be but small indeed. Accidents occurring in the human subject, occasionally 

 afford a rude specimen of the result of such method as applied to investi- 

 gating the functions of the brain in man — but here the result is not only 

 curious, but somewhat startling ; for the loss of large portions of brain from 

 the anterior lobes is recorded to have occurred without any disturbance of 

 the intellectual powers. Some remarkable cases, indeed, of injury of the 

 brain are on record, which at present appear inexplicable upon any view of 

 the subject, for they would go, not only to disprove the uses of particular 

 parts of the brain, but the utility of brains at all ; but in thus proving too 

 much, they obviously prove nothing. Farther and more careful observations 

 are necessary; in particular, attention should be directed to ascertain whether 

 both hemispheres of the brain be alike injured, as we know that one side 



