CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 333 
ever skilfully performed, the organs investigated must have their 
functions greatly deranged by the injuries unavoidably inflicted by 
the anatomist ; doubtless, some of the phenomena are modified by 
such violence, but, notwithstanding, they are assumed and described 
to be the normal qualities and performances. This is an evil more 
easily complained of than averted or redressed; yet it happens 
oftener than it is allowed for, and, with very astute professors, oc- 
easionally goes for less than it is worth.* 
Far more stress is frequently laid on a circumstance of no deteri- 
orating consequence to science, although not with the same impunity 
to humanity, which is thereby impeached to an unmerited extent, 
and sometimes with more exaggeration than reason, or altogether 
without truth and justice. It is said, the alleged cruelty of many 
experiments withholds their justification. Now it may have hap- 
pened that some were of unnecessary severity, or occasionally un- 
called for ; but these charges, if sustained, impugn neither the neces- 
sity nor usefulness of the majority, and cannot be objected against 
more than a very few. No man of morality, and therefore of 
religion and humanity, can look with indifference on the infliction 
of pain, nor without abhorrence and indignation when the cruelty 
is malignant or wanton. We disclaim the imputation of insincerity 
and unworthy metives, for some of those persons whose tenderness 
leads to the complaint ; for we well know many estimable indivi- 
duals whose sensibility prevents them from assenting to the proceed- 
ings (objected to as barbarous) on the grounds of expediency, use- 
fulness, or even admitted necessity. Perhaps it is expecting too 
much to require they should regard approvingly, under any circum- 
stances, what they so unqualifiedly condemn ; nevertheless, candour 
demands a mitigation of their severe denunciations until their con- 
sistency shall be more apparent than their sympathy. Of such ob- 
* In operations on the brain of living animals it must be difficult, or ra- 
ther impossible, to remove, or destroy one cerebral organ, without prejudice 
to others ; and hence error, or confusion, in the results. Gall asks, “ Where 
is the anatomist or physiologist who precisely knows all the origins, the whole 
extent, all the ramifications, all the connections of an organ. You remove 
the cerebellum, at the same moment you severely injure the medulla oblon- 
gata and spinalis; you injure the tuber annulare ; you injure the tubercula 
quadrigemina; consequently your results relate not merely to all these parts, 
but to all those which communicate with them, either directly or indirectly. 
You think you have insulated the tubercles; but these tubercles have con- 
nection with the corpora olivaria, the medulla oblongata, the cerebellum, the 
sense of vision, and many convolutions; the thalami optici, the corpora stri- 
ata, are connected below with the crura cerebri, tuber annulare, the medulla 
oblongata, the pyramids, and the spinal marrow ;—above, with all the cere- 
bral membranes, all the convolutions, the non-fibrous grey substance of their 
surface with the different commissures, as the anterior commissure, the great 
commissure, &c. &c. ‘Thus, there does not exist a cerebral part which we do 
not know to have numerous connections with other parts. I do not except 
even the corpora mamillaria, the pineal gland, the infundibulum, &e. The 
connections yet unknown are unquestionably yet more numerous.” “ Sir 
Charles Bell has lately imitated Gall in objecting to vivisection as a means 
of discovery.”—Vide Elliotson’s translation of Blumenbach. 
