280 M. de Blainville's Report on Dr. Foville's 



Although in this method, in common with the preceding, 

 the examination was superficial, and limited to the form and 

 proportion of the parts, it necessarily led to the assigning of 

 particular functions to at least some of the parts of the organ ; 

 the coincidence being observed between the intellectual peculi- 

 aritiesof this or that animal, and the development of this or that 

 part of its nervous system. Errors would necessarily be com- 

 mitted ; but it is evident that by this means, after a greater or 

 less number of unsuccessful attempts, some certain results 

 might be obtained. 



A third method soon presented itself to the biologist; — one 

 which could not fail to be of much greater importance and 

 value in relation to the physiological anatomy of the brain. It 

 consists in carefully studying the connection between the more 

 or less chronic morbid alterations of this central and essential 

 part of the nervous system, and the functions of the intellect, 

 of general or special sensibility, and of locomotion, in order 

 to advance from functions to organs ; since it was impossible 

 from the organs to infer their functions. But, in order pro- 

 perly to employ this method, it was necessary, as will be readily 

 perceived, that the healthy or regular state of the organ should 

 be exactly determined, as well as the variations to which it is 

 liable, both as a whole and in its parts, according to age, sex, 

 temperament, individual peculiarity, or variety of race ; and 

 this not with respect to form only, but with relation also to 

 intimate structure. Thus we are brought back to the necessity 

 of perfecting the first method. 



This step was still more necessary to regulate the use of a 

 fourth, and much more difficult, method ; namely, that of ex- 

 periments consisting of operations by which, in general, the 

 parts are more or less suddenly altered, — a method which is 

 liable to be still more deceptive in this than in any other branch 

 of physiology. Hence the very contradictory opinions which 

 we find adopted by experimental physiologists. In fact, when 

 we reflect that the parts of the brain are neither limited, nor 

 perfectly circumscribed ; that in wounding or removing these 

 parts with the bistoury we do not see what we are touching ; 

 that the action is immediate, violent, and sudden ; that the 

 consequent disturbance of function in the living animal being 

 complex, cannot be the faithful and certain interpreter of the 

 injury, — we may conceive how difficult is the application of this 

 mode of arriving at the true knowledge of the functions of the 

 centre of the nervous system, however skilful and well-prac- 

 tised the hands of the experimenter may be. 



These observations are also to a certain degree applicable 

 to the method of employing medicinal substances for the pur- 

 pose 



