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



whether a particular morbid symptom corresponds or not with 

 a particular alteration in the development or structure of a 

 certain part of the brain, if the healthy state of that part is 

 not accurately known, and if, further, we are ignorant of the 

 limits to the variations of which that part is susceptible ? Can 

 it be possible to point out the steps of degradation in the scale 

 of animals, with respect to this most important part of the or- 

 ganization, if the point whence we are to set out has not been 

 justly estalDlished ? How shall we be able to draw a conclu- 

 sion respecting the use of a part, from expei'iments made on 

 animals, in which we are not sure that the part in question 

 exists ? 



We do not hesitate therefore to assert, that notwithstanding 

 the works of greater or less importance which (with more or less 

 candour and accuracy) have within a few years been published 

 by anatomists of all the nations of Europe, the cerebro-spinal 

 nervous system is a field in which there still remains to be made, 

 not a scanty gleaning but an ample harvest. But for this pur- 

 pose it is essential that our researches should be directed to 

 the human subject. It is in our own species alone that we 

 can analyse the functions allotted to the nervous system, — man 

 almost exclusively being subject to those diseases and altera- 

 tions of the brain, of which the effects can be appreciated by 

 comparison. It is then a happy omen for the work of Dr. 

 Foville, to observe, that his researches on the brain have com- 

 menced with the adult healthy brain of man. In order that 

 his labours may be justly appreciated, we beg leave, before 

 stating our analysis of them, to offer to the Academy a sum- 

 mary sketch of our present knowledge in this branch. 



We shall not go further back than to the labours of Drs. 

 Gall and Spurzheim ; since to do so would be of no use on the 

 present occasion. Besides, this anal3'sis has aleady been made, 

 and indeed often with that rigorous justice which tends rather 

 to rob a living discoverer than to enrich his predecessor. 



It will doubtless be i-ecollected that Gall and Spurzheim re- 

 gard the spinal cord as consisting of ganglia, or masses of grey 

 substance which they call nervous matter, corresponding in 

 number to the px'incipal vertebrae, and giving rise to the spinal 

 nerves which in their size bear a proportion to the ganglia. 

 Thus with them the superior bulbous extremity of the spinal 

 cord is one of these ganglia giving origin to all the sensorial 

 nerves, and also to two bundles of fibres, of which the upper, 

 the corpus rectiforme, goes to form the cerebellum ; and the in- 

 ferior, the corpus pyramidale, the cerebrum. For this purpose 

 these bundles are augmented by new fibres, which take their 

 origin in the grey matter constituting the corpus dentatum or 



rhomboideum, 



