356 MENTAL FACULTIES. 



integrity. It must, however, be admitted, that the explanation of the 

 craniologist on these topics is feeble and unsatisfactory. It is gratui- 

 tously assuming, that observation in such cases has been insufficient ; 

 and if he finds, that the fact in question militates against the faith he 

 has embraced, he is too apt to deny its authenticity altogether. With 

 all the candour which Gall possessed, this failing is too perceptible in 

 his writings. 



In many of the cases of severe injury of the brain on record, but one 

 hemisphere was implicated ; and, accordingly, the impunity of the 

 intellectual and moral manifestations has been ascribed to the cerebrum 

 being a double organ ; so that, although one hemisphere may have been 

 injured, the other, containing similar organs, may be capable of car- 

 rying on the function ; as one eye can still execute vision, when the 

 other is diseased or lost. Cases, however, have occurred in which the 

 faculty was lost, when only one hemisphere was implicated. One in- 

 teresting example, the author heard Mr. Combe relate. A gentleman 

 suddenly forgot all words but yes and no; and after death a lesion was 

 found in the left hemisphere of the brain, involving the phrenological 

 organ of language. The explanation by Mr. Combe of this phenome- 

 non is plausible, but not probable. It appears to me, he observed, 

 " that the lesion's being on one side only accounts for his power of 

 understanding words, while he had not the power of employing them." 1 

 Many cases, again, are recorded, in which injury was sustained by both 

 hemispheres, and in corresponding parts, yet the faculties persisted ; 2 

 whence Muller has concluded, that the histories of injuries of the 

 head are directly opposed to the existence of special regions of the 

 brain, destined for special mental faculties. An interesting case of 

 this nature was reported to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris, 

 by M. Blaquiere of Mexico. 3 A child, playing with a loaded pistol, 

 discharged it accidentally. The ball struck his younger brother, four 

 years and a half old ; entered at one temporal region, and came out at 

 the other. For twenty-six days after the accident, the child apparently 

 possessed all its intellectual faculties. Memory and judgment did not 

 seem to be in the slightest degree impaired: the boy was as gay as usual ; 

 had appetite, and slept pretty well. The wounds were both situate about 

 an inch and a half below the external commissures of the eyes. On 

 the 26th day, symptoms of cerebral inflammation supervened, and the 



1 Combe's Lectures, by Boardman, p. 261, New York. 



2 For many such cases, see Longet, Anatomie et Physio logie du Systeme Nerveux, i. 670, 

 Paris, 1 842 ; and a remarkable one by Mr Ford, and another by Dr. Cowan, copied into the 

 Amer. Journ. of the Med. Sciences, Jan., 1846. See, also, a fatal case of disorganization of the 

 brain, without corresponding derangement of the intellectual and moral acts, by Dr. G. W. 

 Boerstler, of Lancaster, Ohio, in Dunglison's American Medical Intelligencer, No. 1, for April 

 1, 1837. Mr. Combe, in his work, " Notes on the United States of North America, during a 

 phrenological visit in 1838-39-40 ;" Phila., 184] refers to a case of injury of both hemispheres, 

 which, he thinks, from examining the case, was confined almost entirely to the organs of 

 Eventuality. The man recovered, and was exhibited to Mr. Cornbe with a history of his 

 case by Drs. Knight and Hooker, of New Haven. In the opinion of the latter, the intellec- 

 tual faculties were not impaired. Vol. ii. p. 276. See, also, connected with this subject, Dr. 

 A. L. Wigan, The Duality of the Mind proved by the Structure, Functions, and Diseases of 

 the Brain, &c.. Lond., 1 844. 



3 Comptes Rendus, 23d Sept., 1844. 



