390 MUSCULAR MOTION. 



Willis professed a similar notion, and that he considered the cerebral 

 lobes to be the point of departure for the movements, and the cere- 

 bellum the seat of sensibility. In his first volume, however, he had 

 cited more correctly the views of Willis. " Willis says positively," 

 he remarks, " that the corpora striata are the seat of perception; 

 the medullary mass of the brain, that of memory and imagination; 

 the corpus callosum, that of reflection ; and the cerebellum, the source 

 of the motive spirits." Willis, in truth, regarded the cerebellum as 

 supplying animal spirits to the nerves of involuntary functions, as the 

 heart, intestinal canal, &c. The opinions of Foville and Pinel Grand- 

 Champ are, however, subverted by the experiments of Rolando, 

 Flourens, and Magendie, which show, that sensation continues, not- 

 withstanding serious injury to, and even entire removal of, the cere- 

 bellum. 



By other physiologists, the two functions have been assigned re- 

 spectively to the cineritious x and medullary parts of the brain ; some 

 asserting, that the seat of sensibility is more especially in the latter, 

 and the motive force in the former. According to Treviranus, the 

 more medullary matter an animal has in its brain and spinal marrow, 

 in proportion to the cineritious, the greater will be its sensibility. To 

 this, however, M. Desmoulins 1 properly objects, that in many animals, 

 the spinal marrow is composed exclusively of medullary matter [?] ; and 

 consequently they ought not only to be the most sensible of all, but to 

 be wholly devoid of the power of motion. Others, again, as MM. 

 Foville and Pinel Grand- Champ have reversed the matter; assigning 

 sensibility to the cineritious substance, and motility to the medullary. 

 From these conflicting opinions, it is obviously impossible to sift any- 

 thing categorical; except that we are ignorant of the special seat of 

 these functions. A part of the discrepancy, in the results, must be 

 ascribed to organic differences in the animals which were the subjects 

 of the experiments. This was strikingly exemplified in those instituted 

 by M. Magendie, which have been cited. Similar contrariety exists 

 in the experiments and hypotheses, regarding the particular parts of 

 the encephalon, that are concerned in determinate movements of the 

 body. The results of many of those are, indeed, so strange, that did 

 they not rest on eminent authority they might be classed among the 

 romantic. 



It has been already remarked, that Rolando considered the cerebel- 

 lum to be an electro-motive apparatus, producing the whole of the gal- 

 vanic fluid necessary for the motions. M. Flourens, on the other hand, 

 from similar experiments, independently performed, and without any 

 knowledge of those of Rolando, affirmed it to be the regulator and 

 balancer of the locomotive movements ; and he asserted, that, when 

 removed from an animal, it could neither maintain the erect attitude, 

 nor execute any movement of locomotion; nor, although possessing all 

 its sensations, could it fly from danger it saw menacing it. The same 

 view has been advocated by M. Bouillaud, who has detailed eighteen 

 experiments, in which he cauterized the cerebellum, and found that, in 



1 Anatomie des Systemes Nerveux,&c., Paris, 1825. 



