SECT. III.] FOLLOWERS OF GALEN. 369 



motionless, its light-giving property is poured forth into the 

 ambient air ? He observes, however, that he cannot decide ab- 

 solutely on these questions, but only proposes them for general 

 discussion. 



SECTION III. THE FOLLOWERS OF GALEN. 



The Arabs distributed the animal functions amongst the 

 ventricles of the brain, so that one of the anterior ventricles 

 they made the seat of common sensation, the other of the 

 imaginative faculty, the third ventricle was the seat of the 

 understanding, and the fourth of memory. This was also the 

 doctrine of Benivenius, who, in confirmation of it, relates 

 the case of a certain thief, often caught stealing, who never 

 remembered his previous offences ; after death it was found 

 that he had no cerebellum. This doctrine was also main- 

 tained by Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas, and other theo- 

 logians ; and although disavowed by Vesalius and other phy- 

 sicians, was again adopted by others. 



The Italian and other anatomists who flourished after the 

 Arabians and the revival of learning, scarcely deviated from 

 Galenas views in assigning the function of the nervous system, 

 and in particular of the encephalon. Berengarius, Massa, 

 Fernelius, Vesalius, Stephanus, Fuchsius, Columbus, Valverda, 

 Fallopius, Goiter, Vidus Vidius, Varolius, Felix Platerus, 

 Piccolhomineus, Laurentius, Riolanus, Spigelius, Cartesius, 

 &c., agree with Galen passim^ although some have their 

 peculiarities. Fernelius followed the doctrine advocated by 

 Erasistratus in his youth, that the sensory nerves arise from 

 the membranes and the motor from the substance of the brain. 

 Vesalius was not anxious to determine whether the animal 

 spirit is conducted through certain channels of the nerves, or 

 along the sides of the nerves, or whether the vis cerebri reaches 

 the parts merely by the continuity of the nerves. Fallo- 

 pius denied that the brain is moved by a systole and diastole, 

 since he had never witnessed the movement, either in animals 

 or in wounded men. Columbus said that the use of the cir- 

 cumvolutions of the brain was for the sake of lightness, so that 

 it might the more readily be agitated by systole and diastole ; 

 and that the animal spirits derived from the air drawn in 

 through the nostrils and commingled with the vital spirit, arise 



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