x] of the Nervous System. 269 



Descartes was a philosopher, not a physiologist. He took 

 interest in the problems of the living body only so far as they 

 bore on the greater problems of the why and the wherefore of 

 the universe. He entered into the details of vital functions 

 and mingled in the controversies concerning them incidentally 

 only, with the view of establishing or supporting his philo- 

 sophical position. We must now turn back again to the 

 physiologists proper. 



Though Malpighi as we have seen devoted much attention 

 to the histology of the nervous system, we find in his writings 

 very little concerning its functions ; and indeed an inquiry of a 

 kind which must sooner or later lead the investigator into 

 baseless speculations, and, at that time at least, any research 

 into the properties of the nervous tissues seemed to be such, 

 was wholly uncongenial to the character of his mind. Nor did 

 this part of physiology appear to offer great attractions to many 

 of the other men of the seventeenth century who were devoting 

 themselves to exact anatomical and physiological research. 

 One man alone perhaps during this century stands out promi- 

 nently for his labours on the structure and functions of the 

 brain, namely Thomas Willis. 



Born at Great Bedwyn in Wiltshire on Jan. 27, 1621, 

 Willis was educated at Oxford, where he took his M.A. degree 

 in 1642. Remaining at Oxford, he was led in 1646, while 

 that city was " garrisoned for the King," to employ his enforced 

 leisure in the study of physic ; and he eventually took up the 

 profession of medicine. An enthusiastic royalist and staunch 

 churchman, he was rewarded, upon the Restoration, by being 

 made Sedleian professor at Oxford ; and for some years he was 

 active there, practising his profession, fulfilling the duties of 

 his chair, and pursuing scientific researches. He was con- 

 spicuous among the band of men, who in those years laid at 

 Oxford the foundations of the Royal Society. In 1666 however 

 he moved to London, "went," says Wood, "to the city of 

 " Westminster, took a tenement in Saint Martin's Lane, and in 

 " a very short time after he became so noted and so infinitely 

 " resorted to, that never any physician before went beyond him 

 " or got more mc ley yearly than he. At length after a great 



