IN MEDICAL SCIENCE. 47 



of the head are, I feel sure, founded on a delusion, but 

 its studies of individual character are always interesting 

 and instructive. 



The " snapping-turtle '* strikes after its natural 

 fashion when it first comes out of the egg. Children 

 betray their tendencies in their way of dealing with 

 the breasts that nourish them ; nay, I can ventm'e to 

 affirm, that long before they are bom they teach their 

 mothers something of their turbulent or quiet tempers. 



" Castor gaudet equis, ovo prognatus eodem 

 Pugnis." 



Strike out the false pretensions of phrenology ; call it 

 anthropology/ ; let it study man the individual in distinc- 

 tion from man the abstraction, the metaphysical or the- 

 ological lay-figure ; and it becomes " the proper study 

 of mankind," one of the noblest and most interesting 

 of pursuits. 



The whole physiology of the nervous system, from 

 the simplest manifestation of its power in an insect up 

 to the supreme act of the human intelligence working 

 through the brain, is frdl of the most difficult yet pro- 

 foundly interesting questions. The singular relations 

 between electricity and nerve-force, — relations wliich 

 it has been attempted to interpret as meaning identity, 

 in the face of palpable differences, require still more 

 extended studies. You may be interested by Professor 

 Faraday's statement of his opinion on the matter. 

 " Though I am not satisfied that the nervous fluid is 

 only electricity, still I think that the agent in the 



