52 PATHFINDERS OF PHYSIOLOGY 



contemporary "he became so noted and so infinitely resorted to, that 

 never any physician before went beyond him or got more money year- 

 ly than he." Willis possessed a practical knowledge of the structure 

 and functions of the brain, both in health and disease. His name to- 

 day is familiar to all students of anatomy in the "circle of Willi^," 

 which designates the combined arterial structure at the base of the 

 brain. Sir Michael Foster is inclined to depreciate the work of Willis. 

 The value of his book is much above the worth of the author. It ap- 

 pears that WilHsHhirst for fame was much greater than his love for 

 truth. Richard Lowfer, a contemporary was the real man of science 

 of his day. Willis is said to have appropriated the work of Lower 

 and other earnest men and to have published it as hts own. Through- 

 out the work of this period we still have to deal with ^he "corporeal 

 soul/' "animal spirits," "sensitive sottl*'^ ^d similar phrases. 



Muscle Irritability: Frances Glisson, an Englishman, born, 1597, 

 came upon the truth of the relation of nervous influence to muscular 

 contraction. Educated at Cambridge, he became a Fellow and lec- 

 turer in Greek in his Alma Mater. On the publication of Harvey's 

 work, in 1628, Glisson determined to turn his attention to medicine, 

 and six years later he received his M. D. degree. He did not go 

 abroad as Harvey did but pursued his medical studies in London. He 

 was soon appointed Regius Professor of physic at Cambridge, but it 

 seems did not spend much time there, as the social atmosphere was 

 not congenial to him. Cambridge was strongly Royalist, while Glis- 

 son was a very pronounced Presbyterian. He served in a professional 

 capacity in London during the great plague of 1665. He died at the 

 ag^ of eighty years. He is probably best known for his work on the 

 Jiver. His name is familiar to us in connection with the capsule cov- 

 ( ering that viscus. Glisson's studies on the liver lead him, to his dis- 

 covery regarding the peculiar properties of muscle tissue. 



Explaining how the bile is discharged into the intestine only 

 when it is needed, he shows that the secretion is greater when the 

 gall bladder and passages are irritated, hence they must possess the 

 power of being irritated. For this peculiar property he suggests the 

 term irritability. The idea was not seized by contemporary physi- 

 ologists, hence Glisson's work remained dormant until the following 

 century, when Haller made use of the term, and since his day it has 

 become established in physiology and has played an important part in 

 the development of both physiology and pathology. 



Goll and Phrenology: A name which has received but slight at- 

 tention at the hands of biographers is that of Franz Joseph Gall or 

 Goll, best known as the founder of the pseudo science of phrenology, 

 or "bumpology" as it has been contemptiously called. Goll was born 

 in 17^8. He took his degree in medicine at the University of Vienna, 

 in 1785, where his studies on brain and mind began. He was an acute 

 observer of phenomena and from a collation of observed facts was 

 the first to demonstrate that the brain was the organ of the whole 

 mind. The modem phrenologist with whom we are more or less 

 familiar, is a disciple of Goll; his name will be remembered as as- 

 sociated with the discovery of certain areas in the spinal cord. Goll 

 died in Paris in 1828. 



