THE DOCTRINE OF HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 265 



the whole brain proper ; the nerve-centre on whose action their 

 continuance depends, being that upward extention of the spinal 

 cord into the cavity of the skull which is known as the medulla 

 oblongata. Yet these facts were so generally ignored in physio- 

 logical teaching, that, as I can myself remember, they were only 

 vaguely referred to in proof of the persistence of a low degree of 

 consciousness after the loss of the brain. 



No one whose recollection goes back as distinctly as mine 

 does, to the publication (in the Philosophical Transactions for 

 1833) of Dr. Marshall Hall's "Researches on the reflex function 

 •' of the Medulla Oblongata and Medulla Spinalis," can have a 

 doubt that this memoir has been the basis of all our present more 

 exact knowledge of " reflex action " generally. It is true that its 

 author developed no principle which could not have been found 

 in the writings of Prochaska, more obscurely in those of his 

 predecessor, Unzer, and yet less distinctly and more remotely in 

 those of Descartes. But the ideas of these philosophers, having 

 been in advance of their time, had never been received into the 

 general body of physiological doctrine ; and there can be little 

 doubt of the originality of Dr. Marshall Hall's researches, although, 

 by his indignant denial of having been anticipated by Prochaska, 

 he provoked the imputation that he had stolen his ideas from that 

 author. At any rate, it was by his persistence in calling attention 

 to the demonstrative independence of the spinal cord and medulla 

 oblongata as a centre (or rather series of centres) of nervous 

 power, that the fact came to be universally accepted as a cardinal 

 principle of physiology, and that the occurrence of " reflex action " 

 without any necessary excitement of cotiscioiisness gradually obtained 

 general recognition. Only those, however, who themselves took 

 part in the controversy, will be likely to remember the strong 

 opposition which the latter part of this doctrine encountered. 

 Tho. putposive character of the movements executed by a headless 

 frog, as when, its legs make efforts to push away the probe with 

 which its cloaca is being irritated, or when one leg wipes away 

 the acid applied to the surface of the other, was constantly 

 adduced as a proof that the headless trunk feels the impression, 

 and makes a conscious effort to get rid of it. And it is not even 

 now possible to meet such an assertion with any direct disproof; 



