436 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION. 



nervous centers situated in the brain. Cheerfully admitting that this 

 is a priori reasoning, yet I do not lose hope that the investigators 

 of some future day will be able to discover and describe some of 

 these changes. Why one child is bom brilKant and another weak 

 in intellect, from the same parents, and, so far as we know, under 

 the same conditions, is not dependent upon punishment from God, 

 but upon variations in the molecular construction, or chemical com- 

 ponents (?) of the protoplasm of the cells, or upon anatomical va- 

 riations of a coarser kind. The causes of these variations are gen- 

 erally present at the moment of the fructification of the ovum of the 

 mother or in the sperm of the father, or are due to influences which 

 are exerted upon the foetus while being carried by the mother. 

 The elements of these nervous centers in such conditions do not 

 suffer such marked changes that we have been able to discover them, 

 although it is true that exact investigation in this direction is but 

 in its infancy. In extreme cases, variations in cranial formation 

 may be present, but they are not necessary ; nor do they occur 

 when loss of intellect or disturbances take place during life from 

 over-exertion, shock, or other causes ; yet, in such cases, we must 

 assume that changes have taken place in the active elements of those 

 centers in the brain, a disturbance of which is indicated by the ab- 

 normal phenomena which have attracted our attention. 



Every child is a unit — an organism composed of a certain num- 

 ber of small units, the organs, which themselves are composed of 

 untold numbers of still smaller units, the cells. The normal rela- 

 tions and actions of all these parts regulate the constitution of the 

 child. The functions of the brain do not differ from this rule ; 

 they are dependent upon its anatomical structure in part or as a 

 whole. It is impossible to make a child anything different intellectw- 

 ally than this anatomical structure of the brain will allow. This 

 is, however, somewhat dependent upon the relations of the brain to 

 the other parts of the body. Incomplete action of one or the other 

 of the important organs may, and does frequently, lead to changes 

 of importance in the brain, but in their nature so subtile as to escape 

 our present means of observation. While the brain functions of 

 the child are in reality thus limited, the limits are of such a nature 

 that in the normal child they are never attained. They will answer 

 aU the demands which can be made upon them, but the result is 

 always dependent upon their structure and appositional relations. 

 Why one child will he a veterinarian or a breeder of animals, another 

 a merchant, another a seaman, or a minister, or a student of some 

 one of the natural sciences, against the earnest wiU and wishes of its 



