160 



DISCOVERY 



number of competing cables that may be used for any 

 one connection. 



As regards the superiority of direct working between 

 the main centres as opposed to utilising intermediate 

 stations for passing on the messages, there can be no 

 question. But the point is, whether stations can at 

 present be erected in England, India, South Africa, 

 and Australia to give economical direct working at all 

 times. The Committee thought not, and proposed 

 the use of intermediate stations. 



Australia, however, has decided to erect a station 

 which will obtain for the Commonwealth direct com- 

 munication with the United Kingdom, and similar 

 schemes for India and South Africa have been the 

 subject of frequent communications to the Press. 



The Commission for planning the Government 

 stations was appointed in December 1920, and in their 

 report published in January last it was made clear that 

 they were in agreement with the views of the Norman 

 Committee. The stations (shown on the map which 

 illustrates this article) which they have planned 

 for the main centres will be capable of direct 

 working with one another, except during periods of 

 unfavourable atmospheric conditions, when use will 

 be made of the intermediate stations. For what 

 average periods of the day and night this direct working 

 will be practicable it is impossible to predict, more 

 than to say that direct working between centres will 

 be possible for several hours daily on the average, 

 and that with the help of the intermediate stations 

 an efficient commercial service will be available at all 

 times. 



Biology in Shakespeare 

 II. 



By D. Fraser Harris, M.D., D.Sc. 



Professor 0/ Physiology al Dnllioiisie Uniuersily, Ilalilax, \.S. 



[CoHliniied from the Mav No., p. 134) 



Before passing on to Shakespeare's allusions to the 

 nervous system and to psychological considerations, 

 we might notice some phrases which refer to subjects 

 of distinct physiological interest. For instance, when 

 it is said in Richard II (Act I, Sc. 3) — 



"Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour" — • 



we have a remark in agreement with the latest results 

 of physiological chemistry. The sugars, it is now 



believ-ed, in being digested pass through a stage of 

 lactic acid ; in other words a sour stage. 



The exact physiological condition in starvation 

 could not be put better than in the line in Coriolanus 

 (Act IV, Sc. 2) : 



" I sup upon myself, and so shall starve with feeding." 



In inanition the body lives on itself, as it is said ; what 

 is actually happening is that the heart and central 

 nervous system are living on the fat and muscles of the 

 bodv. The former two — the noble tissues — are living 

 at the expense of the rest of the body ; it is, therefore, 

 physiologically correct to say that in starvation there 

 is feeding. 



No less interesting than Shakespeare's allusions to the 

 vascular system are those to the nervous. In his day, 

 unlike ours, all emotional conditions were not at once 

 referred to the cerebrum and so disposed of ; there 

 was a complicated distribution of them amongst the 

 various viscera. Even much later than Shakespeare's 

 time the seat of the soul was held to be in the heart ; 

 for instance, by Vice (1678-1774). Descartes assigned 

 it to the pineal gland ; Van Helmont placed it in the 

 pylorus or " pit " of the stomach. Although Aristotle 

 said the soul was in the heart, other Greek thinkers 

 placed it in the diaphragm (phren) ; hence " phrensy " 

 (frensy), or madness of the soul ; hence also " phren- 

 ology," a discourse on the supposed localisation of 

 things mental. From time immemorial emotions have 

 been associated with viscera, as in the Old Testament, 

 where bowels yearned, and in the New, where there 

 were bowels of compassion. Everybody knows that 

 the spleen was supposed to be the seat of anger ; and 

 we yet speak of a splenetic, meaning an angry, man, 

 and a " fit of the spleen," meaning one of rage. 



Curiously enough, love was placed not in the heart 

 but in the liver. Shakespeare adopts this localisation 

 when he makes Pistol in the Merry Wives (Act II, Sc. i) 

 say that Falstaff loves Ford's wife " with liver burning 

 hot." 



We have seen that, whereas Aristotle placed the soul 

 in the heart, Galen placed it in the brain ; and Shake- 

 speare, if he consciously followed any school of thought, 

 was Galenical rather than Aristotelean, for he makes 

 Prince Henry in King John say of the King : 



" It is too late, the life of all his blood 

 Is touched corruptibly, and his pure brain 

 (Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling place) " — 



etc., as though it were not yet decided, although some 

 supposed the soul to be in the brain. 



Shakespeare certainly recognised the brain as the 

 organ of consciousness or states of mind. This was by 

 no means the commonly accepted doctrine in his time. 



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