VOL. II.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 17 1 



An Account of some Discoveries concerning the Brain and the 

 Tongue, made hy Signior Malpigiu,^ Professor of Physic in Sicily. 



1 . This anatomist states that he has discovered, that the exterior and softer 

 part of the brain does not cover only the corpus callosum, as has been believed 

 hitherto, but is also inserted into it in many places. He has also observed, 

 that the corpus callosum is nothing but a contexture of small fibres, issuing 

 from the medulla spinalis, and terminating in the said exterior part of the brain. 

 And these fibres, he says, are so manifest in the ventricles of fishes' brains, 

 that when they are looked through, they represent the figure of an ivory 

 comb. 



2. The use which he ascribes to the brain is different, he says, from what 

 has been assigned to it hitherto. He pretends that as half, or at least a third 

 of the blood of an animal is conveyed into the brain, where yet it cannot be 

 consumed, the finest semm of this blood is filtrated through the exterior part, 

 and then entering into the fibres of the brain, is thence conveyed into the 

 nerves, "f- which he afi&rms to be the reason that the head is so often found full 



• Marcellus Malpighi was born in the year l628, in tlie neighbourhood of Bologna, where he 

 studied and took his degree of doctor of physic in l653. He was elected to tlie professorship of the 

 theory of medicine in that university in 1656, but soon afterwards accepted of a similar appointment 

 at Pisa, which situation he resigned at the end of three years, as the air of that place was prejudicial 

 to his health. In l662 he succeeded Castelli in the professorship of physic at Messina, where he re- 

 mained four years, and then returned again to Bologna. Here he continued as a teacher of medicine 

 in the highest repute from l666 to 1691, when he was invited to Rome and appointed chief physi- 

 cian to Pope Innocent XII. He died at Rome of an apoplexy, in 1694. Malpighi's labours have 

 thrown great light upon the structure and physiology of the human, brute, and vegetable creation ; 

 as may be seen by consulting his Anatome Plantarum, his Epistolae Anatomicae, his Exercitationes 

 Anatomicae, his Dissertationes de Utero, de Formatione pulli in ovo, de bombyce, &c. &c. These 

 tracts were collected into two folio vols, printed in London in l6'86, under the title of Malpighii 

 Opera Physica et Medica. And in 1097 a third folio voluine appeared, containing his Opera Post- 

 hvima. The first of tliese collections of his works was re-printed at Amsterdam, and the second at 

 Leyden, each in one volume 4to. He wrote memoirs of his own life, dedicated to the Royal Society 

 of London, of which he was a member. In his anatomical investigations he resorted to what in those 

 days were new methods ; viz. to maceration of the parts, injection of the vessels with coloured liquors, 

 and the employment of magnifying glasses. By such means he was very successful in developing 

 the intricate structure of some of the viscera in man and quadrupeds, as well as the minute fabric of 

 insects and vegetables. He appears to have been the first who used the microscope for examining the 

 circulation of the blood. 



t This idea of the nerves being filled with serum^ and thence producing hydrocephalus, is ex- 

 tremely erroneous. 



Y 2 



