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SIR CHARLES BELL ON THE BRAIN. 



whole subject ; for although the brain be divided naturally into distinct masses, not 

 one of these grand divisions has yet been distinguished by its function. There is not 

 even an opinion as to their relative importance. Hence it has followed that the ex- 

 perimenter has not known what to seek, or how to plan his experiment ; and hence 

 have been derived the weakest fancies that have ever obscured any science. Another 

 difficulty meets the inquirer at every step if he be not critically guarded. Whole 

 masses of the brain may be destroyed by disease, or actually removed with impunity; 

 that is to say, without any immediate influence on the mind, or on the power of 

 motion or of sensibility ; yet the very slightest general impression on the brain will 

 in the instant deprive the individual both of sense and motion. 



It will not be denied that the most unequivocal proof of the little success which 

 has attended the efforts made to improve this part of physiology, is the failure of all 

 attempts to explain the phenomena which attend injury of the brain ; it is neither 

 said why in disease of the brain sensation and motion should be lost together, nor 

 why one faculty should sometimes be imperfect and the other entire. There is no 

 satisfactory reason given for the most common occurrence in practice, the loss of 

 motion and sensation on the side of the body opposite to that side of the brain which 

 has received the injury ; nor has the condition of the face as associated with that of 

 the body been accounted for. When circumstances so remarkable present themselves 

 daily, consequent upon accident or disease affecting the brain, without our teachers 

 succeeding in offering a satisfactory reason for them, it is obvious that we are in a 

 state of profound ignorance of the most interesting functions of the animal body, not- 

 withstanding the innumerable experiments which have been made upon the brains of 

 animals. 



These are probably the reasons why ingenious men have failed to make us ac- 

 quainted with the distinct functions of the divisions of the brain, and countenance us 

 in advancing to the inquiry in a manner altogether different. If the real intricacy of 

 the brain, and the disappointments met with, have inclined many to consider it as an 

 inextricable labyrinth, we may well doubt whether the thread which is to lead us 

 through has been properly selected. This term is not altogether metaphorical, since 

 it is our design to follow the course of the natural filaments discernible in the nervous 

 matter of the brain. The investigation into the substance of the brain must be made 

 in a manner different from common dissection ; there is a new element to conquer. 

 Every part of the brain is closely united and pent up within the skull, for the pro- 

 tection of its delicate substance. This compactness of structure guards the brain 

 against impulse from within as well as from external injury; but whether the whole 

 of this structure be essential and of primary importance, or whether some part may 

 not perform the merely accessory office of packing and joining together the more 

 delicate parts, and so securing the finer filaments which run through it, is even up to 

 the present time matter of conjecture. However, it is to the filamentous and striated 

 texture that we attach importance, as leading in the right path, and as marking the 



