CHAPTER XXV. 



phkenology: old and new. 



The stages by which we have arrived at what knowledge 

 we possess as to the Structure and Functions of the Brain 

 have been very gradual. Only within the last century, 

 indeed, has the great bulk of our present knowledge in 

 regard to it gradually taken shape from amidst the clouds 

 of error with which the opinions of the ancients and the 

 mere speculations of many of the anatomists of later cen- 

 turies had enshrouded it. 



A few particulars in regard to these earlier notions may 

 here be given, which have been culled and condensed, 

 for the most part, from the writings of Prochaska.* 



According to Aristotle, the heart was the seat of the ' rational 

 soul,' and the nerves (of whose relation to sensation and motion 

 he was not ignorant) arose therefrom. The Brain was described by 

 him as an inert viscus, cold and bloodless, and scarcely to be enu- 

 merated amongst the other organs of the body — seeing that it was 

 of no use except to cool the heart. 



Erasistratus, the grandson of Aristotle, renounced the views 

 which he had been taught by the great master. He and Hero- 

 philus (about 300 B.C.) were probably the first to dissect tlie 

 Human Brain. He originally said that the sensory nerves arose 

 from the meninges, or membranes of the brain, and the motor from 

 the cerebrum, though much later in life he modified this doctrine 

 and declared that both classes of nerves arose from the medullary 



* " Dissertation on the Functions of the Nervous System." 

 (Sydenham Society's Translation, 1851 .) 



