5V2 PHRENOLOGY: OLD AND NEW. 



matter of the brain; also that the 'animal spirits' proceeded from 

 the brain, and the 'vital spirits' from the heart. He recognized 

 that the Convolutions were most developed in the Brain of Man, 

 and attached importance to them in relation to his superior In- 

 telligence. 



Galen (about a.d. 150) set himself to refute the doctrine of 

 Aristotle. He showed that the brain of animals was hot instead of 

 cold, and that it was well supplied with blood. He further main- 

 tained that its elaborate structure was against Aristotle's notion of 

 its being a mere refrigerator, since for this purpose a " rude and 

 formless sponge,*' would have sufficed. He pointed out that the 

 brain was of the same substance as the nerves, but softer, " as it 

 necessarily should be, inasmuch as it receives all the sensations, 

 perceives all the imaginations, and then has to comprehend all the 

 objects of the understanding, for what is soft is more easily changed 

 than what is hard." Since double nerves are necessary, the soft 

 for sensation, the hard for motion, so also is the brain double, the 

 anterior being the softer, the posterior being the harder. The 

 superior or ' lateral ventricles,' were, according to Galen, endowed 

 with the highest functions. They received air through the nostrils (by 

 way of the ethmoidal bone and the ' corpora mammilara ') mixing 

 this with the * vital spirits ' brought from the heart into the ven- 

 tricles by means of the arteries, and therefrom elaborating the 

 • animal spirits ' which were thence transmitted from the brain to 

 the nerves for the purposes of motion and sensation. The lateral 

 ventricles were also held to receive by the same entrance ' sensible 

 objects,' and odoriferous particles. Galen likewise taught that the 

 brain had a double movement, a diastolic for the reception of air and 

 'vital spirits', and a systolic, by means of which the ventricles distri- 

 bute the ' animal spirits ' to the nerves. Later he held that the 

 animal spirits were not contained in the ventricles only, but were 

 diffused throughout the whole substance of the cerebrum and the 

 cerebellum. " The use of the fornix, to which also the corpus cal- 

 losum belongs, is the same," he says, " as of the arches of buildings ; 

 namely, to support commodiously and safely the whole of the super- 

 jacent part of the brain." The corpora quadrigemina perform the 

 functions of a janitor, since they serve to open or shut the passage 

 by which the ' animal spirits ' are transmitted from the anterior to 

 the posterior ventricle through the Sylvian aqueduct. 



Some centuries afterwards, according to Prochaska : " The Arabs 

 distributed the animal functions amongst the ventricles of the 



