COMPOSITION OF THE BRAIN. 343 



mann actually says, " Gall is right in asserting that in the adult 

 the parts of the chord most supplied with cortical substance are 

 those where the largest nerves are given off."" He allows that 

 nervous fibres go off wherever there are ganglions ; that whenever 

 a nerve joins a ganglion, it is reinforced ; and that all nerves are 

 accompanied by more or less of this substance, through which 

 they acquire a successive increase, so as to become conical ; and 

 that the soft substance is, at the ninth month, more abundant 

 where nerves arise, and still more abundant at the origin of the 

 great nerves of the extremities. Dr. Bellingeri allows the fact 

 of the pulpy far exceeding the fibrous in childhood x ; and Mr. 

 Mayo allows that the origin of a nerve is always in part from fine 

 grey matter, and that the ascending fibres of the chorda oblon- 

 gata receive additions from the internal masses of grey matter, 

 " as from new organs. "y 



Old anatomists were perfectly ignorant of the uses of the 

 various parts which they viewed so mechanically, and distin- 

 guished by such a collection of strange names. Gall views some 

 of them as organs of increase, others as organs of union, and 

 others as the bands of fibres which execute the nervous functions. 

 What are considered the parts of increase, and what of union, 

 must appear from the descriptions given. 



Just as the extreme parts of nerves execute their chief func- 

 tion, as seen in the case of sight, smell, taste, hearing, touch; so, 

 probably, the extreme portions of the fibrous substance of the 

 brain execute its functions. This opinion is rendered the more 

 probable from the pains which I showed nature to have taken to 

 increase the surface of the cerebrum and cerebellum, so that the 

 fibrous substance may ultimately be spread out amidst the pulpy 

 to an immense extent. 



The substance of the brain is said to be different from that of 

 all other animal textures. Vauquelin, in 1812, found, in 100 parts, 



liar nervous functions. But Dr. Marshall long ago gave strong reasons for 

 ascribing them to the fibrous. (1. c. p. 239. sqq.) 



u Anatomie du Cerveau, traduit par M. Jourdain, p. 135. 



* De Medulla Spinali Nervisque, S. ii. c. vi. 



y Outlines of Physiology, p. 241. 253. London, ed. 3. 



