466 FUNCTIONS OF 



After all, I do not believe the whole discovered ; because filaments from the 

 anterior, as well as from the posterior roots, go to the sympathetic ganglia, and 

 certainly not for motion. Gall had proved, in the last century, that distinct parts 

 of the nervous system had distinct offices. This he taught in opposition to many 

 of the most noted of his cotemporaries : he taught it with respect to the grand 

 nervous organ the brain, and with respect to the universal divisions of the nerves. 

 (1. c. 4to. vol. i. p. 131. sq.) Sir C. Bell's discoveries are simply individual exam- 

 ples of Gall's great general principle in merely nerves. So little, however, does 

 the gentleman entrusted to report for the Association know of Gall's discoveries, 

 that he not only thus ventured to address it, but, after detailing the unsatisfactory 

 vivisections of Messrs. Fleurens and Magendie, he passes Gall's labours over in 

 silence, and gravely informs the assembled savants that there does not exist any 

 conclusive evidence for referring separate faculties, or moral affections, to distinct 

 portions of the brain." (p. 90.) ! Phrenologists should really not allow the Asso- 

 ciation thus to expose itself. 



Since the preceding sheets were printed, I have seen the paper by Professor 

 Ehrenberg, alluded to supra, p. 324. 325., in which he asserts, in opposition to 

 M. Raspail, that, by means of the microscope, he has found the fibres of the 

 encephalon, spinal chord, and nerves to be tubular. The following is pretty 

 nearly his own summary of his observations : 



1. The fibrous substance of the brain consists not of solid fibres, but of 

 parallel or fasciculated tubes, dilated at intervals, or jointed, and from ^ to ^^ of 

 a line in diameter. Conveyed from the surface towards the ventricles and basis, 

 increasing in size, and not united by any visible medium, they pass into the 

 spinal chord, which they in a great measure constitute. 



2. The brain, a central organ in function, is a peripheral in structure, as 

 Gall had already remarked, and not to be compared with the heart or stomach 

 as central organs. 



3. The spinal chord of man, and of all great divisions of vertebrated animals, 

 consists of tubes similar to those of the brain ; but the finer tubes are placed more 

 inwardly, the thicker outwardly. The thicker are continued into the cylindrical 

 tubes of the spinal nerves. 



4. The three soft (higher) special nerves of sense, the olfactory, optic, and 

 acoustic, and the sympathetic, consist of tubes which are collected into fasciculi 

 and surrounded by neurilema. The three are immediate prolongations of the 

 white matter of the brain : the sympathetic has a mixed structure of jointed and 

 cylindrical tubes. 



5. The jointed tubes of the brain, spinal chord, and articulated nerves, 

 contain a perfectly transparent tenacious fluid, never visibly globular, the liquor 

 nerveus, which differs from the nervous medulla as the chyle does from blood. 

 Visible motion of this fluid has not been satisfactorily observed : a slow pro- 

 gression, however, is probable 



6. All other nervous chords consist, not of jointed tubes, but of cylindrical 



