Vice-President’s Address. i) 
from direct observations regarding the stages in the develop- 
ment of the cerebral fissures and convolutions in the 
anthropoid apes, and even in the lower apes our knowledge 
is very incomplete. 
We have seen that to the French school of anatomists, as 
represented by Leuret and Gratiolet, is due the honour of 
having been the first to show the true scientific method of 
studying the cerebral fissures and convolutions, and of 
having applied those methods with such brilliant results. 
To another Frenchman, the illustrious Broca, we owe the 
first demonstration of the doctrine of localisation of function 
in the cerebral cortex, a discovery destined to prove not 
only of great scientific interest, but also of immense import- 
ance in practical medicine and surgery. So long as the 
anatomy of the cerebral cortex was unknown, its physiology 
was of necessity, to a large extent, a matter of vague specula- 
tion. Even for some time after the publication, in 1854, of 
Gratiolet’s work on the cerebral convolutions, clinical and 
pathological observations and physiological experiments were 
believed to prove that all parts of the cerebral cortex had the 
same functional value. Numerous cases were related in 
which large portions of the surface of the cerebrum were 
destroyed by accident or disease without producing any 
apparent mental disturbance. Thus Dr Bigelow described, 
in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences for July 
1850, what is generally quoted as the “American crowbar 
case.” A young man was hit by a bar of iron at the left 
angle of his jaw. The piece of iron entering at the angle of 
the jaw passed through the anterior part of the left cerebral 
hemisphere, and emerged at the top of his head in the left 
frontal region. The man speedily recovered, and lived for 
thirteen years after the accident, without manifesting any 
special cerebral symptoms. 
Flourens, the great French physiologist, found that he could 
remove limited portions of the cortex in animals without 
destroying any one of its functions, and that, according to the 
amount removed, all its functions were gradually impaired and 
finally destroyed. According to his experiments, mechanical 
stimulation of the cortex produced little or no effect. 
