Vice-President’s Address. 3 
and descriptions of the convolutions are very imperfect, and 
not to be compared with those he gives of the other parts of 
the brain. He appears to have been unable altogether to 
shake off the traditional view of the convolutions as irregular 
and indefinite folds of the cerebral cortex. Confining his 
observations, as he appears to have done, to the adult human 
brain, it is surprising that he succeeded as well as he did. 
Thus he recognised the convolutions of the corpus callosum, 
the hippocampal and uncinato convolutions with the gyrus 
dentatus, and distinguished the ascending frontal and ascend- 
ing parietal convolutions by their direction from those in 
front and behind. He doubted the propriety of dividing the 
cortex into lobes, preferring to map out the convex surface of 
the cerebral hemispheres into three regions according to their 
position subjacent to the frontal, parietal, and occipital bones. 
In this he was more logical than some of his predecessors, 
for neither he nor they made any attempt to trace the course 
of the cerebral fissures. He marks a number of the convolu- 
tions, but does not label any of the fissures between them. 
Broca gives him credit for representing the fissure of 
Rolando, but he did so very imperfectly. 
In 1810 Gall and Spurzheim published their well-known 
“ Anatomie et Physiologie du systeme nerveux en general et 
du cerveau en particulier.’ One might naturally have 
expected that these investigators would have paid special 
attention to the configuration of the cortex, but such is not 
the case; indeed, they added nothing to our knowledge of the 
cerebral convolutions or fissures. They appear to have been 
so enamoured by their peculiar phrenological theories as not 
only to neglect the careful study of the external surface of 
the brain, but even to distort anatomical facts so as to make 
them appear to favour their views. Thus, as Leuret? shows, 
in giving illustrations of the brains of the lion and tiger 
(see plate xxxiii., figs. 4 and 5 of their work), Gall and 
Spurzheim greatly exaggerate the size of the parts of the 
brain lying behind the fissure of Sylvius, portions of the 
cortex to which they attributed the functions of destruction 
and cunning, 
1 Anatomie comparée du systeme nerveux, vol. i., p. 366. 
