50 DR. HILL, FROM REFLEX ACTION TO VOLITION. 



tution. He survived the injury, but for ever after lie bad a 

 certain spot in one of his arms the touching of which instantly 

 produced the most violent motion of his arm — it was perfectly 

 uncontrollable and independent of his will at all. Of course that 

 was an exceptional movement, whereas the knee-action is normal ; 

 but it was an example of action which was purely without 

 volition. 



Dr. Robert Jones (of Earlswood Asylum), a Visitor. — Mr. 

 President, ladies and gentlemen : I am in charge of an Asylum 

 where mentally afflicted children and imbeciles are received, and I 

 was much struck with that portion of the paper in which Dr. Hill 

 says that faculties, as such, have no special location on the surface 

 of the brain. It struck me very much that from analogy, faculties 

 should have a very distinct location. 



Amongst our patients we have those who would strike you as 

 being very peculiar from one special faculty being developed 

 practically at the expense of all the rest — for instance, one knows 

 Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire " from cover to 

 cover, and another, the History of Achilles to the Siege of Troy 

 without much correction ; but they are absolutely devoid of 

 judgment. Another patient can transpose Bach's Fugues at sight, 

 and is also absolutely devoid of judgment. Another patient can 

 construct models. He went to see the Great Eastern steamship 

 and came back and constructed an accurate model from memory. 

 These persons would seem to have a portion of the brain abnormally 

 developed. I speak with little authority from an anatomical point 

 on this subject, for Dr. Hill has doubtless examined many por- 

 tions of the brain, and perhaps he would give me a reason for his 

 belief that faculties, as such, have no special locus in quo in the 

 brain. I beg to thank Dr. Hill for his most able paper, which he 

 has given us in very simple diction. 



Dr. A. T. Schofield. — This being my first opportunity of coming 

 here, and being one of the most recent members of the Institute, 

 my ignorance, combined with my intense interest in the subject, 

 must be my apology for rising. With your permission, sir, I 

 would ask one or two questions connected with the paper that 

 Dr. Hill has read. I may say how exceedingly pleased I was to 

 find in his remarks that he established the fact that the paths 

 most frequently used by impulses, become those that are most 

 open and most easily traversed; and thereby endorsed, with all 



