December 19, 1901] 



NA TURE 



165 



achieved — if the Colleges and Polytechnics can be connected 

 into one great educational machine — something worlhj' of the 

 metropolis and of the Empire might be accomplished. The 

 aims of the University of London will be, above all, practical. 

 There should be great technical institutions which would prepare 

 men for their work in life, and all who came within the range 

 of the University should acquire .something beyond the mere 

 knowledge which enables them to take their parts in life. 



TttK connection between scientific knowledge and industrial 

 progress was referred to by Mr. Balfour on Thursday last, in dis- 

 tributing the prizes aud certificates to students at the Goldsmiths' 

 Institute (seep. 136). He remarked, in the course of his address: — 

 " I am but little qualified to speak by personal investigation or 

 experience of the work of institutions like this ; but there is 

 one part of their labours in which I have always felt the deepest 

 sympathy, from a strong sense of its transcendent importance — 

 I mean the leaching which gives a sound and thorough scientific 

 training to those who are engaged in any one of the many 

 pursuits which have a genuine scientific knowledge at their base. 

 I am quite sure that, if we were to gauge the deficiencies of 

 British education as compared, let us say, with German educa- 

 tion, they would be found more striking in this branch of educa- 

 tion than almost in any other. I am strongly convinced that 

 not only is the necessity of a thorough scientific training great 

 at the present moment, but that the necessity is one which 

 grows with every new discovery. There was a time when in 

 reality theoretical scientific knowledge was wholly divorced 

 from manufactures or any form of practical industry. That 

 state of things has long passed away ; and now the alliance 

 between the most abstruse scientific investigations and the 

 general manufacturing output of the country is becoming closer 

 and closer. What was yesterday the curiosity of the laboratory 

 will to-morrow be manufactured in the gross and exported from 

 this country, or from other countries, to every quarter of the 

 globe. And no mere surface knowledge, no mere acquaintance 

 with the methods in fashion at a particular moment, can possibly 

 replace that knowledge of principle which lies at the very root 

 of all these discoveries, and which must be possessed by those 

 who are to attain the greatest success, either as the guides and 

 leaders of manufacturing industry or as the inventors who are to 

 increase the sum of human happiness and health by the work of 

 their brains." The Lord Chief Justice gave expression to 

 similar views in an address delivered at the Rutlish Science 

 School, Merton, on Monday. He remarked that there was 

 not the smallest doubt that what was required in these days- 

 net only in Great Britain, but throughout the British dominions — 

 was a more accurate scientific teaching, a more practical scientific 

 teaching. We were, at the present time, suffering from the fact 

 that those in charge, not only of our commercial supremacy, 

 but of Jour education, up to some ten or fifteen years ago, had 

 not realised that other countries had discovered that the root of 

 all successful commercial enterprise must be scientific knowledge 

 and investigation. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Royal Society, November 21. — "Observations on the 

 Physiology of the Cerebral Cortex of some of the Higher Apes." 

 (Preliminary communication.) By A. S. F. Griinbaum, M.A., 

 M.D. Cantab., JLK.C.P., and Prof. C. S. Sherrington, M.A., 

 M.D.,F.R.S. 



Our experiments have been carried out on individuals repre- 

 senting the four species Pilhecus salyrus (Orang), Troglodytes 

 gorilla (Gorilla), Troglodytes niger (Chimpanzee), and Troglo- 

 dytes calvus (Chimpanzee). The specimens so far have included 

 ten adult individuals. 



L Method employed. 



The method of excitation employed for the cortex has been 

 unipolar faradisation, in the manner previously adopted by one 

 of us (Sherrington, Roy. Soc. Proc, vol. lii. , 1S93) in examining 

 the cortex cerebri for ocular reactions. This method allows of 

 finer localisation than that possible with the double-point 

 electrodes ordinarily used. 



II. " Motor" {so-called) Area. 

 This area we find to include continuously the whole length of 

 the precentral convolution. It also enters into the whole length 



NO. 1677, VOL. 65] 



of the sulcus centralis, with the usual exception of its extreme 

 lower tip and its extreme upper tip. 



In all the animals examined, we have found the "motor" 

 area not to at any point extend behind sulcus centralis. 



On the mesial surface of the hemisphere the "motor "area 

 has extended less far down than was expected. It has not 

 extended to the calloso-marginal fissure. Certain areas near 

 that fissure have yielded us movements, e.g. of shoulder, body, 

 wrist and fingers ; but we hesitate, for reasons to be given in a 

 fuller communication, to class those with those of the " motor " 

 area proper. 



We have found the precentral convolution excitable over its 

 free width, and continuously round, into and to the bottom of the 

 sulcus centralis. The "motor" area extends also into the 

 depth of other fissures besides the Rolandic, as can be described 

 in a fuller communication than the present. The hidden part 

 of the excitable area probably equals, perhaps exceeds in extent, 

 that contributing to the free surface of the hemisphere. We 

 have in some individuals found the deeper part of the posterior 

 wall of the sulcus centralis to contribute to the "motor" 

 area. 



In the "motor" area we have found localised, besides very 

 numerous other actions, certain movements of the ear, nostril, 

 palate, movements of sucking, of mastication, of the vocal 

 cords, of the chest wall, of the abdominal wall, of the pelvic 

 floor, of the anal orifice and of the vaginal orifice. 



We find the arrangement of the representation of various 

 regions of the musculature follow the segmental sequence of the 



ArwaivAglna 



Fig. I. — Brain of a Chimpanzee {Troglodytes titger). The e.\tent of the 

 *' motor " area on the free surface of the hemisphere is indicated by 

 the black stippling, which extends back to the sulcus centralis. 

 There exists much overlapping of the areas and of their subdivisions 

 which the diagram does not attempt to indicate. S. F. - superior frontal 

 sulcus. S.Pr. — superior precentral sulcus. I.Pr. = inferior precentral 1 



cranio-spinal nerve-series to a very remarkable extent. The 

 accompanying figure indicates better than can a verbal descrip- 

 tion the degree of adherence to this sequence. 



We do not find that for the anthropoid brain the exciting 

 current for the " motor " cortex requires to be extremely strong. 

 " Epilepsy " is easily evoked from the cortex of theanthropDids. 



Our experiments show that the sulci in the region of cortex, 

 dealt with can in no sense be considered to signify physiological 

 boundaries. Further, the variation of the sulci in these higher 

 brains is so great from individual to individual that, as our 

 observations show, they prove but precarious, even fallacious, 

 landmarks to the details of the true topography of the cortex. 



Extirpation of the hand area by itself has been followed by 

 severe paresis of the hand, the hand being for a few days prac- 

 tically useless and seemingly "powerless." In a few weeks 

 use and "power" were remarkably regained in the hand, so 

 that it was once more used for cliinbing, &c. The animal ulti- 

 mately not unfrequently fed itself with fruit, making use of that 

 hand alone. Even small ablations in the precentral gyrus have 

 led to severe though quickly diminishing pareses. On the other 

 hand, ablations of even large portions of postcentral gyrus have 

 not given any even transient paresis. 



III. Other Regions of Cortex. 

 Our observations indicate that the frontal region, yielding 

 conjugate deviation of the eyeballs, presents such marked 



