123 REPORT— 1873. 



moreover, removed the poi-tion of the convolution on the left side of the cerehrum, 

 which thej' had ascertained to be the centre for certain movements of the right fore 

 limb, and they found that after the injury thus inflicted, the animal had only an 

 imperfect control over the movements of the part of the limb in question. ^ Re- 

 cently, Dr. Hughlings Jackson, from the observation of various diseased conditions 

 in -which peculiar movements occur in distinct groups of muscles, has adduced 

 evidence in support of the conclusion that in the cerebral convolutions are loca- 

 lized the centres for the production of various muscidar movements. Wilhin the 

 last few months these observations have been gi-eatly extended by the elaborate 

 experiments of my late pupil and assistant, and now able colleague in King's Col- 

 lege, Prof Ferrier. 



Adopting the method of Fritsch and Hitzig (but instead of using galvanic he 

 has employed Faradaic electricity, with which, strange to say, the investigators 

 just mentioned obtained no very definite results), he has explored the brain in the 

 fish, frog, dog, cat, rabbit, and guineapig, and lately in the monkey. The results 

 of this investigation are of great importance. He has explored the convolutions of 

 the cerebrum far more fully than the German experimenters, and has investigated 

 the cerebellum, coi-pora quadrigemina, and several other portions of the brain not 

 touched upon by them. There is perhaps no pai't of the Drain whose function has 

 been more obscure than the cerebellum. l)r. Femer has discovered that this 

 ganglion is a great centre for the movements of the muscles of the eyeballs. He 

 has also very carefully mapped out in the dog, cat, &c. the various centres in the 

 convolutions of the cerebrum which are concerned in the production of movements 

 in the muscles of the eyelids, face, mouth, tongue, ear, neck, fore and hind feet, 

 and tail. He confirms the doctrine that the coi-pus striatum is concerned in 

 motion, while the optic thalamus is probably concerned in sensation, as ai-e also the 

 hippocampus major and its neighbouring convolutions. He has also found that in 

 the case of the higher brain of the monkey there is what is not found in the dog or 

 eat — to wit, a portion in the front part of the brain, whose stimulation produces 

 no muscular movement. What may be the function of this part, whether or not 

 it specially ministers to intellectual operations, remains to be seen. These re- 

 searches mark the commencement of a new era in our knowledge of brain fvmction. 

 Of all the studies in comparative physiology there will be none more interesting, 

 and few so important, as those in which the various centres will be mapped out in 

 the brains throughout the vertebrate series. A new, but this time a true, system 

 of phrenology will probably.be founded upon them; by this, however, I do not 

 mean that it will be possible to tell a man's faculties by the configuration of his 

 skull ; but merely this, that the various mental faculties will be assigned to definite 

 ten-itories of the brain, as Gall and Spurzheim long ago maintained, although their 

 geography of the brain was erroneous. 



I have alluded to this subject, not only because it affords an illustration of the 

 service which a sthdy of diseased conditions has rendered to physiology, but also 

 because these investigations constitute the most important work which has been 

 accomplished in physiology for a very considerable time past. 



Hevival of Physiology in JEnglamh 



We may, I think, term this the renaissance period of English physiology. It 

 seems strange that the countiy of Han-ey, John Hunter, Charles Bell, Marshall 

 Hall, and John Reid should not always have been in the front rank as regards 

 physiology. The neglect of physics must be admitted as a cause of this ; it is also 

 to be attributed to the, until a few years ago, almost entire absence of experimental 

 teaching ; but it would be unjust not to attribute it, in gi'eat measure, to the limited 

 appliances possessed by our physiologists. It is to be remembered that physiology 

 could not be successfully cultivated without proper laboratories, with a supply of 

 expensive apparatus. "Without endowments from public or private resources, how 

 can such institutions be properly fitted up and maintained hymen who can, for the 

 most part, only turn to physiological research in moments snatched from the 

 busy toil of a profession so laborious as that of medicine ? In defiance of these diffi- 

 culties we are now striving to hold our place in the physiological world. A new 



