676 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE, 



localized organ or power. Phrenologists placed this, if I remember rightly, 

 somewhere in the middle of the forehead where the two tables of the skull sepa- 

 rate and leave a cavity between them called the frontal sinus. Here of all places 

 throughout its extent the form of the brain corresponds least with that of the 

 skull. In fact, as far as I can judge, the greater the prominence of the skull on 

 the outside the greater is the depression inside. Yet here_ they located the store- 

 house, the arsenal of the mind, and judged of its size by the outward protuber- 

 ance. Well, investigation has shown us some curious things in regard to mem- 

 ory. We can no longer look upon it as a place in the brain where facts are pig- 

 eonholed, or a picture gallery where countless images are hung up to be rum- 

 aged over when the mind requires to look at them. The probabilities are great 

 that memory is a general property of nervous tissue, and perhaps of other tissues 

 still. 



Munk and Lucianini, experimenting upon the localization of the various 

 senses, found that when certain portions of grey matter were sliced away, ani- 

 mals failed to recognize objects. In this condition an animal may see an article 

 of food and yet will not eat it until he has subjected it to touch and smell. He 

 may hear sounds and yet will not know their meaning. This they have called 

 psychical blindness or deafness. If a dog thus made blind be led into a garden 

 where it has been accustomed to stay, it proceeds straight along the paths, suc- 

 cessfully avoiding the contact of hedges, walls and other fixed obstacles which it 

 comes across. The animal is not blind; he has simply lost his memory of things 

 seen. If a dog thus made deaf be called he will turn his head and show signs of 

 hearing, but he will not follow the voice of his master. He is not deaf. He has 

 simply lost his memory of sound. Immediately this commences to be replaced, 

 not by the supplying of new tissues, but by the neighboring tissues taking on the 

 mode of action of the old. This same phenomenon sometimes occurs in man 

 through disease. In one recorded case the patient could see a chair that had 

 been placed in his way, but only avoided it after having once stumbled over it. 

 Fire brought close to his eye did not frighten him. He touched it to find out what 

 it was, and only then .avoided it. He could see wine, but seemed not to know its 

 use until it was touched to his lips. Cases of word deafness are more common, 

 cases in which the person afflicted does not recognize the meaning of a word 

 when he hears it. What is the interpretation in these cases ? That the store of 

 sensory experience has been destroyed? In a certain sense, yes; in another, no. . 

 The brain tract used for that purpose had simply become disabled, but another 

 brain tract showed itself capable of taking up these experiences and elaborating 

 them. From these and other things certain philosophers have formulated the 

 idea that memory is simply the faculty that nerve tissue has to persist in the 

 same direction of arrangement for its particles. Every impression produces, we 

 will say, a rearrangement, marked in its structure, and when recollection comes 

 to us it is simply a return to this rearrangement. There are many things to sub- 

 stantiate this. The older the impression produced the more deeply does it be- 

 come scarred upon the organism. The newer the impression the less firmly is it 



