452 Proceedings of the British Association, 



Dr. Williams presented two specimens of Taenia, one of which had 

 been removed by the use of spirit of turpentine, after the male fern 

 root (Aspidium fiix mas) had failed, and the other by the latter remedy, 

 after the turpentine had failed. 



Dr. Fowler stated, that he had found turpentine in conjunction with 

 tincture of opium of great value, not only in suspending an expected 

 paroxysm of ague, but in also removing the disease. 



Dr. Laycock read a paper 'On the Reflex Function of the Brain.' — 

 The object was to show that the reflex function, as possessed by the 

 spinal nerves and ganglia, is also manifested by the cerebral ganglia, 

 and the cerebral nerves of sensation, the optic, acoustic, olfactory, &c, 

 — that in fact, as the cerebral masses and the cerebral nerves are pro- 

 perly to be considered as a continuation of the spinal, they are furnish- 

 ed with the same endowments and subject to the same laws. He reviewed 

 the doctrine of the reflex function, and the facts on which it was founded, 

 as taught by Dr. Marshall Hall. The excito-motary irritation may be ap- 

 plied either to the periphery or to the central axis in the spinal system, 

 and may produce its effect independent of sensation or perception or voli- 

 tion. Yet consciousness and perception may, in some cases, be superadded 

 to the organic effects of the irritation ; examples of both those peculiari- 

 ties of nervous action were alluded to : and Dr. Laycock contended, that 

 if similar phenomena arose from mere cerebral excitement, they must be 

 considered as reflex excited acts, accompanied by sensation and consci- 

 ousness, these central cerebral irritations producing a series of changes, 

 commencing in the posterior grey matter, and exciting what Dr. Lay- 

 cock terms ideagenous changes ; from thence the series of changes extends 

 to the anterior grey matter, and kinetic change (Kiveu) t moved) result, 

 whence the harmonious muscular movements are produced. The points 

 insisted on by the author were, that the cerebral nerves are incident 

 excitor, and the brain an excitor of movements in all respects analo- 

 gous to the reflex ; the proof of this he thinks must be sought in patho- 

 logical observations, as those nerves are not irritable by the ordinary 

 stimuli of heat, mechanical violence, &c, as are the nerves of the 

 spinal axis. The phenomena of hydrophobia and chorse, he contended, 

 furnished those proofs : in the former the sound, or sight, or mere idea 

 of water excited the convulsive paroxysm, and certain odours are known 

 to excite convulsions. To show that the brain is the excitor of reflex 

 acts, he referred to the case of chorsea in the Medico- Chirurgical Transac- 

 tions, and analyzed its phenomena. He also referred to spasmodic 

 muscular movements of the face, trunk, and extremities, produced by 

 neuralgia of the fifth pair of nerves. Cases of irregular chorsea, and 

 partial loss of memory from disease of the brain, confirmed this view of 



