Notes upon the Brain of the Alligator. 129 



NOTES UPON THE BRAIN OF THE ALLIGATOR. 

 By C. L. Herrick. 



[Read by title February 4, 1890.] 



Scientific interest may be said to be fast coming to a focus upon 

 the domain of cerebral anatomy and physiology. For a long time 

 the brilliant failures of the most highly endowed students to find a 

 foothold in this inviting domain have acted as a check upon all but 

 the most audacious or most ignorant. The vagaries of phrenology 

 found their unexpected use as missies to be hurled at the adven- 

 turesome explorer who crossed the "dead-line" separating sober 

 study of bone and muscle from the doubtful domain of brain and 

 nerve. It is a very few years since the new science of 

 " microtomy " with its implied improvement in histological tech- 

 nique has wrought a wonderful change. Fortunately, the door 

 thus opened is within reach of such only as have already a speaking 

 acquaintance with science and have had experience enough to sober 

 a too luxuriant fancy. The very intricacy and tedium of the 

 methods of the new science are sufficient shibboleth to debar the 

 indolent and grossly ignorant. Even the great promise from the 

 anatomical side is excelled by the results to be expected from a 

 regenerated psychology. When psychology becomes truly an 

 inductive science — a science of observation— its empyricism may 

 have some content to offer the rational section. Of the two great 

 difficulties to-day besetting the original experimenter, perhaps the 

 greater is the lack of definiteness on the part of psychology. One 

 can gain but the most vague notion as to the processes involved 

 in an excitement of a sensory or motor cortical area. The analysis 

 of a common presentation of sense is so faulty that each man must 

 begin his experiments with a blind . groping after the probable 

 sequence of physical and psychical processes before, for example, 

 the presentation of a "red apple" reaches consciousness. The 

 second great difficulty in the successful interpretation of cerebral 

 experimentation results from the shameful lack of positive knowl- 

 edge concerning the finer anatomy of the brain and central nervous 

 system. 



Much has, indeed, been written, but by far the greater part of 

 the work has consisted of the application of the old methods of 



