EARLY DOCTRINES 



53 



all through the ages, from Galen to the Renais- 

 sance, no great advance was made toward the inter- 

 pretation of the nervous system. Long after the 

 Renaissance, his authority still held good ; his 

 ghost was not laid even by Paracelsus and Vesalius, 

 it haunted the medical profession so late as the 

 middle of the seventeenth century ; but the men 

 who worshipped his name missed the whole mean- 

 ing of his work. This long neglect of the experi- 

 mental method left such a gap in the history of 

 physiology, that Sir Charles Bell seems to take up 

 the experimental study of the nervous system at the 

 point where Galen had stopped short ; we go from 

 the time of Commodus to the time of George the 

 Third, and there is Bell, as it were, putting the 

 finishing touch to Galen's facts. It is true that 

 experiments had been made on the nervous system 

 by many men ; but a dead weight of theories kept 

 down the whole subject. For a good instance, how 

 imagination hindered science, there is the following 

 list, made by Dr Risien Russell, of theories about 

 the cerebellum : — 



''Galen was of opinion that the cerebellum 

 must be the originator of a large amount of vital 

 force. After him, and up to the time of Willis, the 

 prevalent idea seems to have been that it was the 

 seat of memory ; while Bourillon considered it the 

 seat of instinct and intelligence. Willis supposed 

 that it presided over involuntary movements and 

 organic functions ; and this view, though refuted 

 by Haller, continued in the ascendency for some 

 time. Some believed strongly in its influence on 

 the functions of organic life ; and according to some, 



