HITZIG 



75 



Many and great difficulties, beyond this danger 

 of the fallacy of " simple transference," beset every 

 step of the work : it required the right use of the 

 most delicate and susceptible instruments and tests, 

 and the right understanding of anatomy, microscopic 

 anatomy, comparative anatomy, organic chemistry, 

 electricity, and physics : every moment of advance 

 must -be guarded, every word must be weighed. 

 Among the earlier difficulties, was the failure of 

 almost all the physiologists, before Hitzig, to pro- 

 duce muscular action by excitation of the cerebral 

 cortex. Longet, Magendie, Flourens, Matteuci, 

 Van Deen, Weber, Budge, and Schiff, had all 

 failed. Hitzig (Untersuchungen uber das Gehirn, 

 Berlin, 1874) had observed, in man, that it was 

 easy to produce movements of the eyes by the 

 passage of the constant current through the 

 occipital region. # Taking this fact for a starting- 

 point, he used a very low current, and thereby 

 succeeding in producing certain definitive muscular 

 movements by stimulation of the cortex in animals. 

 Of Hitzigs work, Sir Victor Horsley says : — 



" It was not till 1870 that the next absolute 

 proof (after Bell's work in 181 3) was obtained of 



* That the surface of the brain is not sensitive of such 

 stimulation, that it does not perceive its own substance, was 

 known to Aristotle. The fact is so familiar that there is no 

 need to quote evidence of it, beyond that of Sir Charles Bell, 

 " I have had my finger deep in the anterior lobes of the brain, 

 when the patient, being at the time acutely sensible, and 

 capable of expressing himself, complained only of the integu- 

 ment." 



