S32 Analysis of the Cerelral Matter of Man, [May, 



no notice of the labours of M. de Fourcroy in the chemical part 

 of the Encyclopedic Methodique, though they are rather volu- 

 minous, because I conceive them of inferior importance to those 

 which I have noticed. 



Article II. 



Analysis of the Cerebral Matter of Man, and some other 

 Animals, By M. Vauquelin.* 



Sect. I. 



History of the chemical labours hitherto undertaken on the 

 cerebral matter. 



Although the brain, in consequence of the functions which it 

 is supposed to perform, ought to have early excited the curiosity 

 of chemists, yet one is surprised to find but very little in their 

 works concerning its chemical nature. Even the small number 

 of experiments which have been undertaken have not been 

 pushed far enough to enable us to deduce any positive conse- 

 quences. Hence the opinions formed respecting the composition 

 of the brain are erroneous, or at least incomplete. It was 

 therefore necessary to resume the subject from the commence- 

 ment, and to employ that care and precision which the difficulty 

 of the subject rendered necessary, I have undertaken this 

 difficult task. I submit the results which 1 have obtained to the 

 chemists. It is their province to judge how far I have succeeded. 



Gurman first announced the long period during which the 

 brain remains sound in the cranium of dead bodies. 



Burrhus compared this organ to an oil, and particularly to 

 spermaceti. 



Thouret, whose loss medicine laments, in an excellent 

 memoir on the dead bodies found in the burying-ground of the 

 Innocents, considered the substance of the brain as a sort of 

 soap. 



Fourcroy, whom the sciences likewise deplore, advanced an 

 opinion respecting the nature of the cerebral matter different 

 from that of Thouret. f He considered it as principally com- 

 posed of albumen and of another matter, which he thought a 

 peculiar substance. Though the experiments of Fourcroy leave 

 several things imperfect^ yet it will be seen, by comparing them 



* From the Annales de Chimie, vol. Isxsi. p. 37. 

 + Aprales de Chimie, vol. xvi= 



