Part 14

That author had no doubt that he was saying something.

NOTE V.

EXAGGERATION OF BROUSSAIS, EVEN IN PHRENOLOGY.

Page 120. We ought to read that volume over again, and forget the Cours de Phrénologie.

Broussais does not adopt merely the general ideas of the phrenologists—he adopts even the smallest of them.

Gall had located the instinct of murder in a given part of the brain; and he supposed, be it understood, that this part existed only in the brain of the carnivorous animals. But see, it is found in the brain of the herbivora; and one would suppose that the phrenologists would be in trouble about it. Don’t deceive yourself, the instinct of murder is the instinct of destruction. Spurzheim denominates it destructivity; and the herbivorous animals must possess it, for they eat plants and consequently destroy them.

“The herbivora” says Broussais, “effect a real destruction among plants. An attempt has been made to turn these ideas into ridicule, even in an Academy.... It was in a learned society of this kind considered ridiculous in the phrenologists to compare the destruction of vegetables to that of animals. For my own part I do not see why the idea should be rejected, if the fundamental object of the organ be to procure the means of alimentation, which seems to be quite certain.”

Gall imagines an organ for religion; he thinks it peculiar to man, and denominates it the Organ of Theosophy. The same organ is found quite down in the scale as low as the sheep; and do not suppose that Broussais is at all shocked by the discovery. If necessary he will go further than all the phrenologists taken together.

“The phrenologists” says he, “have denied that this sentiment (the sentiment of veneration) belongs to the animals. I am not of that opinion. A certain shade of veneration exists in many species, among the vertebrate, that choose their leaders, and march according to a signal given by their chiefs and obey them. Thus even among the sheep you may see a chief.”

Who would have believed it? Broussais finds Gall too timorous.

“There is,” says he, “no central organ. This is considered as one of the most powerful objections to Gall. As far as I know he never answered it. As for me, I shall be more frank, perhaps more bold: I shall say it is impossible that there should be one, &c.”

NOTE VI.

CONTRACTILITY OF BROUSSAIS.

Page 126. He assigns it to every tissue, and, like them, he explains every thing by means of it.

He assigns it to every tissue. Haller attributed this property to the muscles alone, “but it is a common property of the tissues.”

He explains every thing by means of it: every thing, even innervation itself. But he is constrained to add: “Doubtless something more occurs in the interior of the nervous tissue; doubtless we are unacquainted and ignorant as to how that other thing is connected with the motions in question, and how it may employ them in the act of innervation,” &c.

So we perceive, in the first place, contractility explains innervation; and then, that something more is wanting. And as nervous contractility is nothing but a mental fiction (a nerve never moves, never contracts, when it is touched) the whole matter tapers down to this something more, or to that other thing.

See how very far from being rigorous are those who construct systems.

NOTE VII.

REAL LABOURS OF GALL AS TO THE BRAIN.

Page 128. Gall, moreover, was a great anatomist.

He found that the medullary substance of the brain was fibrous throughout; he saw the fibres of the medulla oblongata decussate before they form the pyramidal eminences, those of the corpora olivaria, &c.; that is to say, all the ascending fibres of the medulla oblongata across the pons varolii, thalami nervor opticorum, and the corpora striata, as far as the vault of the hemispheres; he saw the bundles formed by these fibres increased in magnitude at each of these passages; he distinguished the fibres which go out in order to expand in the hemispheres, from those that go in in order to give birth to the commissures: many nerves that were regarded as coming out immediately from the brain, were by him traced even into the medulla oblongata, &c.

And I repeat that all these facts, with the discovery of which he has enriched the science of anatomy, all of them are the results of a happy thought of his—the idea of tracing the fibres of the brain, or to use a common expression, of substituting in the dissection of the brain the method of developments for that of sections.

Those of Gall’s opinions which it seems ought not to be adopted, are: that in which he supposes the nerve fibres to be born (he understands the word to the letter) of the gray matter; that in which he contends that the convolutions of the brain are merely foldings of the medullary fibres, and can therefore be unfolded; that in which he compares the rete mucosum of the skin to the gray matter of the encephalon, &c., &c.

Gall had a mind which impelled him to the formation of hypotheses; and even in his real anatomy there is a decided smack of a system-author.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES

Anatomie et Physiologie du système nerveux en général, et du cerveau en particulier, avec des observations sur la possibilité de reconnaître plusieurs dispositions intellectuelles et morales de l’homme et des animaux par la configuration de leurs têtes; 4 vol. 4to, avec planches. Paris, de 1810 à 1819.