HISTORICAL NOTICE OF EARLY OPINIONS REGARDING THE FUNCTIONS OF DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE BRAIN.

ARISTOTLE, with whom appears to have originated almost every theory that has divided the opinions of the learned, taught, that the first or anterior ventricle of the brain, which he supposed to look towards the front, was the ventricle of common sense, because from it, according to him, the nerves of the five senses branched off, and into it, by the aid of these nerves, all smells, colours, tastes, sounds, and tactile affections, were brought together. The second ventricle, connected by a minute opening with the first, he fixed upon as the seat of imagination, judgment, and reflection, because the impressions from the five senses are transmitted from the first ventricle into it, as a second stage in their progress through the brain. The third ventricle was sacred to memory, because it was commodiously situat ed as a storehouse into which the conceptions of the mind, digested in the second ventricle, might be transmitted for retention and accumulation.

If we apply the principles of Phrenology to these views. we perceive them to be evidently nothing more than the fictions of an exuberant fancy. Dissection, indeed, shews that there are ventricles in the brain, but the keenest eye can perceive nothing in them resembling either sensation. imagination, or memory. Observation is never hinted at as the foundation on which these opinions rest, and consciousness throws no light upon the subject. The assignment, therefore, of functions to the ventricles, connected with these faculties, is altogether gratuitous.

Passing on to a more recent period, we find the same notions repeated by a great variety of authors, with some slight variations, but with few approaches to greater philo sophical precision. Bernard Gordon, a Scotch physician. professor of medicine at Montpelier, in a tract entitled "Affectus præternaturam curandi Methodus," written in 1296, (as appears by his own words at the end of the introduction,- "Statuta fuit hæc ordinatio in præclaro stu

* By W. C. Trevelyan and George Combe.—Vol. ii. No. 7. p. 378.

dio Montispessulani anno Domini 1296, mense Julio, die Mercurij, post festum beati martialis, et quia aliqui ex sociis volunt scire dandum est,")—gives very nearly the same account of the functions of the brain. There are, says he, three cells or ventricles in the brain. In the anterior part of the first ventricle lies "Common Sense," the function of which is to take cognizance of the various forms or images received by the several senses, and to pass judgment upon them. In the posterior portion of the first ventricle lies "Phantasia," the function of which is to preserve the spe cies received by the "Sensus Communis." Hence "Phantasia" is the treasury or storehouse of the latter. In the anterior department of the second ventricle lies " Imaginativa," which never rests in the whole course of life, either in sleep or in watching. Its function is to put ideas together, and it is impossible to exist a moment without it. The preceding faculties, common sense and fancy, compose nothing, but only receive and preserve impressions. They cannot compound a new object out of different affections of the senses. But the imaginative faculty composes chimeras, &c. Hence it has two names. If it be

obedient to reason, and the objects imagined have a real existence coinciding with the perceptions of the senses, the faculty is called "Cogitativa." If, however, it does not coincide with the perceptions of the senses, but obeys the faculty next to be mentioned, called "Estimativa," it is properly named "Imaginativa;" because then the things conceived are false, and probably impossible. In the posterior portion of the middle ventricle lies the faculty named "Estimativa," the function of which is to judge of impressions not received by the senses, as friendship. By this faculty the lamb instinctively knows the wolf to be an enemy, although it never saw one before. "Estimativa," therefore, is in animals the instinctive faculty which regulates their conduct, as reason regulates that of man. Hence, when men are regulated by their instinctive faculties, they err, and resemble the beasts in their conduct; when they act by reason, they do not fail in their aim. In the third or posterior ventricle, Memory holds its seat.

Thus, continues the author, there are three faculties or virtues," Imaginatio, Cogitatio, et Memoria ;" and all

these are natural and corruptible, and have organs. Above T them all, however, is another, a higher, a divine, and an ina corruptible faculty or virtue, called Intellect, which has n organ, although it makes use of the organs just mentione as media for acting on the external world.

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These faculties, says he, may become imperfect through g diseases in the organs; and, as the organs are distinct, one w may become affected while the others remain sound. “I с some Imaginativa is impaired while the other faculties ar sound. In others, on the contrary, imagination is sound. and the other faculties impaired. This is evident from the n circumstance of a certain deranged individual, who, having li struck his father, and being asked by him if it was becom ing in a son to lift his hand against his parent, fell upon h knees on perceiving him, and entreated his forgiveness. I him the imaginative faculty was impaired, and he did no t know his father. Reason, however, was entire; and it cor- ti rectly indicated that a father ought not to be struck." Ht relates another instance of the same kind, which, from the t quaintness of the style, we prefer giving in the words of the author:" Hippocrates dicit de quodam juvene, quod tenebat unum puerum, et dixit vultis istum? et dixerun} sic, et projecit, et fractus fuit puer; imaginatio non fuż t læsa, quia bene cognoscebat puerum. Sed ratio fuit læss f quia credebat ipsum impassibilem esse."-Particula Quart t de Prognosticis, Caput I. pp. 743-4-5.

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Several other curious observations of the same kind wit be found in another work of the same author, entitled "Lilium Medicinæ," written in 1305,* in the section "D Passionibus Capitis, particula ii. pp. 186-7, and 193, de Somno Innaturali." He says that sleep is, properly speak L ing, an affection of the "Sensus Communis," the organ

*“ Ad honorem, igitur, agni cœlestis, qui est splendor, et glora Dei patris, hunc librum intitulo Lilium Medicinæ. In Lilio enim sunt multi flores, et in quolibet flore sunt septem folia candida, e septem grana quasi aurea: similiter liber iste continet septem pa tes, quarum prima erit aurea, rutilans et clara. Tractabit enim & morbis plurimis universalibus, incipiens à febribus: aliæ autem sex partes erunt candidæ et transparentes, propter earum grandem ma nifestationem. Inchoatus autem est liber iste, cum auxilio mag Dei, in præclaro studio Montispessulani, post annum vigesimum lec turæ nostræ, anno Domini 1305, mense Julij. Lugduni, apud Golielmum Rouillium, 1559."

which lies in the anterior part of the forehead, and therefore all external impressions and animal functions are at rest. Watching, he informs us, is caused by the introduction of the animal spirits to the instruments of sense, thereby exciting them to perform their functions. On page 200 he gives a long list of prescriptions for removing excessive watching, and adds" Et si omnia deficiunt, incipiat dicere horas dominicas, et statim dormiet." On page 201 he gives a theory founded on the supposed motion of the animal spirits, why the imaginative faculty rests neither night nor day, but pursues a continual course of action ;-but our Limits prevent us from entering upon it.

To these speculations, also, we must apply the phrenological tests. They are not revealed by dissection, and not supported by observation or consciousness, and therefore hey are mere figments of the mind of the author, or of hose from whom he adopted them.

The animal spirits make a great figure in these dissertaions about the brain. It is therefore interesting to attend o a few details concerning them. Andrew Vesalius, or Wesel,* a celebrated anatomist of the sixteenth century, in is work "De Humani Corporis Fabrica," informs us, that he air which we breathe, penetrating through the cribriorm process of the ethmoidal bone, and through the Eusachian tubes, is by rarification rendered fit for the brain, nd then insinuates itself into the first and second venricles, where it is formed into animal spirits. These then ass into the third ventricle of the brain, and thence into he ventricle of the cerebellum. From this ventricle no mall portion of them is transmitted into the medulla obongata, and into the nerves propagated from it. The

* Andrew Vesalius, or Wesel, was born at Brussels in 1514. His aternal progenitors, for four generations, had been of some note in he medical line. In 1564, he attended a Spanish noble, who died hile under his care, as he did not understand the nature of the isease. Vesalius opened the body after death, when the heart was bserved to palpitate. This circumstance raised a great clamour gainst Vesalius; and, to save himself, he was obliged to make a pilrimage to Jerusalem, to expiate his crime (as it was considered). On his return thence he was wrecked on Zacynthus, where he soon fter died, in the same year, 1564.

The first edition of his work on the Anatomy of the Human Body as printed at Basle in 1542, in folio. It is a beautiful book, and ontains an excellent portrait of the author.

other portion of the spirits, "ad divinas principis anima operationes utitur," and is likewise transmitted from the ventricles of the brain to the nerves of sense and motion This author very gravely observes," Hactenus sane ce rebri functiones in vivorum animalium sectionibus admo dum probabiliter et veré quodammodo possum assequi." But, continues he, the theologians (Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Albertus, and others) having divided the functions

the mind into Imagination, Ratiocination, Cogitation, and Memory, have also divided the brain, upon what principle he cannot tell, into parts corresponding to those powers. He refers to Aristotle's division, adopted by the theologi-, ans, and according to which Imagination and Judgment were placed in the second ventricle, and Memory in the third; and confutes the hypothesis by the fact, that the parts of the brain to which the rational faculties are given by the theologians, are found in the lower animals to cor respond very nearly to the same parts in man.*

In another chapter, Vesalius informs us, that the same theologians conceived that the function of the vermiform processes of the cerebellum is to serve as a medium of communication, by which the phantoms of the mind may pass into the cerebellum, in which Memory is situated, and thence, by stealth, into the middle ventricle, which is the seat of Judgment. Against this opinion, however, Vesalius brings the argument already noticed, that these vermiform processes exist in the lower animals as well as in man and that, to these animals, both Judgment and Memory are denied by the theologians. These processes, if such be their functions, must in them have been made without a purpose, a supposition not admissible when the Divine Being was the contriver.* These processes derived their name from their supposed resemblance to a worm or maggot; and from their appearance, their functions in giving rise to phantoms, whims, or maggots in the mind, seem to have been inferred; and hence the phrase "maggotty appears to have had its origin.

*Liber vii. caput i. Edition printed at Basle, 1542. See also caput vi. "Ventriculorum Usus."

+Caput x., de cerebelli processibus vermis imaginem experimentibus, &c.

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