Problems of Life and Mind. Second series by George Henry Lewes (best contemporary novels TXT) 📕

still express themselves as if they adopted this view. We shall, however, presently see reason for replacing it by the more consistent interpretation which assigns one and the same property to both nerves, marking their distinction by the terms afferent and efferent; the one set being anatomically so disposed that it conveys stimuli from the surfaces to the centre, and the other set conveying stimuli from the centre to the muscles, glands, and other cells.89

27. Bell’s discovery was rapidly generalized. The principle of localization was extended to all nerves, and of course to the posterior and anterior columns of the spinal cord, which indeed were assumed to be continuations of the nerves. Bell, who was greater as an anatomist than as a philosopher, always maintained that anatomical deduction was superior to experiment. But this was to misunderstand the reach of deduction, which is only valid to the extent of its premises.90 In the present case, the premises assumed that the posterior columns were continuations of the posterior roots, and carried impressions to the brain, the anterior columns carrying back from the brain the “mandates of the will.” Experiment has, however, decisively shown that it is not through the posterior columns that sensory impressions travel to the brain, but through the central gray substance.

28. The spinal cord with its central gray substance is at each point a centre of reflexion. Connected as it is with different organs, we artificially consider it as a chain of different centres, and try to detect the functional relations of its parts. The inquiry is important, but we must bear in mind the cardinal principle that diversity of Function depends on the organs innervated, and not on a diversity of Property in the nervous tissue. Although all nerves have a common structure and common property, yet we distinguish them as sensory and motor; and the sensory we subdivide into those of Special Sensation and those of Systemic Sensation. The motor we divide into muscular, vasomotor, and glandular. The hypothesis of specific energies must be relinquished (§ 63).

In like manner all centres have a common structure and a common property, with a great diversity of functional relations. Here also the hypothesis of specific energies has been generally adopted, owing to a mistaken conception of the biological principle just mentioned. The cerebral hemispheres are credited with the properties of sensation, thought, and volition; the cerebellum with the property of muscular co-ordination; the spinal cord with the property of reflexion.

29. No attempt to assign the true functional relations of the centres will be made at the present stage of our exposition. We must learn more of the processes in Sensation, Thought, and Volition, before we can unravel the complex physiological web on which they depend. But here, provisionally, may be set down what observation and experiment have disclosed respecting the part played by certain centres. We know, for example, that when the cerebral hemispheres are carefully removed from a reptile or a bird, all the essentially vital functions go on pretty much as before, but a great disturbance in some of the psychical functions is observed. The brainless bird eats, drinks, sleeps, moves its limbs separately and in combination, manifests sensibility to light, sound, and touch, performs such instinctive actions as preening its feathers, or thrusting the head under the wing while roosting. Throw it into the air and it will fly. In its flight it will avoid obstacles, and will alight upon a ledge, or your shoulder. But it will not fly unless thrown into the air; it will not escape through the open door or window; it will avoid objects, but will show no fear of them,—alighting on your head, for example, without hesitation. It is sensitive to light, and may in a certain sense be said to see; but it fails to perceive what is seen. It will eat and drink, if food and water be administered, but it will starve near a heap of grain and never peck it, not even if the beak be thrust into the heap. A grain, or strip of meat, may be thrust inside the beak; there it will remain unswallowed, unless it touches the back of the mouth, then swallowing at once follows the stimulus. The bird with its brain will fly away if you turn the finger, or stick, on which it is perching; without its brain, it makes no attempt to fly, but flutters its wings, and balances itself. If you open the mouth of a cat, or rabbit, and drop in some bitter fluid, the animal closes its mouth firmly, and resists your efforts to repeat the act; without its brain, the animal shows the same disgust at the taste, but never resists the preliminaries of the repetition.

30. These, and analogous facts, have been noted by various experimenters. They are very far from proving what is usually concluded; but they prove the important negative position that the cerebrum is not the centre of innervation for any of the organs on which the observed actions depend. Thus, the cerebrum is not necessary to sight: ergo it does not innervate the eye. It is not necessary to hearing: ergo it does not innervate the ear.91 It is not necessary to breathing, swallowing, flying, etc.: ergo it does not innervate the organs of these functions.

What then is lost? We have only to remember that the cerebrum is continuous with the thalami and corpora striata, and, through its crura, with the medulla oblongata and medulla spinalis, to foresee that its removal must more or less affect the whole neural axis, and consequently disturb the actions of the whole organism; this disturbance will often have the appearances which would be due to the removal of a central apparatus, so that we shall be apt to attribute the cessation of a function to the loss of its organ, when in fact the cessation is due simply to an arrest of the organ by irritation. Thus the cessation of consciousness, or of any particular movements, when the cerebrum is removed, is no decisive proof that the cerebrum is the organ of consciousness, or of the movement in question. This point will be duly considered hereafter. What we have now to consider is the facts observed after removal of the cerebrum.

First, we observe a loss of that power of combining present states with past states, present feelings with feelings formerly excited in conjunction with them, the power which enables the animal to adjust its actions to certain sensations now unfelt but which will be felt in consequence of the adjustment. Secondly, we observe a loss of Spontaneity: the bird, naturally mobile and alert, now sits moveless for hours in a sort of stupor, occasionally preening its feathers, but rarely quitting its resting-place. All the most conspicuous phenomena which we assign to Intelligence and Will seem absent. The sensations are altered and diminished. Many Instincts have disappeared, but some remain. The sexual feeling is preserved, although the bird has lost all power of directing its actions so as to gratify the desire. But these effects are only observed when the whole of both hemispheres have been removed. If a small portion remain the bird retains most of its faculties, though with less energy. In frogs and fishes there is little discernible effect observed when a large portion of the cerebrum is removed.

31. Now take away from this mutilated bird its cerebellum: all the functions continue as before except that some combined movements can no longer be effected; flight is impossible; walking is a mere stagger. Remove only the lateral lobes, and though flight is still possible great incoherence of the wings is observed, whereas walking is not much affected. If only the cerebellum be removed, the cerebrum being intact, the phenomena are very different. All the perceptions and almost all the emotions, all the spontaneity and vivacity are retained; but the sexual instinct, which was manifested when the cerebrum was removed, is now quite gone. What we call Intelligence seems unaffected. The bird hears, and understands the meaning of the sounds, sees and perceives, sees and fears, sees and adjusts its movements with a mental vision of unseen consequences.92

32. Are we from these facts to conclude that the cerebrum is the “organ of the mind”; that it is “the seat” of sensation, thought, emotion, volition; and that the cerebellum is the “seat” of the sexual instinct, and muscular co-ordination? Such conclusions have found acceptance, even from physiologists who would have been startled had any one ventured to affirm that the medulla oblongata was the “organ” of Respiration, because Respiration ceases when this centre is destroyed. I shall have to combat this notion at various stages of my exposition. Here let me simply say that it is irreconcilable with any clear conception of organ and function; and is plainly irreconcilable with any survey of psychical phenomena in animals in whom the cerebrum does not exist, and in animals from whom it has been removed.

What the facts indisputably prove is that the cerebrum has an important part in the mechanism by which the most complex psychical combinations are effected, and that the cerebellum has an important part in the mechanism by which the most complex muscular combinations are effected. The supreme importance of the cerebrum may be inferred from its dominating all the other centres, and from its preponderance in size. In man it stands to all the other cranial centres together in the relation of 11 to 3. It is about five times as heavy as the spinal cord—that is to say from 1,100 to 1,400 grammes, compared with 27 to 30 grammes. The quantity of blood circulating through it is immense. Haller estimated the cranial circulation as one fifth of the whole circulation. If, therefore, the Nervous Centres are agents in the production of Sensation and Intelligence, by far the largest share must be allotted to the cranial centres, and of these the largest to the Cerebrum.

33. It is, however, one thing to recognize the Cerebrum as having an important part in the production of psychical phenomena, another thing to localize all the phenomena in it as their organ and seat—a localization which soon becomes even more absurd, when of all the cerebral structure the multipolar cells alone are admitted as the active agents!

As was said just now, we recognize in the Medulla Oblongata the nervous centre of Respiration, but we do not suppose that Respiration has its seat there, nor that this centre is absolutely indispensable for the essential part of the process. We respire by our skin, as well as by our lungs; many animals respire who have nothing like a medulla oblongata; as many animals feel, and manifest will, who have nothing like a cerebrum. The destruction of centres is of course a disturbance of the mechanisms which they regulate. But even the observed results of a destruction require very close examination, and are liable to erroneous interpretations. The disappearance of a function following the destruction, or disease of a particular part, is not to be accepted as a proof that this part is the organ of the lost function; because precisely the same phenomena may often be observed following the destruction of a totally different part.93 But one result may always be relied on, and that is the persistence of a function after removal of a particular part. Thus there is a certain spot of the cerebral convolutions from which movements of the limbs are excited when the electrodes are applied to it; removal of the substance is immediately followed by paralysis of the limbs. Are we to conclude that this spot is the organ of the function? It is