On the specific gravity of different parts of the human brain / by H. Charlton Bastian.

  • Bastian, H. Charlton.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the specific gravity of different parts of the human brain / by H. Charlton Bastian. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    cautions, the results would be quite valueless. It is of the utmost importance, also, in order that different workers may compare their observations, that they should each take the portions of cerebral substance as nearly as possible from the same situations. And since so large a share of the interest of these investigations attaches to the examination of the gray matter of the convolutions, it is above all things desirable that a uniform method should be adopted for the determination of its specific gravity. Although it would be more desirable, if it could be done with equal facility, and with an equal cliance of uniformity, to ascertain the specific gravity of the whole depth of gray matter, still the dangers of error, and the sources of fallacy to be guarded against, are so much greater when this is done, that I think the method I have adopted of taking not more tlian the upper two thirds in depths to be the more desirable process. I shall continue to make my observations in this way, since in addition to the fact that it gives such a much smaller field for possible error, they can be effected with so much greater ease and rapidity, owing to the precautions necessary for ensuring accuracy being fewer and simpler. It is not hkely that changes in the deep strata of the gray matter would be absolutely confined to this por- tion, and, therefore, its upper and middle strata may be almost as representative of the degree of change in the s]5ecific gravity of the gray matter, as if its whole depth were taken. Estimations of the specific gravity of the different parts of the brain can, however, be considered as only the first steps towards a more thorough knowledge of the pathology of this organ. These investigations will serve to supply us only with the most convenient and trustworthy beacons, indicating the situations where pathological and histological changes are most likely to be found, but as to the nature of such changes this method can reveal little. Ee- course must then be liad to the aid of chemistry, and this again be supported and abetted by the microscope, in the hands of one who has already made himself thoroughly conversant with the healthy structure and appearances of the difi'erent portions of the encephalon. Investigations pursued in this triple method would surely be produc- tive of good results. At all events, the pathology of the brain in the very many obscure forms of cerebral disease, has hitherto so effectually eluded all ordinary methods of research—inquiries into the nature of the changes have been so baffling and confusing—that it behoves us to deviate somewliat from the beaten path, and to bestir ourselves, calhng to our aid, if need be, either new means or more effective combinations of old methods, that we may do our utmost to solve this riddle of the Sphinx, and so rid ourselves of an * incubus and a cloud now darkening the fields of knowledge.