Medical lectures and aphorisms / by Samuel Gee.

  • Samuel Gee
Date:
1902
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Medical lectures and aphorisms / by Samuel Gee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sensorium, the ‘ mind’s eye,’ the ‘ inmost seat of mental sight,’ is to be found in the cerebral convolution called cuneus. Lesion of any part of an organ of sense produces anaesthesia, and a comatose person may be locally anesthetic ; for instance, he may be blind ; but this consti- tutes no part of the coma. We know much about the senses, and quite enough to justify us in believing that, if the organs of sense be implicated in coma, it is through their sensoria all and sundry. The anatomy of the brain gives no support to the notion of a sensorium commune such as Thomas Willis was disposed to find in the corpora striata. But most people think that coma is more than universal anesthesia, and hence a third definition. III. A comatose person is said be Uncon- scious. Con-scious means that which knows with another, that which participates in know- ledge, that which is an accessory or accomplice in knowledge. Thus the word consciousness or conception implies ‘ facultas que se sentire sentit ’ (Lord Herbert); it implies something beyond and above mere sense or perception,^ ' The distinction between perception and concep- tion is so ancient and so universal as to indicate what
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