The brain as an organ of mind / by H. Charlton Bastian.

  • Henry Charlton Bastian
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The brain as an organ of mind / by H. Charlton Bastian. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    728/740 (page 700)
    and superficial, ansesthesia, may exist without much if at all dis- turbing the co-ordination of movements on the same side of the body — a phenomenon several times seen by the writer, and which was also, recently pointed out to him by Prof. Charcot on the occasion of au examination of some of his remarkable hemianaesthetic patients at la Salpetriere. In Demeaux’s case (in addition to cutaneous and deep sensibility) those peculiar ‘ unconscious ’ impressions may have been cut off, the loss of which alone in the patients of Landry produced an inco-ordination of movement in the absence of sight impressions. His case is, therefore, most instructive in its bear- ings upon the general question. There was in this woman a total disappearance of all that kind of knowledge which has, by one or other, been ascribed to, or supposed to be derived from, the ‘ mus-' cular sense.’ The woman was ignorant of the position of her limbs, and unconscious of any movements which she might execute. The volitional centres, the spinal motor centres, the motor nerves and the muscles were capable of being called into activity as before —yet all the information usually supposed to be derived through the ‘ muscular sense ’ had vanished. A precisely similar comiition of things also existed in a cele- brated case of spinal-cord disease, associated with extreme anesthe- sia, which was observed by Spaeth and Schueppel (see Ziemssen’s “ Cyclopedia,” vol. xiii. p. 88). Concerning the state of this patient the following note may be quoted:—‘‘ Sense of pressure in the upper extremity, and the sense of force, entirely extinct. Sense of position of the upper extremity and of passive movements of the latter completely extinct. Movements of the upper extremities powerful and perfectly correct; the patient eats alone, dresses him- self, etc., as far as he can direct his acts with his sight ” No clearer evidence than this, together with what has been previously mentioned, could be forthcoming to show that the know- ledge of the position of our limbs, of their movements, and of the state and degrees of contraction of our muscles generally, does not depend, as Wundt, Bain, and others assume, upon impres- sions that are “ concomitants of,” or that coincide with, “ the outgoing stream of nervous energy.”