Idee einer neuen Hirnanatomie (1811) : Originaltext und Übersetzung / Charles Bell ; mit Einleitung herausgegeben von Erich Ebstein.

  • Charles Bell
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Idee einer neuen Hirnanatomie (1811) : Originaltext und Übersetzung / Charles Bell ; mit Einleitung herausgegeben von Erich Ebstein. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/52 (page 12)
    Idea of a new Anatomy of the Brain; submitted for the observations of his friends by Charles Bell, F. R. S. E. [3] Note. The want of any consistent history of the Brain and Nerves, and the dull unmeaning manner which is in use of demonstrating the brain, may authorize any novelty in the manner of treating the subject. I have found some of my friends so mistaken in their conception of the object of the demonstrations which I have delivered in my lectures, that I wish to vindicate myself at all hazards. They would have it that I am in search of the seat of the soul; but I wish only to investigate the structure of the brain, as we examine the structure of the eye and ear. It is not more presumptuous to follow the tracts of ner- vous matter in the brain, and to attempt to discover the course of sensation, than it is to trace the rays of light through the humours of the eye, and to say, that the retina is the seat of vision. Why are we to close the investigation with the discovery of the external organ? It would have been easy to have given this Essay an imposing splendour, by illustrations and engravings of the parts, but I [4] submit it as a sketch to those who are well able to judge of it in this shape.