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.

    22/52 (page 18)
    When this whole was created, (of which the remote planetary system, as well as our [8] bodies, and the objects more familiar to our observation, are but parts,) the mind was placed in a body not merely suited to its residence, but in circum- stances to be moved by the materials around it; and the capa- cities of the mind, and the powers of the organs, which are as a medium betwixt the mind and the external world, have an original constitution framed in relation to the qualities of things. It is admitted that neither bodies nor the images of bodies enter the brain. It is indeed impossible to believe that colour can be conveyed along a nerve; or the vibration in which we suppose sound to consist can be retained in the brain: but we can conceive, and have reason to believe, that an impression is made upon the organs of the outward senses when we see, or hear, or taste. In this inquiry it is most essential to observe, that while each organ of sense is provided with a capacity of receiving certain changes to be played upon it, as it were, yet each is utterly incapable of receiving [9] the impressions destined for another organ of sensation. It is also very remarkable that an impression made on two different nerves of sense, though with the same instru- ment, will produce two distinct sensations; and the ideas re- sulting will only have relation to the organ affected. As the announcing of these facts forms a natural intro- duction to the Anatomy of the Brain, which I am about to deliver, I shall state them more fully. There are four kinds of Papillae on the tongue, but with two of those only we have to do at present. Of these, the Papillae of one kind form the seat of the sense of taste; the other Papillae (more numerous and smaller) resemble the ex- tremities of the nerves in the common skin, and are the or- gans of touch in the tongue. When I take a sharp steel point, and touch one of these Papillae, I feel the sharpness. The sense of touch informs me of the shape of the instrument. When I touch a Papilla of taste, I have no sensation similar