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

  • Charles Bell
Date:
1911
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Licence: In copyright

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

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    conclusion which otherways would be drawn. A nerve hav- ing several roots, implies that it propagates its sensation to the brain generally. But when we find that the several roots are distinct in their endowments, and are in respect to office distinct nerves; then the conclusion is unavoidable, that the portions of [28] the brain are distinct organs of diffe- rent functions. To arrive at any understanding of the internal parts of the cerebrum, we must keep in view the relation of the nerves, and must class and distinguish the nerves, and follow them into its substance. If all ideas originate in the mind from external impulse, how can we better investigate the struc- ture of the brain than by following the nerves, which are the means of communication betwixt the brain and the out- ward organs of the senses? The nerves of sense, the olfactory, the optic, the auditory, and the gustatory nerve, are traced backwards into certain tubercles or convex bodies in the base of the brain. And I may say, that the nerves of sense either form tubercles before entering the brain, or they enter into those convexities in the base of the cerebrum. These convexities are the constituent parts of the cerebrum, and are in all animals necessary parts of the organs of sense: for as certainly as [29] we discover an animal to have an external organ of sense, we find also a medullary tubercle; whilst the superiority of animals in in- telligence is shewn by the greater magnitude of the hemispheres or upper part of the cerebrum. The convex bodies which are seated in the lower part of the cerebrum, and into which the nerves of sense enter, have extensive connexion with the hemispheres on their upper part. From the medullary matter of the hemispheres, again, there pass down, converging to the crura, Striae, which is the me- dullary matter taking upon it the character of a nerve; for from the Crura Cerebri, or its prolongation in the anterior Fasciculi of the spinal marrow, go off the nerves of motion. But with these nerves of motion which are passing out- ward there are nerves going inwards; nerves from the surfaces