Righthandedness and lefthandedness / with chapters treating of the writing posture, the rule of the road, etc., by George M. Gould, M.D.

  • George M. Gould
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Righthandedness and lefthandedness / with chapters treating of the writing posture, the rule of the road, etc., by George M. Gould, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    fact is self-evident when one thinks of it, for all action is dominated and permitted by the sight of the external conditions in which move¬ ment mnst take place. There is a striking and demonstrating proof of all this in the embry¬ ology of the eye as contrasted with the general embryology of the human fetus. The forma¬ tion of the eye is well under way in the second or third week, but the differentiation of the motor muscular tissues is not clear until some four months later. More significant still is the fact that the eye is a part of the brain,—the brain itself comes out to see, the retina being cerebral substance told off to a special periph¬ eral and extracerebral function and placing. This is so with no other organ of the body, and it not only demonstrates that vision and intel¬ lect are united in a common work, but that they are united in being, one in origin, one in nature, one in function, one in history. That which is the nearest man’s soul, the most psychic, the most immaterial of the doings and creatings of his mind, is language. Its organ is single not double, its center of origin and control is monolateral in one side of the brain, and not as in the case of the hands, eyes, 18 *