The senses, their division and work : viewed physically and evolutionally / by Henry Muirhead.

  • Muirhead, Henry.
Date:
[1877]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The senses, their division and work : viewed physically and evolutionally / by Henry Muirhead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    1/18 (page 318)
    JOT'-' XXXII.—The Senses—their Divisions and Work—viewed Physically and Evolutionally.* By Henry Muirhead, M.D., Cam- buslang. [Read before tlie Society, February 7, 1877.] $ Stedl! ion oilecoi Hovided [After some follows :—] introductory remarks the paper proceeded as- Vi.* ’ * tv. litsi ^ear Living material possesses inertia, that is, the disposition to persist, quite as much as non-live matter does; and this disposition, in- clination, or property is, I do not much doubt, the operating agency* .. in heredity, or persistence of type, whilst the never-ceasing incur sions of the surroundants are the occasioning causes of all revolution, t.e. Evolution. Every biod is the battleground of these t*wo con- tending forces :—the Ancestral or Conservative (instincts), and the Personal (experiences) or Reforming (tendencies), as I named them in a paper read before the Anthropological Society in 1870, where I pointed out, that as soon as reforming parties succeed in estaln lishing themselves in power in the interior, they tend to become as conservative as those whose ancestors have been there for ages. To assist the inner powers in holding the reins of government in the besieged city of such a complex corporation as a mammalian organism exhibits, telegraphic communications between the internal factories have been established, and also between these and the outposts, to give immediate intelligence of danger, of supplies, of assistance, &c These are in full communication with reacting centres, from the most primitive and direct reflex-reactors, to the most considerative of the cerebrum. It is to these outpost contrivances for intelligent cing purposes, and their reports, that I chiefly intend to direct attention at present. For it is beyond the purport of this paper to narrate the various steps in differentiation of the nutritive, motor, and co-ordinating organs. Of the latter*, the first distinctly visible are small ganglia, with nerves to the muscles, &c., to control these- organs, but not to impart working power into them any more than. In this paper I treat incidentally of Evolution and Continuity in live bodies,- f s in those of last session I did in reference to inorganic matter. )1»1* c?J d-fc froai re s!l f mii;r- aertii hst is c ■tt - as K V. <1