The first three years of childhood / by Bernard Perez. Ed. and tr. by Alice M. Christie, with an introduction by James Sully.

  • Bernard Pérez
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The first three years of childhood / by Bernard Perez. Ed. and tr. by Alice M. Christie, with an introduction by James Sully. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    foetal brain of mammalia and man the structure [of the cerebral convolutions] consists of one uninterrupted nucleated network. As development advances, separate layers may be distinguished.'^ But even in these layers there are only to be recognised, ' roundish nuclei connected by a network of fibres,' or, in other parts, groups of more elongated nuclei, in place of the distinct but differently shaped nerve cells with inter-connecting processes which are the prevailing and characteristic constituents of the cerebral convolutions in their developed condition.^ As far as these superficial indications allow of any conclusion, we see that if the development of the superior hemispheres appears to be ripe enough for perception, emotion, and volition, the defective consistence of their constituent elements indicates, at least during the uterine period, a very limited functional power of the psychical faculties. But it does not follow from the fact that the development of the cerebellum, the organ of co-ordinate movements, is not so advanced as that of the cerebrum, that the centres of ideality and of motive volition have not already entered on their functions before birth. Psychologists ought then to be very careful of pro- nouncing judgment in a matter where physiologists of the highest authority are still so much in the dark. I may add, that the latter not being able to subject new-born babies to the murderous experiments of vivisection under anaes- thetics, we have at the present moment but little to expect from their direct sources of information on the Cerebral functions of young children—and a fortiori of the fcetus. At the most, as we shall show further on, they may contribute to infant psychology some indirect infor- mation from their experiments on new-born animals. Every age has its comparative psychology. For the present, however, we may fairly assume from ' Notes of Researches on the Intimate Structure of the Brain. Pro- ceedings of Royal Society, 1863, p. 721. ' Charllon Bastian, The Brain as an Organ of Mind (International Scientific Series), ch. xi,\., pp. 341-346.