Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham].

  • Amariah Brigham
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the influence of mental cultivation and mental excitement upon health / [Amariah Brigham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    size of this organ increases from the time of birth till manhood, remains stationary from this period until old age, and then diminishes in bulk and weight. >9 The relative size of its different portions constantly varies during several of the first j'ears of life, and it is not until about the seventh year that all its parts are forraed.29 During childhood it is “ very soft, and even almost liquid under the finger, and its different parts cannot be clearly distinguished.”21 Still at this time it is supplied with more blood, in proportion to its size, than at any subsequent period. It then grows most rapidly, and more rapidly than any other organ: its weight is nearly doubled at the end of the first six months; and hence the nervous system, being con- nected with the brain, is early developed, and becomes the predominating system in youth. At this period of life, however, which is devoted to the increase of the 19 Andriil’s Pathological Anatomy, vol. 2.—[Great differences of opinion exist witli regard to the period at which the brain at- tains its full size. According to the ablest pliysiological writers, this does not happen till between the twentieth and thirtieth year; wliile Sir William Hamilton and the Wenzels allege that it occurs at the age of scve7i. The latter seems a most incredible assertion. 1, for one, do not believe it. Tlie circumference of a grown man's head exceeds, on an average, that of a child of seven by a couple of rnclies; a difference far too great to be accounted for by the superior thickness of the skull and integuments. The point can very easily be set at rest, by comparing a great number of brains of men, and of children of seven years, taken indiscriminately, and not, as I sus- pect has been the case with the above-named writers, by contrasting large brains of children of that age, with small and ordinary sized adult brains.—R. M.] 20 Meckel. 21 Bichat’s General -Anatomy, vol. 1.