Text-book of insanity : based on clinical observations for practitioners and students of medicine.

  • Richard von Krafft-Ebing
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Text-book of insanity : based on clinical observations for practitioners and students of medicine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    cells i& found, the gray cortex lias long been the subject of investiga- tion and speculation. Until lately the idea was entertained that ihe various portions of the cortex were functionally of like power and importance and capable of acting one for anotlier. Broca^s proof of the localization of the faculty of speech in a limited portion of the cerebral cortex did not agi-ee with this opinion as defined by Flourens, Vulpian, Schiff, and others. But morphologic differences of its stnicture also pointed to a regional differentiation of its functional activity. In 1874 Betz found remarkably large ganglion-cells (giant cells) in the forebrain, and small ones, like those of the posterior horns of the cord, in the cortex of the parietal and occipital lobes, the difference being analogous with the anatomic differentiation of the cells of the anterior and posterior horns of the spinal cord, which are certainly physiologically different. Moreover, Betz's giant cells are found only very sparingly in the brains of children, and they are developed only gradually in the course of the development of the brain. Further, it is interesting to note Soltmann's discovery, that the cortical regions where these cells are found, in very young animals are insensitive to experimental excitation, and only later can be excited in their specific functions. Finally, the fact that the paths of voluntary muscle- innervation have their starting-point in the frontal lobes, and the sensory paths their termination exclusively in the occipital lobes and the neighboring regions of the parietal lobes, speaks for a functional differentiation of the cerebral cortex. The epoch-making experimental investigations on animals of Fritsch, Hitzig, Ferrier, Munk, and others, with which numerous pathologic findings on the human brain harmonize, must be thanked for the fact that to-day we are, in a measure, acquainted with the functions of the cerebral cortex and their regional arrangement. It cannot be denied, however, that, owing to the fact that there are fundamental differences of form and function between the brains of animals and man, the results of experiments in cerebral physiology cannot be immediately applied to the pathology of the human brain, but must be taken cum grano sails. Nevertheless, the results of circumscribed stimulation or destruc- tion of the cortex in the higher animals (dog, ape), brought into com- parison with cases of strictly localized lesions of the human brain, must be regarded as giving the foundation for a physiology of the cerebral cortex. The investigations of ]\Iunk are remarkable for completeness of technique and distinctness of interpretation of the experimental results, and may here be shortly summarized.