The localisation of cerebral disease : being the Gulstonian lectures of the Royal College of Physicians for 1878 / by David Ferrier.

  • David Ferrier
Date:
1878
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The localisation of cerebral disease : being the Gulstonian lectures of the Royal College of Physicians for 1878 / by David Ferrier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

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    temporal lobes. That this is so, we should be led to believe from anatomical as well as from other considerations. For, though from the intricate nature of the subject and imperfect methods, I do not place much reliance on mere anatomical investigation as a means of determining the exact course and destination and various connections of the cerebro-spinal tracts, yet, so far as main features are concerned, it furnishes us with bases for other lines of research. It has been established, I think, beyond doubt, that the posterior strands of the crus, and their connections with the brain and the cord, are more especially the paths of centripetal or sensory impressions. The researches of Meynert and others would seem to show that these tracts are connected with those parts of the cortex which we are now considering. Beyond these general indications, how- ever, I am very sceptical as to the results of anatomical localisa- tion. But in addition to general anatomical indications, we have experimental and pathological evidence as to the exact position of the paths which convey sensory impressions to the cortex. The experimental evidence has been furnished by the researches of Veyssiere,^ which have been repeated and verified by Carville and Duret, Raymond, and others. These experi- ments show that when section is made of the posterior part of the internal capsule, that part of the ' projection system' which lies between the optic thalamus and lenticular nucleus of the corpus striatum (fig. 52 [«]), there ensues a condition of ' Sur VHIiinianesthesk de Cause Cerehrale, 1874.