Course of lectures on physiology / as delivered by Professor Küss at the Medical School of the University of Strasbourg ; edited by Mathias Duval ; translated from the second and revised edition by Robert Amory.

  • Küss, Émile, 1815-1871.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Course of lectures on physiology / as delivered by Professor Küss at the Medical School of the University of Strasbourg ; edited by Mathias Duval ; translated from the second and revised edition by Robert Amory. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    by numerous successive irritations which weaken it, and by certain toxical or medicinal agents as hydrocyanic (prussic) acid, bromide of potassium, atropine, etc. C. Encephalon. General Functions of the cerebral or encephalic Centres properly so called. — By generalizing the expression reflex phenomena we can apply it to the phenomena which occur between the spinal cord and encephalon; in fact, the brain does not appear to communicate directly with any portion of the periphery, and can only perceive that which goes on in the spinal cord ; thus in the brain infinite refiex actions occur between the numerous centres that are united by numerous commissures ; and, in those phenomena which are considered voluntary, the brain reacts upon the spinal cord and thence outwards, in accordance with that series of actions which constitute the perception or ego. Sensations. — The brain is then the seat of the interior phenomenon of perception, under the influence of an exter- nal agent whose action is transmitted to it by means of the peripheral nerves and by the spinal cord. Indeed perception is not produced during sleep, at which time the brain is at rest: but in speaking of the brain we should include, in the view of sensations, the whole enceplialic mass and not merely its superficial layers, as a large number of acts attributed to perception seem to take j^lace at the protuberance (see before, p. 50) ; so also a portion of the hemispheres and cere- bellum can be removed without thereby causing the loss of sensation. The p>henomena of perception are divided into those which give us precise information of external objects, such as spe- cial sensations, which we shall refer to under the head of organs of special sense; and those called general sensations, which warn us only of those modifications that our organs' undergo, without giving us precise information of the nature of the agents producing these modifications; pain is the S]je- cial type of this latter kind of sensations. Intermediate be- tween these two kinds of sensations have been placed those called subjective and objective. The general or subjective sensations can also present two phases : in the first, the sensation (pain, for instance) is per- fectly localized, as the sensation of a burn upon the skin ; in the second form, on the contrary, the sensation is vague and difficult to localize; as the general malaise that marks the
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