The functions of the brain.

  • Althaus, Julius.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The functions of the brain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    criminal. The legal mind has not yet been able to grasp the full significance of these facts, as shown by conviction to penal servitude of persons who should been sent to hospitals or asylums. 5. The highest development of brain-matter is found in the hemispheres, the convolutions, or the grey surface of the brain, which is the material base of all mental and moral activity. This portion of the brain, which may therefore be called the seat of the soul, is not a single organ, as was formerly supposed, but consists of a number of thoroughly differentiated organs, each one of which has certain functions, and all being in the closest possible connexion with one another by com- missural fibres. To define all these various organs with accuracy, to determine their intimate struc- ture as well as their individual energy, and to trace the physiological and pathological alterations which they undergo during the natural processes of deve- lopment, maturity, and decay, and in diseases to which they are subject, is the greatest problem for the anatomy and physiology of the twentieth century; and when it is solved, a complete revo- lution in psychology must be the result. At present, however, we are only on the threshold of this enquiry, which is, perhaps, the most difficult and complicated of any which may present themselves to the human mind.
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