On the philosophy of medicine : on quackery, &c., being the last of a course of lectures delivered in the School of Medicine, Newcastle-upon-Tyne / by R. M. Glover.

  • Glover, Robert Mortimer, 1816-1859.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the philosophy of medicine : on quackery, &c., being the last of a course of lectures delivered in the School of Medicine, Newcastle-upon-Tyne / by R. M. Glover. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    suddenly seized with the pangs of childbirth! Upon such as this, and slighter facts, is this, alleged science chiefly founded. Again, it may be denied that many of the phrenological organs really represent functions of the mind, or of the brain; many of them correspond to mere manifestations which may arise from the most complex motives. Many of them are propensities which exist ni animals without brains, and even in plants. I cannot see, if there be an organ of locality, why there should not be, according to the phrenological way of going to work, an organ of love of home. If a man manifests any particular tendency, a phrenologist goes and lays his hand on his head, and finding one part bigger than another, exclaims, This is the organ ! It is well known that many men have a passionate attachment to the place of their birth, while others have no such feeling. Anything connected with the organ of locality itself will in nowise account for this feeling. I ask this question—Have the Swiss troops in the service of the King of Naples, whose bands dare hardly play the airs of Switzerland, without exciting feelings of longing for home among the soldiers,—have they the organ of love of home— as good an organ as any phrenological one with which I am acquainted,—have they this organ more highly developed than the troops of any other nation ? It would be easy to prove, from the works of phrenologists themselves, that their conclusions from the skulls of various nations, with regard to national character, are entirely erroneous. There are no divisions in the brain itself corresponding to the phrenological organs. The very attempt to show that some of the convolutions faintly correspond to the phrenolo- gical divisions only shows the weakness of the system, since, according to this, corners of convolutions must be cut across by the phrenological lines as remorselessly as an American carries his boundaries across rivers, seas, lakes, and mountains, in one straight line. But there are real anatomical divisions in the brain, of which phrenology takes no note; and, as far as experiments on animals