New theory and old practice in relation to medicine and certain industries : being an analysis of current literature of these subjects / by C.A. Gordon.

  • Gordon, Charles Alexander, 1821-1899.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: New theory and old practice in relation to medicine and certain industries : being an analysis of current literature of these subjects / by C.A. Gordon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    28/158 (page 22)
    Dr. Ferrier is quoted thus :—We are every day confronted with the fact that the most widely ahnormal deviations from healthy functional activity of the nerve centres may be manifested, which leave no trace discoverable by ordinary dissection, or by any of our most advanced methods of investigation. Nor do the facts of experimental physiology seem so consistent with themselves, or with undoubted facts of clinical research as to inspire us with unhesitating confidence as to their applica- bility to human pathology. (Dr. Gimson, p. 82). Further, that one great fallacy has been the assumption that the results of experiments on frogs, pigeons, and other animals are capable of application to man without qualification ; an assumption which vitiates the conclusions of numerous physiologists of the present day. The very fact that there exist such patent differences between the effects of the destruction of the cerebral hemispheres in different orders of animals ought to inspire caution in the application toman of results obtained only by experiments on the brains of animals low do-vvn in the scale. (Three Essays, p. 271). Schiff animadverted on the difference of opinion in reference to cere- bral localisation held by physiologists and physicians—that the fonner were (at the time he wrote) opposed to the doctrine, the latter were its only supporters. The idea of localisation of function being once more revived, physiologists proceeded to ascertain its truth in a far different manner from Gall. He collected his facts from simple observation of nature. They interrogate nature by experiments on living animals, ignoring the plain teachings afforded by disease. If the phenomena of disease were more accurately attended to and interpreted, physiology would not be in the lame and halt condition it now is. (Three Essays,, p. 270). Fleurens stated that large tracts of the brain cortex maj' be destroyed without causing any very evident mental disturbance, and that any one part of the brain may be destroyed, with a like result. Hence he believed that there was no localisation of function in the brain, but that each part of it is a micrencephalon, capable of itself performing all the fimctions pertaining to the whole. There must always be a certain amount of doubt attached to the conclusions of even the most cautious experimenter, and, to quote Professor Ferrier, the slightest fdoubt is absolute failure; therefore, it is added, the whole series of the experiments alluded to are absolute failures. Every day old theories are being upset by new, and they, in giving way to others, and so on, until a profound reasoner shows them all to be fallacious by applying the results of patient clinical and pathological research. (Op. cit. pp. 270—272).