Examination of Dr. Carpenter's claim of priority as to the discovery of the law of unconscious cerebral action.

  • Laycock, Thomas, 1812-1876.
Date:
[cbetween 1800 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Examination of Dr. Carpenter's claim of priority as to the discovery of the law of unconscious cerebral action. 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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    APPENDIX. 47 5 first directed his inquiries to mesmeric phenomena in 1837, he did not omit reference to his views of the close relation between these phenoniena and that automatic action which he maintained to be the functional law of the cerebral centres.* The metropolis did not escape the mesmeric mania, and Dr Carpenter, like others, was busy, while this essay was being written, seeking for an explanation of the facts, which could no longer be denied on the ground of fraud. Starting from his own theories as to excito-motor and scnsori-motor phenomena, and reflecting on the dominant influence of ideas in mesmeric and other states over the movements of the individual, lately demon- strated by Mr Braid, he denommated all actions so produced ideo-motor. Seeing how purely automatic they were in their character, and looking about for a general prmciple to explain this, he now, confessedly for the first time, recognised the true mean- ing of Dr Laycock's doctrine of a reflex function of the cerebnuu, considered as the seat of ideas, and as the legitimate expression of the class of movements to which he gave the name of ideo- motor ; and acknowledged that Dr Laycock had made a real and important advance in carrying out the doctrine of reflex action to that organ. When, therefore, Dr Carpenter delivered a lec- ture on the subject to the Eoyal Institution of Great Britain,t his task was an easy one. He had, on the one hand, to apply the doctrines of causation, taught most fully by Sir H. Holland, Mr Braid, Dr Wood, and others, as well as by Dr Laycock ; and, * One great fact proper to all is, that the action of the will and of consciousness is suspended, and the enceplialic ganglia partially or wholly placed in the condition of the ' true spinal' or reflex system. Dr Alexander AVood refers to this principle in liis ex- planation of tlie phenomena, and quotes a case adduced by Dr Laycock in proof of his doctrine of cerebral reflex action [op. cit., p, 425). Again : As in the system of spinal reflex actions there are the class termed centric, so also there arc cerebral reflex acts of centric origin. These are best seen in cases of imjndshe insanity, in which a person is hurried by an internal impulse, which he can neither account for nor control, to do various insane acts. Now, a condition exactly analop:ou3 is excited in persons aff'ected electro-biologically ; the difference is only in tlic mode in whicli the impidsive idea is produced. In the one, it is the result of functional disease ; in the other, it is suggested to a mind in which the brain is in the condition we have already considered, &c. {Ibid., p. 426.) t On the Influence of Suggestion in Modifying and Directing Muscular Movements independently of Volition; Friday, March 12,1852.