The human brain : its configuration, structure, development, and physiology : illustrated by references to the nervous system in the lower order of animals / by Samuel Solly.

Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The human brain : its configuration, structure, development, and physiology : illustrated by references to the nervous system in the lower order of animals / by Samuel Solly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    nervous system, after observing that a brain and medulla spinalis are met with in animals with a head and with eyes, says, “ Neque credo aut oculos absque cerebro, aut absque oculis cerebrum in ullo animale reperiri. Sunt ergo sua cerebra vermibus, mytulis,” &C.1 All physiologists of the present day agree in considering the nervous system as the medium by which animals are connected with the external world. But when, in our dissection of some of the inferior orders of animals in whom there is an evident susceptibility to receive impressions from external nature, and to re-act upon those impressions, we are unable to demonstrate the existence of a nervous system, we feel rather at a loss to reconcile this apparent discrepancy, and come to the conclusion that the sentient matter which we call neurine is dispersed in such mi- nute quantities throughout their tissues as to escape observation. Dr. Macartney adverts to this opinion, when after proving the very minute quantity of real nervous matter which exists even in the human brain, he remarks, “ We can hardly take upon ourselves to say that the simplest animals, and even plants, may not have some modification of sentient matter incorporated in their structure, instead of being collected as in the higher orders 1 Elementa Physiologica, vol. iv. p .2.