Examination of the objections made in Britain against the doctrines of Gall and Spurzheim / by J.G. Spurzheim. Article of the Foreign quarterly review / by Rich. Chenevix ; with notes by J.G. Spurzheim.

  • Spurzheim, J. G. (Johann Gaspar), 1776-1832.
Date:
1833
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Examination of the objections made in Britain against the doctrines of Gall and Spurzheim / by J.G. Spurzheim. Article of the Foreign quarterly review / by Rich. Chenevix ; with notes by J.G. Spurzheim. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    In our views, a great portion of the medulla oblongata belongs to the greatest number of the supposed cerebral nerves ; the rest to the cerebellum and brain. In my sec- ond demonstration in Edinburgh, before a numerous and respectable audience, the mechanical Dissector repeatedly protested against my stating, that the medulla oblongata is not interrupted, but continued to the cerebellum and brain, or rather that both, by means of the medulla oblongata, are in communication with the nervous mass of the rest of the body. The gentlemen who were present will recollect, that I twice asked the Dissector, whether he could show the interruption of the pyramids, since he protested against their continuation ? Now, as a historian, four months later, he tells us, that the idea of that very commu- nication of the pyramids with the crura cerebri has been known a century and a half. The man of duty either was or was not acquainted with the fact. In the first case, why did he protest against it ? and why did he not state it in his book, professedly written on the brain ? There he termi- nates the brain at the upper edge of the pons, ascribes the mass of the pons to the cerebellum, and the medulla oblon- gata to the spinal cord. In the second case, he has learned it since, though he might have found in our works the same authors quoted, whom he, as historian, now appeals to, to prove that the idea is not original. More of this tergiversation afterwards. This discoverer calls the abductor, trigeminal, facial, and auditory nerves, cerebellar, p. 202. and places their origins in the peduncles of the cerebellum, p. 207—210. viz. in the lateral portion of the annular protuberance, p. 112.