Volume 19

The study of medicine / By John Mason Good.

  • Good, John Mason, 1764-1827.
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The study of medicine / By John Mason Good. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/666 (page 6)
    Crass 1V. I. Nature of the brain, its ramifica- tions and substitutes. Origin of nerves. Reason of. the division of the brain into distinct compart- ments un- known. All of them apparently coutribu- tory to vari- ode like purposes. fected by the escape of minute bubbles of carbonic acid eass from the living fluid; which hereby opens a path to a certain extent into the tenacious blood or pus that is extravasated or secreted. From this general organ arises a certain number of long, whitish, pulpy, chords, composed of bundles of fibres, capable of being divided and subdivided into mi- nuter bundles of fibrils, or still smaller fibres as far as the power of glasses can carry the eye. ‘These chords are denominated nerves; they are surrounded, to their ex- tremities, by one or more of the common membranes of the brain, and, by their various ramifications, convey different kinds or modifications of living power to differ- ent parts of the body, keep up a perpetual communica- tion with its remotest organs, and give motivity to the muscles. | : As the brain consists of three general. divisions, it might, at first sight, be supposed that each of these is allotted to some distinct purpose; as, for example, that of forming the seat of intellect or thinking; the seat of the local senses of sight, sound, taste, and smell, and the seat of general feeling or motivity. But the nice hand of the anatomist has confounded ail such specula- tions by tracing up to each of these divisions both nerves of general, and nerves of particular purposes. ‘Thus the cerebrum, which gives rise to the olfactory and optic nerves, (serving the purpose of pure sensations) gives rise also to the oculorum motorii, apparently serving the pur- the trochleatores and the trigemini, the first chiefly em- ployed in producing motive power, the second sensile power: while from the medulla oblongata originate the audi- tory, the par vagum, and the lingual ; the first a nerve of hearing, the second of feeling, and the third of motivity : at the same time that many parts of the brain maintain an interunion with other parts by means of ganglions, com- missures and decussations of nerves; whence injuries on one side are often accompanied with loss of motion or feeling in the organs of the other side. So the curious