Changes produced in the nervous system by civilization, considered according to the evidence of physiology and the philosophy of history / by Robert Verity.

  • Verity, Robert.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Changes produced in the nervous system by civilization, considered according to the evidence of physiology and the philosophy of history / by Robert Verity. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    under whose operation different qualities of nutrition become distributed more peculiarly to one system of the body than to another, according as certain habits predomimate and differently characterize the many varieties of the human type in all stages of civilization; it now remains to speak of those changes and modifica- tions produced generally throughout the organic constitution, by the progressive increase of nervous nutrition—an increase distinctly to be traced ascending from savage life through the various phases of man’s physiological enhance- ment, up to the highest civilized type; after which will be the time to give a seat in the cerebral system, (as far as present knowledge extends,) to those Principles of human activity, the development of whose physical conditions there corresponds with the different steps of social and individual advancement. In the same manner as the comparative intel- lectual nervous systems and physiological qualities of domestic animals (most markedly in the breed of dogs and horses,) have been raised from the savage type to their present delicacy and fineness of organization, by the sole influence and unwearied expenditure of human care and skill, in the course of innumerable generations, so also has there taken place, as the necessary reflected effect of civilization amongst all the more