Training and work : address to the Sheffield Federated Health Association, January 29, 1906 / by Lauder Brunton.

  • Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Training and work : address to the Sheffield Federated Health Association, January 29, 1906 / by Lauder Brunton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    lower jaw and coming out at the top of his head. Wonderful to say, he recovered from the injury, and lived for 12£ years after- wards, but from that time onward he was a changed man. He had previously been a foreman, very steady and trustworthy, energetic and persevering, but after the accident he became lazy and erratic, drunken and profane, obstinate, yet vacillating, so that those who knew him before said that he was “ no longer ■Gage.” We see, then, from these instances, how the brain can affect the mind; we must now see how it affects the body. It is just about thirty years ago that my friend Dr. Eerrier, in a series of admirable experiments done at the West Hiding Asylum, showed that irritation of certain parts of a monkey’s brain produced definite movements in the eyes, head, and limbs. I assisted him in a number of these experiments, and found that I could not possibly remember the order in which the movements came until it occurred to me that the centres were arranged in the order necessary for obtaining food, and the easiest way to remember them is to take the story of Adam and Eve. I must premise that each side of the brain directs the actions on the opposite side of the body. When centre Ho. 1 (Fig. 4) is stimu- lated the eyes and head turn to the opposite side just as when Eve looks at the apple, Ho. 2 causes extension of the arm and hand, and contraction of the fingers in the act of taking by the action of it, by the exercise of centre Ho. 3 she brought it to her mouth, by that of Ho. 4 she ate it (movements of the lips and mouth), by Ho. 5 she threw away the seeds, while Hos. 6, 7, 8 regulate the movements of the foot, legs, and trunk in going to get another for Adam. Although the position of these centres was discovered by experiments upon monkeys, yet cases of disease of the brain have shown that their position is nearly similar in man. It has been found that when a man has lost an arm or a leg, the centre in the brain corresponding to it wastes, so that it is evident that while the brain acts upon the body in producing •movements, the body also reacts upon the brain, and there cun be no doubt that, just as the absence of a limb causes wasting ■of the corresponding part of the brain, so movements and