Phrenology, or, The doctrine of the mind : and of the relations between its manifestations and the body / by J. Spurzheim.

  • Spurzheim, J. G. (Johann Gaspar), 1776-1832.
Date:
MDCCCXXV. [1825]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Phrenology, or, The doctrine of the mind : and of the relations between its manifestations and the body / by J. Spurzheim. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    given. In fishes, the nervous mass situated in the skull is divided into several ganglia, whose functions are not sufficiently understood. In birds the hemispheres of the brain are more considerable than in animals of a lower order, but they are without convolutions. We have rectified the error committed by the anatomists who stated birds to be destitute of commis- sures, thalami, and corpora striata. The cerebellum of birds consists of semicircular rings. In viviparous animals its lateral parts become very considerable. The brains of small quadrupeds, as of mice, rats, squirrels, fyc., are smooth on the surface and without convolutions. Cuvier, however, is wrong in saying that the brains of the rodentia generally have no con- volutions ; for in the beaver they are very distinct. In the greater number of quadrupeds, the brain presents distinct con- volutions ; but the function of no cerebral part has ever been detected in them. According to Cuvier, all the mammalia, saving man and some of the simiae, are without posterior cere- bral lobes. He founds this assertion on the circumstance of their cerebella being uncovered with brain. The conclusion is, however, very incorrect; for the fact exists only in conse- quence of the horizontal position of quadrupeds. The pre- sence of posterior lobes cannot be denied because their size and form differ in different animals, or else the anterior and middle lobes ought also to be denied. Nay, it seems to me that in animals the anterior and lateral cerebral convolutions are proportionally much smaller than those behind; for the pre- tended optic thalami, out of which the convolutions placed pos- teriorly spring, are proportionally much larger in quadrupeds than the external half of the corpora striata, from which those in the front and sides arise. Thus the anterior and middle lobes of the brains of animals do not present a greater analogy to those of man than the posterior lobes. It is generally to be observed, that the position and form of cerebral parts do not constitute essential proofs of their existence. In man the ganglion of the olfactory nerve is covered by the anterior lobe G 2