Anatomy and the problem of behaviour / by G.E. Coghill.

  • Coghill, G. E. (George Ellett), 1872-1941.
Date:
1929
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Anatomy and the problem of behaviour / by G.E. Coghill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Lecture One THE DEVELOPMENT OF BEHAVIOUR AND ITS ANATOMICAL EXPLANATION IN A TYPICAL VERTEBRATE The work upon which you have asked me to address you has to do with the development of behaviour and the growth of the nervous system. It had its inception in the relatively early days of the modern school of animal behaviour. My earlier investigations had been neurological: physiological in motive, but morphological in method; consisting chiefly of the analysis of the peripheral nervous system according to functional units(n, 12). That work had been exclusively upon the Amphibia, but chiefly upon Arnblystoma. With this animal already in hand as a tool for neurological in- quiry I undertook to analyse behaviour by studying its development, with the thought in mind that such an analysis should constitute a new approach to funda- mental problems concerning the function of the nervous system and its parts, and that anatomical studies corre- lated throughout with the behaviour studies should throw new light upon the problem of behaviour. My later work, accordingly, has consisted of studies of the behaviour closely correlated at all phases with studies of the structural development of the nervous system of Arnbly stoma.