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(Paris, 1816; vol. ix. of the Medical Division), and is regarded by that writer as described "with the courageous, calm, and wise impartiality, which forms the characteristic of a philosopher." M. De Fouchy's narrative is as follows:-" The first of the accidents," says he, "which kept me absent from the Academy during a considerable time, was accompanied by a circumstance which appears to me worthy of being communicated. On the 24th of March last, leaving the house of M. Anisson, where I had been assisting at the trial of his new press, I was returning home about seven in the evening, when it was beginning to be rather dark. A projecting part of the pavement tripped my foot, and caused me to fall forwards and a little to one side, with my face on a heap of stones which happened to be there. The blow struck precisely on the vomer,* and on the angle of the right eye; the skin covering the former was cut, and bled much. I felt at the moment of the blow an acute pain, which extended along the left eye; but I was in no degree stunned, nor experienced any affection of the heart (maux de coeur); and I proceeded on my way, holding a handkerchief on my nose. On reaching home, I washed the wound, which had stopped bleeding, with warm wine, and the pain diminished so much as not to prevent me from sleeping. Next day it was supportable, and I thought I remarked it in two places, namely, on the vomer, and also above the left eye, which had not suffered from the blow.

"The pain of the vomer was accompanied by a particular circumstance, which lasted a long time, and consisted in thisthat when I moved that bone to the right or left with my finger, I perceived a slight internal crepitation, as if its articulation with the other bones of the face had suffered. Up to this time I had noticed nothing extraordinary. I went out, and returned to dinner, when the following circumstance occurred, which appears to me worthy of much attention.

"Towards the end of dinner, I felt a slight increase of the pain above the left eye, and, at that very instant, became unable to pronounce the words which I wished. I heard what was said to me, and thought what I wished; but I pronounced other words than those which could have expressed my thoughts, or, if I begun, could not finish them, but substituted other words for them. I had, however, the power of every motion, as free as in my usual state. I did not drop my fork, nor the piece of bread which I held in my hand. I saw clearly every object; and the organs which produce the action of thought were, so far as I could judge, in their natural state. This kind of paroxysm lasted for a minute, and, during its continuance, I was sufficiently conscious of this singular distinction in the sensorium

It may be necessary to explain to our non-medical readers, that the vomer is the thin bone which forms the partition of the nose.

of the mind (sensiorum de l'âme), which had only one of its parts affected, without the others suffering the slightest dis

turbance.

"When M. Vicq-d'Azyr read to the Academy on the Anatomy of the Human Brain, I was struck by what he said regarding the nervous filaments which pass from the brain and enter the interior of the nose through the cribriform plate, and I thought I had discovered in them the explanation of my singular state. These filaments, having perhaps received a shock from the blow on the vomer, had transmitted that shock to the brain; but I could discover no reason for the singular phenomenon of the sensorium of the mind being affected in one of its its parts only.

"I confine myself, here, simply to the relation of the fact, which I deemed it my duty to communicate to the Academy, in order that, if deemed expedient, it may be entered in the registers.

"An observation of this kind must necessarily be extremely rare, since it is requisite that a man of science should be the subject, and that the accident should not be so severe as to prevent him from observing all the circumstances attending it. Notwithstanding, however, all my zeal for the promotion of the sciences which are the objects of the Academy, I trust it will readily pardon me for not wishing to present it often with similar observations."

The phenomena here described are altogether inexplicable, except on the phrenological principle that the brain is an aggregate of organs, performing different functions; and the appearance of the derangement at the very moment when an increase of pain took place in the situation of the organ of Language, must be regarded as strikingly confirming the function of that part of the brain *.

ARTICLE IV.

PHRENOLOGY AND THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.

THE British Association for the Advancement of Science held its Annual Meeting in Edinburgh on 8th September 1834 and five succeeding days. About a week previously, Mr Combe addressed the following letter to John Robison, Esq., one of the Secretaries :

See, in vol. V. of this Journal, p. 431, a somewhat analogous case, where memory of names was impaired by a fall on the forehead.

"John Robison, Esq.

23. CHARLOTTE SQUARE, 2d September 1834.

"MY DEAR SIR,-As I mentioned to you yesterday, I intend to apply to be admitted a member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

"In case a demonstration of the Phrenological Society's collection of national skulls would be acceptable in any of the Sections, I beg leave to express my readiness to give one, on any day except Wednesday 10th September, and I shall take it kind you will mention this to the Committee. At the same time,

if I wish it to be understood that I have no individual anxiety for the acceptance of this offer; and that my only motive in making it, is to contribute, so far as lies in my power, to the fulfilment of the objects of the Association. Believe me to remain, &c.** "GEO. COMBE."

Mr Robison returned the following answer :

MY DEAR SIR,

3d September.

"I have forwarded your intimation to Mr J. Forbes, for insertion in the list of communications, all of which will be laid before the Sections on their first meeting; and it will lie with them to arrange what order they shall be brought forward in."

;

Mr Combe was duly admitted a member of the Association, and attended meetings of several of the Sections; but he was not honoured with any reply whatever to his offer of a communication. From Mr Robison he received the most polite attention and the reason of the silence of the Committee became apparent at the first meeting. Mr Sedgwick, the President for last year, before resigning his office, addressed the Association, in a speech in which he urged most strenuously upon the Association the necessity of keeping in mind the objects of its institution; and to confine their researches to dead matter, without entering into any speculations on the relations of intellectual beings; and he would brand as a traitor that person who would dare to overstep the prescribed boundaries of the institution. If the Society should ever be broken up, which God forbid, he would predict that it would happen by some members imprudently and daringly passing its boundaries

It was reported among the audience, that this anathema was directed chiefly against the Statistical Section of the Association, into which it was feared that moral or political discussion might be introduced; but it obviously applied in an especial manner to Phrenology. Accordingly, in the proceedings of the Association, no allusion was made to our science, except feeble attempt at ridicule, introduced by Dr Graham in an evening re

• Report of Proceedings of the British Association, in Edin. New Phil. Journ. for Oct. 1834, p. 372.

port, but which, having met with very little encouragement, was not repeated by himself or imitated by any of the other savans. In the Anatomical Section, Sir Charles Bell gave an account of his discoveries in the nervous system, of which we find the following report in the Scotsman of 13th September.

"On Thursday and Friday, there was a numerous attendance in the Anatomical Section, when Sir Charles Bell gave an interesting exposition of his views of the nervous system. He was the first to demonstrate what other physiologists had previously conjectured to be probable, viz. the existence of separate nerves of motion and of sensation. His statement was a recapitulation of his publications, and we did not observe that he added any new facts. In several particulars we were gratified by his exposition, as marking the certain, although slow, progress of truth. Dr Spurzheim, when he visited Edinburgh in 1816, maintained that the uses of the brain could not be philosophically ascertained by mutilations of the brains of animals; but he was ridiculed for saying so, and it was asserted that this was one of his numerous back-doors for escaping from adverse evidence. Flourens and Magendie in France, Sir William Hamilton here, and various other individuals, have, in the interval, performed numerous experiments on the brains of the lower creatures, and published results which have been extensively cited as evidence against Phrenology. Yesterday, Sir Charles Bell explicitly stated, that he also had made such experiments, and had obtained no satisfactory results; and he then shewed why he had failed, and why all other experimenters must fail who pursue this method of inquiry. These experiments always, and necessarily, involve a great shock to the nervous system in general, and cannot be confined in their effects to the part cut out. We may add,-If we do not know what office the part performs in health, how can we know whether the function has ceased in consequence of the ablation or not? It may be very true, that if we were to cut out the organ of Tune from the brain of a canary, the bird would never sing again; but if, in ignorance of what part is that organ, we were to cut out any other portion of the brain, with a view to discover it, we should be disappointed; because, whatever part we injured, the effect on its singing would always be the same; it would cease to sing, for the obvious reason that singing and a mangled brain are not compatible in nature. We rejoiced to hear this method of investigation renounced and condemned by so great an authority.

"In the 49th Number of the Edinburgh Review, the late Dr John Gordon wrote a severe attack on Dr Spurzheim, for asserting that the brain exhibited fibres extending from the corpora pyramidalia, olivaria, and restiformia, to its surface. In his Observations on the Structure of the Brain,' published in

(

1817, in support of the Review, he declared Dr Spurzheim's description of this particular structure to be objectionable in all its points, and full of error and hypothesis.' He also condemned, in strong terms, Dr Spurzheim's plate of a section of the brain, shewing the alleged fibres. It is due to the great cause of truth to state, that Sir Charles Bell, according to our understanding of his statement, admitted the existence of these disputed fibres to the full extent asserted by Dr Spurzheim, and that the plate of a section of the brain exhibiting the fibres, which he produced in illustration of his views, presented to our eyes precisely the same appearance as the drawing given by Dr Spurzheim, which was so loudly condemned.

"Sir Charles Bell is no phrenologist. He did not allude to the subject, and made no pretensions to knowledge of the functions of the particular portions of the brain. This was a sound and philosophical proceeding, and we admire the candour and justice which dictated it, as much as the talents which led him to his own discoveries of the functions of the nerves."

At the meeting of the Natural History Section, held on 12th September, Mr Pentland, in continuation of the observations which he had offered at a previous meeting, on the physical configuration of the Andes of Peru and Bolivia, and on the distribution of organic life, at different elevations on the declivity of these gigantic chains, entered into details on the reasons which have led him to conclude that there existed, at a comparatively recent period, and between the 14° and 19° of S. Lat., a race of men very different from any of those now inhabiting our globe, characterised principally by the anomalous form of the cranium, in which two-thirds of the entire weight of the cerebral mass is placed behind the occipital foramen, and in which the bones of the face are very much elongated, so as to give to these crania more the appearance of certain species of the ape family, than that of human beings. Mr Pentland entered into details to prove that this extraordinary form cannot be attributed to pressure, or any external force, similar to that still employed by many American tribes; and adduced, in confirmation of this view, the opinions of Cuvier, of Gall, and of many other celebrated naturalists and anatomists.

"The remains of this extraordinary race are found in ancient tombs of the mountainous districts of Peru and Bolivia, and principally in the great interalpine valley of Titicaca, and on the borders of the lake of the same name. These tombs present very remarkable architectural beauty, and appear not to date beyond seven or eight centuries before the present period.

"The race of men to which these extraordinary remains belong, appears to Mr Pentland to have constituted the inhabitants of the elevated regions, situated between the 14 and 19°

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