New theory and old practice in relation to medicine and certain industries : being an analysis of current literature of these subjects / by C.A. Gordon.

  • Gordon, Charles Alexander, 1821-1899.
Date:
1886
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: New theory and old practice in relation to medicine and certain industries : being an analysis of current literature of these subjects / by C.A. Gordon. 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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    Dr. Carpenter was of opinion that in regard to such subjects as the functions of different parts of the encephalon, experiments can give no trustworthy results, since violence to one part cannot be put in practice without causing functional disturbance of the rest. He considered that a careful anatomical examination of the compUcated forms of the encephalon, from fishes up to man, is more Ukely than any number of experiments to elucidate the problem. (Fleming's Essay, p. 79). The code of experimentation, said M. Colin, has need to be revised. Certain experiments are complex in their nature, when they are applied to important functions, the perturbations of which re-act on nearlj the whole economy. Apply your instrument to the brain, or to the heart, and quickly you will have general and serious troubles, which it is necessary to disengage from those which belong to the direct and immediate result of the experiment. Often the same experiment, re- peated twenty times, gives twenty different results, even when the animals are placed apparently in the same conditions. It may even happen that the same experiment gives contradictory results. Which of the contradictory results is the true one 1 It is necessary to recommence in order to learn, and when we have done so, the other set remains to be accounted for. (Mr. Flemings Essay, p. 27). Well ascertained facts have no sooner been accepted than a new vivisector has arisen, and, by experiments, has demonstrated the unsoundness of the well ascertained facts. Error has propagated error, and those beautiful but mysterious operations of nature, when sought to be rudely exposed, have only been seen or mani- fested in an abnormal and disordered condition, from whence proceeds false reasoning and conflicting conclusions. Take the brain. After an amount of torture which the mind shrinks from contemplating, what do we obtain 1 Speculation ! Gratiolet says— Let us confess that in our ignorance of the true construction of the medulla, the peduncles and the optic thalami the question is abandoned to the speculations of physiolo- gists. A host of vivisectors disagree as to the functions of the brain, each disagreement calling forth a fresh series of tortures still more con- tradictory in their results—because depending upon so many different influences ; but all partaking of the horrible. The results of experiments by Flourens, Rolando, Hertwig, and others, have shown that on slicing away the brain the animal becomes more dull and stupid in proportion to the proportion of cortical substance removed. But clinical observation points out the fact that in cases in which disease has been found to commence at the circumference of the brain, and proceed towards the centre, the mental faculties are affected hrst; whereas in those