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Title: Emanuel Swedenborg's Investigations in Natural Science and the Basis for his Statements Concerning the Functions of the Brain
Author: Ramström, Martin
Language: English
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EMANUEL SWEDENBORG’S INVESTIGATIONS IN NATURAL SCIENCE AND THE BASIS FOR
HIS STATEMENTS CONCERNING THE FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN
Reprinted from the festival publication of the University of Uppsala
on the occasion of the bicentenary of the Royal Society of Sciences of
Uppsala and of the unveiling of the sarcophagus of Emanuel Swedenborg in
the cathedral of Uppsala.
November 19th, 1910.
[Illustration]
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG’S
INVESTIGATIONS IN NATURAL SCIENCE
AND THE BASIS FOR HIS STATEMENTS
CONCERNING THE
FUNCTIONS OF
THE BRAIN
[Illustration]
BY
MARTIN RAMSTRÖM
[Illustration]
UNIVERSITY OF UPPSALA
1910
[Illustration]
UPPSALA
ALMQVIST & WIKSELL, PRINTING CO., LTD.
1910
CONTENTS
Pag.
FRONTISPIECE, reproduced from a copper engraving in
Swedenborg’s ›Opera Philosophica et Mineralia›, Vol. I.,
printed in Dresden and Leipzig, in 1734.
TITLE PAGE 5
_The vignette_ on the title page is reproduced from the medal
struck in honour of Emanuel Swedenborg, in 1852, by the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Introduction 9
Swedenborg’s investigations in natural science.
Swedenborg’s mathematical, mechanical and astronomical
investigations 11
Swedenborg’s geological, mineralogical, chemical, physical,
and cosmological investigations 14
Swedenborg’s anatomical and physiological investigations 16
The basis for Swedenborg’s statements concerning the functions
of the brain.
On the centres of the vegetative functions 27
On the centres of the psychical functions, especially the
sensory centres 28
On the centres of the motor functions 32
The doctrine of localizations 35
The ›cerebellular theory› 43
Concluding summary 47
Notes 50
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG’S INVESTIGATIONS IN NATURAL SCIENCE AND THE BASIS FOR
HIS STATEMENTS CONCERNING THE FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN
In recent times Emanuel Swedenborg has, on many sides, been the object of
a continually increasing interest, and year after year has attention been
called to the manysided works of his life. In former times he was known
almost exclusively through his religious writings. But it has gradually
come to light that he was also an investigating genius of the first rank,
who opened new paths in several branches of the natural sciences and made
wonderful discoveries.
Thus, by way of illustration, Professor ANDERS RETZIUS has drawn forth
from oblivion his _anatomical_ and _physiological_ works and shown
that there is to be found in them (especially in ›Regnum Animale›)
›ideas belonging to the most recent times, and a scope, induction and
tendency which can only be compared to that of Aristotle.›[1] And since
then several authors have expressed themselves in a similar manner,
as Professor CHRISTIAN LOVÉN,[2] Professor MAX NEUBURGER (Vienna),[3]
Professor C. G. SANTESSON,[4] and above all Professor GUSTAF RETZIUS[5]
on repeated occasions.
The case is also similar with respect to SWEDENBORG’s _geological_
researches. Here J. J. BERZELIUS[6] has sought to direct the attention of
the learned to his penetrating observations and ingenious conclusions;
and the opinions of such men as Professor A. E. NORDENSKIÖLD,[7]
Professor A. G. NATHORST,[8] and others, have also tended in the same
direction in regard to SWEDENBORG.
Within the realms of _astronomy_ and _cosmology_ Professor M. NYRÉN[9]
and later Professor S. ARRHENIUS[10] have pointed out the grand
hypotheses of the creation of the worlds, etc. etc., which SWEDENBORG had
erected in advance of all other authors in cosmology.
A number of societies and associations have also been formed whose
purpose it is to spread a knowledge of SWEDENBORG’s works concerning
natural science. The oldest of these is the Swedenborg Society of
London, which absorbed the purely scientific Swedenborg Association
half a century ago, and which this year celebrated the centenary of its
foundation. In 1898 there was founded in the United States of America
the Swedenborg Scientific Association. In Sweden the Royal Academy of
Sciences appointed in 1902 a committee to investigate the contents of
SWEDENBORG’s manuscripts and to publish selected works.
A number of individuals besides those already mentioned have devoted much
labour and care to the translating and editing of SWEDENBORG’s scientific
works, among whom we may mention the Englishmen J. J. GARTH WILKINSON, M.
D., and the Rev. A. CLISSOLD, the German Prof. Dr. IMMANUEL TAFEL, the
German-American Dr. RUDOLF TAFEL, and the American Mr. ALFRED H. STROH,
M. A.[11]
The strongest expression of this interest in SWEDENBORG’s scientific work
in the most recent times, was that manifested during the International
Swedenborg Congress, held this summer in London. On that occasion were
gathered there representatives for numerous branches of the natural
sciences, medicine, philosophy and theology, each one of whom contributed
his account of the discoveries, inventions, and far-sighted utterances
which SWEDENBORG had made within these several departments of knowledge.
And imposing indeed was the homage which was as a consequence paid to the
ingenious investigator as well as to the Country and the University which
had produced him.
SWEDENBORG’S INVESTIGATIONS IN NATURAL SCIENCE.
Before a life-work such as that of EMANUEL SWEDENBORG one cannot but
be filled with admiration. Perhaps not so much on account of the
_manysidedness_ of it; for that was not so very unusual at the time
in which SWEDENBORG lived—in the 18th century;[12] but because his
researches were at the same time so _comprehensive_ and _penetrating_,
because he made such great and important conquests within the most
different departments of knowledge; indeed, in many places discovered by
his sharpsighted genius the _lines of development_ along which science
was to proceed for the gaining of its end.
SWEDENBORG’S MATHEMATICAL, MECHANICAL AND ASTRONOMICAL INVESTIGATIONS.
_Mathematics_, especially geometry, algebra and mechanics, and
_astronomy_ in particular, were the predominating interests with
SWEDENBORG, when, after having completed his university studies, he
entered upon his first foreign journey (1710). He had at that time the
good fortune to come into personal contact with (ISAAC NEWTON?),[13] JOHN
FLAMSTEED[14] and EDMUND HALLEY[15] in England, and with the renowned
mathematicians PHILIPPE DE LA HIRE and PIERRE VARRIGNON[16] in France,
and to enter into an interchange of scientific ideas with them. And
the impulses derived from teachers of such great insight and skill did
not take long in manifesting themselves. In 1714 SWEDENBORG was able
to send home accounts of a great many _mechanical inventions_ which
he had made and the ›correctness of which he proved by mathematical
and algebraical calculations.›[17] As examples of these discoveries
may be mentioned his flying machine,[18] submarine boat, steam engine,
mitrailleuse, sluice constructions, etc.[17] After his return to Sweden
he found opportunities of putting into practice some of these projects,
when (in 1716) he was appointed assessor extraordinary in the College of
Mines and ordered to assist CHR. POLHEM ›with the construction of his
buildings and inventions›. But he was rich in ideas and quick-witted
enough to be able, together with these official duties, to plan and set
on foot the publication of a periodical devoted to natural science,
›_Daedalus Hyperboreus_›, the first scientific periodical in Sweden,
and to furnish it abundantly (during the years 1716-1718) with valuable
articles concerning new inventions, _projects and problems for scientific
investigations and experiments_.[19] In the year 1718 he has completed
a new method of reckoning with the number 8 as the base; and the
following year he publishes a still better ›Proposal to divide our money
and measures, so that the calculation would be easy and all fractions
be abolished›, and this system is nothing less than the _Decimal
system_![20] He also published during these years an ingenious method of
determining the longitude by means of the moon, a problem upon which the
learned had at that time been engaged for several years.[21]
SWEDENBORG thus succeeded in penetrating very deeply into the
mathematical and mechanical sciences, and therefore at first it must
arouse astonishment that he did not accept the professor’s chair in
mathematics at Uppsala University when this was offered him. He wished
for freedom to study in other departments also. And, as we shall see, he
soon turned his interest in another direction, namely to geology.
However, it was also a characteristic in SWEDENBORG, worthy of
admiration, that in spite of his deep penetration into the sciences and
the bold ideas of his creative genius, he nevertheless strove, at the
same time, to retain contact with practical life and there cause the
results of his investigations to bear fruit. It was also this purpose
which to a great extent influenced him not to accept the offered
professorship in mathematics, which he feared would force him into a
direction too theoretical. In this respect there were, as some of his
biographers have shown, several points of similarity between SWEDENBORG
and his patron, King Charles XII., namely, ›the unusual combination of
the boldest imagination and a pronounced practical tendency›.[22] And
as both were animated by the same ›burning inclination for all that is
great in thought and deed›, and by the same love of the fatherland,
therefore, when these two men found one another, there was an interesting
cooperation. Professor HOLMQUIST has given a very good description of
this in his essay alluded to above, from which I shall here reproduce
some extracts:
— — — ›But SWEDENBORG had also in the course of his conversation with
Charles XII. advanced several new proposals which won, in part, the
King’s approval. SWEDENBORG suggested the establishment of a company to
promote the exportation of Swedish iron and tar (a suggestion later put
into practice by the Iron Office), set forth his plan for an observatory
in Uppsala and brought up for discussion the establishment of salt works
in Sweden in order to help his country against the terrible dearth of
salt during the war: all these ideas he also committed to writing in
pamphlets: ’_Om sättet för handelns och manufacturernas uphjelpande_’,
’_Memorial om Salt Siuderiers inrettning i Swerje_’ and ’_Om nyttan och
nödvändigheten af ett Observatorii inrättande i Sverige_’ (preserved
in manuscript in the Diocesan Library of Linköping).[23] Of the ideas
just mentioned, it was in the first place the one on salt boileries
which claimed the King’s attention and which he commissioned SWEDENBORG
to put into practice. It still remains, however, to mention the most
remarkable of SWEDENBORG’s projects. Through ERIC BENZELIUS he had
come into possession of an old letter of Bishop HANS BRASK, in which
the idea of a water way from the western coast straight across Sweden
is expressed. SWEDENBORG, inspired by this, laid before the King the
_suggestion for a canal from Göteborg through Lakes Vänern and Vättern
to the Baltic_, which aroused the King’s enthusiasm. SWEDENBORG was
commissioned to investigate the possibilities for the realization of this
gigantic undertaking. — — — Shortly after this we find him in Uddevalla
investigating the possibility of establishing salt-works, in connection
with which SWEDENBORG at once set out to construct salt-pans and other
apparatus better than those in use in the defective old salt-works at
Strömstad. — — — We afterwards find him again at Trollhättan, Vänern,
Gullspång and Hjälmaren examining the situation for the canal and locks
and finding ’all to be possible and not of such great expense as had been
supposed’. SWEDENBORG had passed over to the modern idea of an inland
canal through Hjälmaren and Mälaren directly to Stockholm.› With justice
it may be said that here he gives the impression of a very sharpsighted
and energetic engineer, who possessed the power of turning his thorough
theoretical education to practical use.
It may thus be clearly perceived, from everything I have referred
to above, how comprehensive and penetrating were the researches of
SWEDENBORG in the mathematical (and especially the mechanical) branches
of science, and what fruitful discoveries had been made by his searching
eye.
SWEDENBORG’S GEOLOGICAL, MINERALOGICAL, CHEMICAL, PHYSICAL AND
COSMOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS.
SWEDENBORG’s comprehensive interest now turned itself to new fields of
work: to _geology_, _mineralogy_, _chemistry_, _physics_ and finally to
_cosmology_, without giving up his first subject, _mathematics_.
And he also now exhibited the same thoroughness as before, beginning
with examinations, experiments and observations, partly original, but
also collected from predecessors. For he says: ›It seems to me that an
infinite mass of completed experiments is a good ground to build upon, to
make the trouble and expense of others serve one’s end; that is to work
with the head over that which others have worked over with the hands.›
(See HOLMQUIST, Op. cit. and the letter from SWEDENBORG to ERIC BENZELIUS
of May 2nd, 1720, in the edition of the Acad. of Sciences, I., p. 304).
The result of this period of labour SWEDENBORG embodied in a number of
works, among which may especially be mentioned: ›_On the Height of Water
and the Strong Tides in the Primeval World. Proofs from Sweden._›[24]
SWEDENBORG here furnishes proofs that our North, in olden times, lay
for the most part under deep water. And he based his deductions on a
great many researches and sharpsighted observations, and wherever it
was possible he tested the correctness of his conclusions by means of
experiments. This is the work which J. J. BERZELIUS, A. E. NORDENSKIÖLD
and A. G. NATHORST have praised so highly, and in some places it has
been considered to be ›one of the most ingenious contributions to the
history of geology›. SWEDENBORG also worked out during this period the
great work: ›_Miscellanea observata circa res naturales et praesertim
circa mineralia, ignem et montium strata_›, (printed in Leipzig 1722 and
lately reprinted in the edition of SWEDENBORG’s scientific writings of
the Royal Academy of Sciences, Vol. I., 1907, pp. 59-191), and finally
the gigantic work: ›_Opera philosophica et mineralia_›, (published in
Dresden and Leipzig, 1734, in three large folio volumes). The last work
contains among other things SWEDENBORG’s cosmology, and it is here that
he developes his famous _nebular theory_, which so closely reminds one
of the theory worked out in later years by Kant and Laplace, that one
strongly suspects that SWEDENBORG’s utterances, in one way or another,
lie at the bottom of it. Concerning this work much has been written
during recent years, and therefore it may be sufficient here only to
refer to the statements made in regard to it by Professor S. ARRHENIUS in
his introduction to the above-mentioned edition of Swedenborg’s writings,
Vol. II., where he says: ›If we briefly summarize the ideas, which were
first given expression to by SWEDENBORG, and afterwards, although usually
in a much modified form,—consciously or unconsciously—taken up by other
authors in cosmology, we find them to be the following:
The planets of our solar system originate from the solar
matter—taken up by BUFFON, KANT, LAPLACE, and others.
The earth—and the other planets—have gradually removed
themselves from the sun and received a gradually lengthened
time of revolution—a view again expressed by G. H. DARWIN.
The earth’s time of rotation, that is to say, the day’s length,
has been gradually increased—a view again expressed by G. H.
DARWIN.
The suns are arranged around the milky way—taken up by WRIGHT,
KANT and LAMBERT.
There are still greater systems, in which the milky ways are
arranged—taken up by LAMBERT.›
During this period of his investigations SWEDENBORG enters into very
deep speculations. He desires to grasp the innermost constitution of
things, their causes and origin, and seeks to attain this end through
a long process of analyses and by applying a geometrical explanation
to the phenomena in the world of the senses. This method he employs
in explaining the inner constitution of chemical bodies, and likewise
the varieties of physical phenomena, etc. He thus comes at last to
the—geometrical points: through the combination of these, in different
ways, have all things of the universe originated in a mathematically
definable manner; and the motion of these points is the all connecting,
life-giving power.[25]
SWEDENBORG’S ANATOMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS.
After SWEDENBORG had so thoroughly searched through and speculated upon
inorganic nature, he turns himself to the _organic_. He breaks away from
all other work, travels abroad, and throws himself with intense zeal into
_anatomical_ and _physiological_ studies. These researches were, for
the most part, carried on in the Netherlands, France, and especially in
Italy, where he remained for nearly a year.
After five years he was ready with his first work in this field,
the large, famous ›_Œconomia Regni Animalis_,› which was printed in
Amsterdam, 1740-1741. It was then published in two large volumes; but
that it was designed to be still larger, is evident, among other things,
from SWEDENBORG’s own statement;[26] and furthermore, the Englishman J.
J. G. WILKINSON published, in 1847, as a third volume, some annotations
which he regarded as belonging to SWEDENBORG’s manuscript of the same
work.[27]
The ›Œconomia Regni Animalis› is chiefly directed to a detailed
analysis of the _blood_, the _brain_, and finally the _soul_. In
this investigation SWEDENBORG directed his attention not only to the
morphological and physiological aspects of the subject, but also to the
_embryology_ of the organs; and he penetrated so deeply into the very
essence of development, that, as Professor J. A. HAMMAR (Uppsala) has
pointed out, he succeeded in arriving at a conception on this point,
which was considerably better than that of his times. As is well known,
during the first part of the eighteenth century the idea was generally
prevalent that, when the organism developed from the egg or sperm, it
grew forth out of it, much like a flower developes out of the bud, or, in
other words, that the different organs existed pre-formed in the egg or
sperm and that development consisted only in an extension of its size.
SWEDENBORG expressed himself very decidedly against this ›pre-formation
theory›: The development consisted by no means merely in a growth or
expansion of the germ, (›seminis extensio›), or of a prototype of the
future creature existent in the germ, (›non ... aliqua realis effigies
maximi in minimo, seu in aliquo primo typus futuri corporis, qui
simpliciter expanditur.› See Œc. R. A. I., No. 249); but there was in
the germ a certain formative substance or power, by means of which the
various parts of the embryo were developed one after the other, organ
after organ. ( ... singula membra successive, seu unum post alterum
producuntur ... Œc. R. A. I., No. 247).
It will be seen that SWEDENBORG has here put forth essentially the same
theory as was later presented by CASPAR FRIEDRICH WOLFF in his well known
›Doctorsdissertation› of the year 1759, _i. e._, the so called _theory of
›epigenesis›_.
I shall here also discuss some of the results and conclusions, which
SWEDENBORG arrived at in the ›Œconomia Regni Animalis›, concerning the
_brain_ and _its function_.
As is well known the general principles of the macroscopical anatomy
of the brain were known long before SWEDENBORG’s days; and even its
microscopical structure had, half a century before his time, begun to be
studied by such men as LEEUWENHOEK (1632-1723), MALPHIGI (1628-1694),
and others. For example, it was not only known that the substance of
the brain, upon incision, exhibits an outer, greyish layer, the cortex,
and an inner, more pure white mass, the medullary substance; but the
above-mentioned investigators had also shown that _the cortex of the
brain_ consists of a numberless mass of small globular bodies, which
are closely surrounded by blood-vessels and are continued in small
thread-like extensions, which run into the medullary substance.[28] Now
SWEDENBORG succeeded, as regards _these globular bodies_, in arriving
at the conception that they are _the most important components of the
cortex_ and that it is in these bodies that the nerves originate.[29] He
called them ›_Sphaerulae_› or ›_Cerebellula_›.
Again, as regards the _medullary substance_, it was already known through
the works of WILLIS (1622-1675), VIEUSSENS (1641-1716), BOERHAAVE
(1668-1738), that it consists, for the most part, of a great mass of
finer and coarser nerve-fibres, and that these, through the medulla
oblongata,[30] continue down into the spinal cord, and that through the
nerves they are in communication with the various parts of the body. The
nerves were supposed to contain a lumen, thus being tubular. On the basis
of certain _clinical experiences_ concerning the changes which occur
in the functions of the soul, when the cortex of the brain is injured,
SWEDENBORG succeeded in drawing the conclusion that the _same_ medullary
fibres which are derived from the ›Cerebellula› of the cortex of the
brain, continue into the spinal cord and are in connection with the
nerves, and that thus an easily transmitted and continuous communication
is established between the substance of the cerebral cortex and all the
parts of the body, where the nerves are distributed.[31]
Concerning the _function_ of the brain, the old view of HIPPOCRATES that
the brain was a gland was still entertained in SWEDENBORG’s time. The
cortical substance served for secreting the ›spiritus animalis›, that is,
what the ancients called the ›spirits of life›, and these were collected
in the cortex of the brain that they might, when necessary, stream out
through the nerves. The medullary substance was, according to the latest
conceptions of that day, the origin and source of the soul’s activity,
and the ›spiritus animalis› served as the connecting link between the
soul and the sense-organs and muscles of the body.
SWEDENBORG also supposed that such a very easily flowing nervous fluid,
›fluidum spirituosum›, communicated the impressions of the senses and
the impulses of motion: but this fluid determined the connection between
sense-organs and muscles on the one hand, and the _cortex_ of the brain
on the other. It was thus _the cerebral cortex! to which the impressions
of the senses were carried, and from this the voluntary impulses were
sent out_ to the muscles. The cortex was thus the seat of both the
sensory and motor activities of the soul in the body. Œc. R. A. III., No.
133: ›Substantia enim corticalis est ipsum cerebrum, seu sensorium et
motorium commune.›[32]
But SWEDENBORG was not contented with this general idea of the cortex as
the seat of the sensations and the will. He also drew conclusions from
his previous experience and results regarding the continuous connection
between the elements of the cortex and the ends of the nerves distributed
in the various parts of the body.
On the basis of this connection he ascribed to the ›_Cerebellula_› a
very important rôle in the activity of the brain. In the first place
they received, through the external sense-organs and nerves, impressions
from the outer world and worked them over: they were a kind of _inner
sense-organs_.[33] And since the sensory impressions were so richly
various as well in kind as in degree, the ›Cerebellula› must also possess
various individual qualifications corresponding to these various sensory
impressions. They were, at the same time, connected with one another, and
so arranged into superior and inferior groups that they could receive and
work over the various kinds of sensory impressions.[34]
There were also other groups of grey substance in the interiors of
the brain, through which the sensory nerves passed; but all sensory
impressions must ultimately be gathered together in the cortex of the
brain so as to become conscious perceptions.
(Thus, for example, SWEDENBORG describes the optic thalami as such
a secondary centre in the course of the path of sight;[35] and the
corpora striata in the path of the sense of smell;[36] and the origin of
conscious tactile sensations he describes thus: — — — ›rudior quicunque
_tactus a superficie_ totius per medios nervos _in Medullam Spinalem
aut Oblongatam_ et abinde _in activissimum cinerem_, et _in circumfusum
corticem Cerebri_ emicet: Adeo ut _extremi receptus modorum sint in
cortice Cerebri, qui conscius redditur_ mutationum in seriebus et
substantiis compositis usquam contingentium.› Œc. R. A. II., 192).
Thus: although SWEDENBORG did not suppose the ›Cerebellula› to be
arranged into sensory centres in the same manner as we do, still he
seems to have supposed an arrangement something resembling this, with
_Cerebellula-groups_ as _subdivisions of the great sensible centre-organ,
which is formed by the ›Cerebellula› of the brain cortex, taken
together_, and which Swedenborg called ›Sensorium commune.›
In regard to the relation of the cortex to _motility_, SWEDENBORG
expresses himself much more definitely. This activity of the brain
SWEDENBORG also regarded as derived from the small cortical elements,
the ›_Sphaerulae_› or ›_Cerebellula_›.[37] He ascribes to them, on the
one hand, a high degree of _self-determination_, so that they could
perform their functions independently of each other, this on the basis
of certain anatomical conditions, such as their position in respect to
each other in separate cavities, and their connection each with its own
special nerve-fibre, and, besides, also on the basis of certain clinical
and pathological observations;[38] but on account of other anatomical
conditions, such as the aggregation of the ›Cerebellula› into larger
and smaller groups, as into gyres, and groups of gyres, etc., as well
as on certain other grounds, he ascribed to them also the ability to
_cooperate with each other_ when necessary.[39] In consequence of this
the brain possesses, as he says, the power and choice of influencing
whatever nerves and muscles it will, and of stimulating them to activity.
(›Proinde Cerebri secundum ordinatam ejus substantiae dispositionem
in potentia et arbitrio est, quascunque velit fibras, aut fibrarum
fasciculos, et consequenter nervos et musculos inspirare et ad agendum
excitare.› Œc. R. A. II., 153). It was impossible for him to express
himself as to what parts of the cerebrum or which convolutions, _gyri,
correspond to the respective muscles_, but _he refers to experimental
investigations of animals_, by which this might be discovered.[40]
But although the brain would then be able to govern every muscular
action, it was not employed every time such an action was to be
performed. No, in the medulla oblongata and in the grey substance of
the spinal cord there were _subordinate, secondary motor centres_, and
these governed the automatic and habitual movements, so that, for the
performance of these, the brain need not be disturbed in its higher
functions. Only for the purely voluntary motions were impulses from the
cerebrum necessary.[41]
SWEDENBORG has thus clearly located _the ›causa principalis› of the
voluntary movements_ in the _cortex of the cerebrum_, or more definitely,
in _the cortical elements and in groups of such elements_, although in
this work ›Œconomia Regni Animalis› he did not succeed in more closely
defining the position of the various motor centres.
From all that I have here brought forward concerning the functions which
SWEDENBORG ascribes to the cortical substance of the brain, it is evident
that he succeeded in coming to the full conviction that it is _through
the activity of the ›Cerebellula›_ (or as we express it, through the
cerebral nerve-cells) that _the perception of sense-impressions and the
impulses to voluntary motions arise_.
But SWEDENBORG does not stop even here. The elements of the cerebral
cortex, he continues, are still not the ultimate determinants. They
are only, so to speak, the inner sense-organs[42] and sub-determining
media.[43] They are themselves subordinated under the understanding and
the will, and their principle, the soul.[44] The soul, the principle of
life, it is the soul, which, through those cortical elements, perceives
the external world: it is the soul which feels, sees, hears, smells,
tastes, it is the soul which recollects, thinks, performs, and wills; it
is the soul which speaks and acts.[45]
What then is the soul, and where does she reside?
The seat of the soul must surely lie in the cerebral cortex; at least
its activity comes into play there, and still more definitely, in the
›Cerebellula› of the cortex. (See above and also ›The Brain›, No. 7).
But what is she? What is the soul?
Here SWEDENBORG makes one attempt after the other to draw away the
obscuring veil. Sometimes he thinks of the soul as only dwelling and
working in the ›Cerebellula› and their ›fluidum spirituosum›; but in
this way he does not come to a solution of the principal question, which
is only removed farther away.[46] Sometimes he thinks the soul to be
identical with the ›fluidum spirituosum›; but how can this, however
subtile fluid, be immortal? Here he is again repulsed.[47] He discusses
the supposition that, although the ›fluidum spirituosum› in itself is not
immortal, it yet becomes so upon the death of the body, and so forth.[48]
And at last he bursts out with: ›it amounts to the same thing if we see
in this fluid the soul itself, or only its faculty of imagination and
judgment, for the one cannot be thought of without the other.›[49]
SWEDENBORG himself, however, was not satisfied with the result, but
acknowledges that he had been too hasty, when, after having in reality
thoroughly considered only the blood and brain, he entered immediately
upon the search for the soul. He therefore says in the preface to the
next work: ›I am now determined to allow myself no respite, until I have
run through the whole field to the very goal—until I have traversed the
universal animal kingdom to the soul (usque ad animam). Thus I hope, that
by bending my course inward continually, I shall open all the doors that
lead to her, and at length contemplate the soul herself: by the divine
permission.›
It is grand to see the indomitable energy and zeal for investigation in
this man of 53 years!
He was now obliged to extend considerably the field of his
investigations—thereby to come to still more thorough insight into the
conditions of the soul’s life, and afterwards, as he says, ›in his
analytical way to be able to work himself up from the lower to the
higher›, to find the way from phenomena and facts to causes and the final
principles of the organism’s intricate mechanism.
Three years later he has ready the first two volumes of his new work,
and the following year, 1745, a third volume. This work is the ›_Regnum
Animale_›, (The Soul’s Kingdom). It is constructed upon a very grand
plan, comprising not less than 17 parts. Of these, however, only the
three mentioned above issued from the press, and they treat of the
organs of the chest, abdomen, and skin, and of the senses of touch and
taste.[50] Professor IMMANUEL TAFEL (Tübingen) in the middle of the
19th century afterwards published two more volumes of the manuscript.
The first of these, Pars quarta, treats chiefly of the senses of smell,
hearing and sight and the higher degrees of the soul’s activity; and the
other, Pars septima, treats of the soul.[50 b]
But simultaneously with the work in question SWEDENBORG wrote still
another, namely, the great work on the brain, ›De Cerebro›.—In these
works SWEDENBORG reached _the summit of his scientific career_, and they
afterwards served as the foundation of the religious edifice to which he
devoted the remainder of his life.
The ›_De Cerebro_› of SWEDENBORG, just referred to, is a rather large
work which treats of the brain from the anatomical, physiological, and
philosophical standpoints. This work left by SWEDENBORG in Ms., has
appeared in print only in part, namely, in the English translation by
Dr. RUDOLF TAFEL, published in London in two volumes, 1882 and 1887, and
entitled ›The Brain›. Although this edition comprises, as was said, only
a portion of the whole work, it treats of both the cerebrum, cerebellum
and medulla oblongata, as well as of the cranium and the membranes of the
brain, but chiefly only in so far as their structure and function regard
the activity of the soul. Without doubt SWEDENBORG’s main interest here
centred on this subject, and therefore I shall give some intimations
concerning how deeply SWEDENBORG has succeeded in seeing into the
function of the cerebrum as the organ of the soul’s life.
SWEDENBORG divided each hemisphere of the brain into an anterior and a
posterior region, separated from one another by the fissure of Sylvius.
Now, in _the anterior region_ he located _the essential activity of
the soul_, while as regards the posterior region, he supposed that it
was chiefly active in animating the blood (›The Brain›, No. 71). In
the anterior region he furthermore distinguished _three lobes_, or, as
he called them, ›curiae›, in which the soul resided and exercised its
functions (›The Brain›, No. 88). He does not define the boundaries of
the lobes, but distinguishes them by saying that the soul’s activity in
the highest lobe attains to the highest degree of clarity and perfection,
while in the inferior lobes, the middle and the lowest, the soul’s
activity successively decreases in sharpness and intensity! (›The Brain›,
Nos. 66, 88). In these lobes or curiae the essential psychic life also
has its rise; here observations, thoughts, judgments, conclusions come
into being, yea, even determinations and the utterances of the will
proceed thence. Here consequently is the source of both the sensory and
the motor functions of the soul (›The Brain›, Nos. 88, 100).
As we have seen, SWEDENBORG had already shown, in ›Œconomia Regni
Animalis›, not only that it is in the cortex, but just in _the cortical
elements_, the ›_Cerebellula_›, that the brain’s psychic function is
performed. Swedenborg emphasizes the same idea in ›De Cerebro›, and
declares that these ›Cerebellula› are the units of which the brain is
constructed, and from which its essential nature is derived (›The Brain›,
No. 34).
As in the ›Œconomia Regni Animalis›, so in ›De Cerebro›, he also refers
to the arrangement into _different groups_, which is so important for
the function of the cortical elements or ›Cerebellula›, and with respect
to this he now makes a new statement, which is of such a nature as
necessarily to excite amazement: he sets forth the most essential part
of _the modern theory of localizations_. Word for word this statement
reads as follows: ›_The muscles and actions which are in the ultimates of
the body, or the soles of the feet, seem to depend more immediately upon
the highest parts (of the anterior region of the brain)[51], the muscles
which belong to the abdomen and thorax upon the middle lobe, those which
belong to the face and head upon the third lobe_; for they (the muscles
of the body and the lobes of the brain)[51] seem to correspond to one
another in inverse order›. (See ›The Brain›, No. 68).—Thus, the essential
features of the modern doctrine concerning the relative positions of the
motor centres in the cortex of the brain, that doctrine into which we
have obtained an insight first after much comprehensive and complicated
labour during the last century!
I shall no longer at this point continue the discussion of this work.
What I have brought forward may suffice to indicate the character of
SWEDENBORG’s investigation and the statements and discoveries based
thereon. By his works on the brain SWEDENBORG reached the _summit_ of
his Scientific activity, but also its _conclusion_. He now passes over
to the transcendental field. With the limits which we have set for our
examination, we must, however, refrain from following the energetic
investigator in his continued search for truth.
THE BASIS FOR SWEDENBORG’S STATEMENTS CONCERNING THE FUNCTIONS OF THE
BRAIN.
If we take a general view of SWEDENBORG’s investigations, the outlines
of which have been sketched above, a number of questions are suggested:
Whence did SWEDENBORG secure the material for all these far-sighted
statements, whence the evidence for all these discoveries? Did SWEDENBORG
himself carry out the special investigations which must have formed the
basis of his beautiful results?[52] Or was the evidence ready at hand in
the literature of those days?
The answering of these questions is naturally of a certain importance in
the valuation of the opinions expressed. And as several of SWEDENBORG’s
statements concern questions which are still among the ›unsolved›, I
have taken up some of these questions for examination. In this I have
restricted my investigation to a confined province, and chosen one which
in our own times is of great actual interest, namely, the function of the
brain, and especially that of the cerebral cortex. As we have already
seen, SWEDENBORG connected in the closest manner the soul’s activity
with the cortex of the cerebrum, indeed, he localizes in detail special
departments of that activity to determinate regions of the cortex; and
the object of my investigation is, therefore, to endeavour to find out
upon what foundations SWEDENBORG erected this doctrine of the centres of
the psychic functions in the cortex of the cerebrum.
ON THE CENTRES OF THE VEGETATIVE FUNCTIONS.
With regard to the function of the brain, SWEDENBORG, in the first place,
made the distinction that the cerebrum regulates the psychic, and the
cerebellum the vegetative functions.
Many different opinions prevailed in SWEDENBORG’s time concerning this
question. Some investigators considered that the vegetative as well as
the psychical functions stood under the direct control of the cerebrum;
others that _the centres of vegetative life were separated from those of
psychic life and had not_, like these, _their place in the cerebrum_.
And SWEDENBORG adopted the latter opinion, primarily for the following
reasons:
1) _Experiments on animals_ had brought to light the fact that
respiration and the action of the heart continued for a time even after
the hemispheres of the cerebrum (in dogs) had been separated from their
connection with the cerebellum and medulla oblongata, indeed, even if the
hemispheres of the cerebrum (in dogs) had been extirpated.[53] He was
also led to the same conclusion by
2) _Certain teratological and pathological anatomical experiences_, which
he had gathered from his studies of books. He advances cases described by
WEPFER, TYSON and RIDLEY, MANGET, KERKRING, MORGAGNI, and others, which
showed that although the cerebrum had occasionally been entirely or in
part missing in foetuses, yet these deformed foetuses could nevertheless
live a shorter or longer time after birth. And in agreement with TULPIUS
he calls attention to the great deformation of the cerebrum in the case
of hydrocephals. In close connection with this he gives accounts (from
VALLISNIERI and others) of extreme cases of petrifications in the brain,
regarding which one must suppose that when the cerebrum gradually lost
its functions and the vegetative vital functions nevertheless continued
for a time, these must then have been regulated by the remaining parts of
the central nervous system, that is, by the cerebellum, medulla oblongata
and the spinal cord. (See Œc. R. A. I., Nos. 573, 574 _et seqq._).
From these experiments and discoveries it was thus evident to SWEDENBORG
that the centres for vegetative life are not to be sought for in the
cerebrum.
As was said, he located them instead in the cerebellum, and the
reason for this seems in brief to have been the following: MANGET and
VIEUSSENS had described a number of experiments on animals which were
said to have proved that after lesions of the cerebellum respiration
and the action of the heart at once ceased.[54] The injuries in these
experiments had evidently extended more deeply than the descriptions
recount, by which the false conclusion in regard to the cerebellum is
explained. It was probably because of such misleading experiments as
these that SWEDENBORG’s highly esteemed contemporary, HERMANN BOERHAAVE,
(1668-1737), held the same opinion that the vegetative vital functions
are regulated by the cerebellum.[55] However, the Englishman THOMAS
WILLIS, (1622-1675), had come nearer the truth, when, in a very guarded
statement, he connected these functions with both the cerebellum and
the medulla oblongata.[56] And when SWEDENBORG chose his position on
the question he seems to have been influenced by both of these authors,
and received the opinion that the cerebellum was the main centre of
vegetative life, making, however, the important addition, that the
medulla oblongata, as for that matter also the spinal cord, are secondary
centres, subordinated to the cerebrum and cerebellum.[57] This addition
was based upon a conclusion which SWEDENBORG had drawn, among other
things, from the teratological and pathologic-anatomical observations and
from comparative anatomy, but there is no occasion for entering into this
more closely in this connection.
After SWEDENBORG had, however, upon the grounds alluded to, separated
the centres for the vegetative life-functions from the cerebrum, there
lay before him the localization of the psychical functions; and, as to
them, SWEDENBORG located the centres of the sensory portion of the soul’s
activity in the cortex of the cerebrum.[58]
ON THE CENTRES OF THE PSYCHICAL FUNCTIONS, ESPECIALLY THE SENSORY CENTRES.
That the sensory activity of the soul has its centres in the cerebrum was
in SWEDENBORG’s time considered quite certain, but it was not so certain
as to just what part of the brain it was in which the soul’s activity
arose.
It is well known that the philosopher DESCARTES († 1650) had supposed
that the _glandula pinealis_ (pineal gland) was the seat of the soul, and
that the conscious perceptions came into being in this gland and in the
central ventricle of the brain, the ›_third ventricle_›, from which the
nerves, according to his opinion, took their origin.[59]
Gradually, however, there seems to have been more and more an inclination
to attribute this phase of the operation of the soul to _the white
medullary substance_ around the ventricles of the brain. And in
SWEDENBORG’s time this opinion seems to have been the usual one. At least
the matter is so presented by HERMANN BOERHAAVE, who, as is known, in a
high degree had the ear of his contemporaries.[60]
And even HALLER, some twenty years after SWEDENBORG had written his
works on the brain, was still of a similar opinion, as is evident from a
quotation which I shall here bring forward, in which he emphasizes that
neither perceptions nor the impulses to motion arise in the cortex of the
cerebrum, but in the medullary substance: ›Non ergo in cerebri cortice
sensus sedes erit, aut plena causae muscularis motus origo: eritque
utraque in medulla cerebri, & cerebelli.› (ALB. V. HALLER: ›Elementa
physiologiae›, Lausannae, 1762, Tom. IV., p. 392). But when even HALLER
would not attribute the soul’s activity to the cortex, what then can have
led SWEDENBORG to such a thought?
In order to clear up this question let us first examine the _anatomical
literature_ before SWEDENBORG’s time. And then we find that the
BARTHOLINS had already in a kind of way associated this branch of the
soul’s activity with the cerebral cortex, because they supposed that
the ›_spiritus animalis_›, (the ›spirits of life›), _was contained in
the cortex for the sensory functions_, just as it was conserved in the
medullary substance for the motor functions.[61]
And THOMAS WILLIS considered that the _›spiritus animalis› was generated
in the cerebral cortex_, but afterwards underwent proper elaboration and
distribution in the medulla of the cerebrum; and that the memory had its
seat in the cerebral cortex.[62]
And MALPIGHI (1628-1694) had expressed the surmise, that the minute
_cortical elements_, so particularly described by him, which correspond
to what we now call the nerve-cells of the cortex, were small glands,
›glandulæ›, whose function was to _prepare a substance which_, conveyed
through the nerves, _calls forth perceptions_.[63]
It had also been shown by the researches of MALPIGHI that these
›glandulæ› put forth a vessel-like fibre, which continued into the
cerebral medulla; and that this medulla for the greater part consisted of
such fibres or vessels.[64]
In how far these structures were ›fibres› or ›vessels›, and whether
they proceeded from (›oriuntur›) or terminated in (›desinunt›) the
small cortical elements, MALPIGHI leaves undecided. And when BOERHAAVE
afterwards in his lectures on the brain describes these structures, he
still depicts them as the finest tiny canals, which take up the ›spiritus
animalis›, pressed into them from the cortex, and transport it down to
the medulla oblongata, whence it is afterwards, by means of the nerves,
distributed to the different parts of the body. This ›spiritus› BOERHAAVE
describes as elaborated in the cortex, ›fabrica mirifica corticis
praeparatus›.[65]
These observations and surmises have evidently exercised a great
influence upon SWEDENBORG’s conception of the function of the cerebral
cortex; but they alone could impossibly have aided him in reaching the
enlightened standpoint at which he arrived. No, the most determining
and decisive factor for him in this question evidently was a great mass
of _clinical and pathological observations_ which he had collected and
synthesized, namely, symptoms of disturbances of consciousness and
sensibility, which had been exhibited by such patients, who, as was shown
by post mortem examination, had been injured in the cerebral cortex.
And I shall later refer to some of these cases in connection with the
consideration of the brain’s motor functions, because these patients
nearly always also exhibited motor disturbances.
But even here I may quote some of SWEDENBORG’s own words, which will show
what importance he attached to these testimonies: ›It is the cerebrum or
the cortical substance in which the soul disposes and unfolds its purest
and most simple organic forms of activity, and what the cerebrum is,
appears from a change of the faculties in some diseases, as in apoplexy,
epilepsy, paralysis, etc., likewise in many morbid states of the animal
mind in a cerebrum wounded by various accidents;› (›The Brain›, No. 86).
And in another place he says: ›If the cerebrum is either inflamed or
obstructed, or flaccid, or injured otherwise, the intellectual faculty is
unsettled; as in paralysis, melancholy, in cases of delirium, in atrophy,
apoplexy, in fevers, and other diseases; nay, the determination of the
will also is similarly affected. For each single cortical substance
contributes its share to this intellectory, that is, to this organ of the
understanding, etc.› (›The Brain›, No. 104, r).
All these observations concerning the consequences of injury to the
cerebral cortex—and the above-mentioned discoveries regarding the
structure of the cerebral substance and the hypotheses concerning the
relation of the cerebral cortex and cortical elements to the ›spiritus
animalis› and the perceptions,—these _clinical_ and _anatomical
experiences taken together_ seem to have led SWEDENBORG to the conviction
that the activity of the soul and not least that just now in question,
the sensory, had its seat in the cortex of the cerebrum.
He now enters into a detailed analysis of the course of the sensory
nerves as far as they are able to be demonstrated (›in ipsius oculi
luce›), and he thus follows the optic nerves to the optic thalami, and
thence their radiation towards the cerebral cortex, the olfactory nerves
to the corpora striata or the medulla of the centrum ovale and from
there out towards its cortical surroundings, the auditory nerves to
the medulla oblongata and thence up toward the cortex of the cerebrum,
(›versus supremum corticem›), and in the same manner he follows the
nerves of taste and touch. (See Œc. R. A. II., No. 192; and III., No.
66). He cannot now follow further the particular fibres through the
medulla all the way to the cortex, of whose importance for consciousness
and sensibility he became convinced through the clinical experiences,
but here he must _suppose_ a connection, and he says: ›these effects
(conscious perceptions) could never be produced ... unless in every
quarter there were _a mutual connection and perpetual communication of
the cortical substance with the medullary_, as regards the fibrils ...›,
(as well as a special arrangement of the cortical elements and special
qualifications in them, of which more will be said later).[66]
From all this it is clear, that it was probably through _a combination of
clinical and anatomical experiences_ that SWEDENBORG secured the premises
for his conclusions that the centre of the soul’s sensory activity is in
the cortex of the cerebrum.
ON THE CENTRES OF THE MOTOR FUNCTIONS.
SWEDENBORG also placed the centres of the soul’s motor activity in the
cerebral cortex (See Œc. R. A., No. 127, etc.).
I have not been able to find anything of this kind even hinted at in the
antecedent literature. We are reminded of how preceding authors, who
made an attempt at some kind of localization of the origin of motion,
in most cases placed this in the medulla of the brain, as for example
the BARTHOLINS;[67] and also BOERHAAVE.[68] And as we have just heard,
HALLER still held the same view.[69] Nevertheless SWEDENBORG expresses
his conception without the slightest hesitation, and this he did because
he regarded it as resting on a sure foundation. His strongest grounds
and proofs were here also derived from the _clinical and pathological
observations_ in certain cerebral diseases which had caused changes in
the cortex, and in patients, who had been injured in the cerebral cortex.
It was these clinical cases at which I hinted just now. And now some of
these may be brought forward, for the most part as SWEDENBORG himself has
related them—with some few abbreviations:
A female seventy years of age, who after exhibiting the premonitory
symptoms of apoplexy for some months suddenly _lost the power of speech_,
and on being conveyed to bed, lost all sensation and motion. On a post
mortem examination a large cavity was found in the cortical substance of
her brain (›in ejus Cerebri substantia corticali ampla cavitas reperta
fuerit›, see Œc. R. A. II., No. 154). The case was taken from J. J.
WEPFER’s ›_Historiae Apoplecticorum_› (Amsterdam, 1681, pp. 5-11).
Another case taken from WEPFER was the following: A man 50 years of age
had for some weeks before his death suffered from excruciating headache,
the pain of which sometimes drove him mad, so that he was not seldom
unconscious of what he said and did. On examining his head after death,
the whole surface of the cerebrum and cerebellum, including both the
convolutions and the furrows between them, seemed to be clogged all
over with a gelatinous substance, from which, when it was pricked with
a lancet, genuine serum oozed out. And also the very substance of the
cerebrum and cerebellum had imbibed a large quantity of serum. (Œc. R.
A., loco cit. and J. J. WEPFER: Op. cit., p. 15-19).
A case from A. PACCHIONI was as follows: A young man had died under
symptoms of fever, severe headache and _spasms_, or _cramp_. On opening
his cranium, it appeared that the firm fibrous membrane of the brain, the
dura mater, was loosened from the bone on the top of the head; and here,
according to the description, it had exercised a strong pressure upon the
underlying portion of the brain and was tightly adherent to it. (Œc. R.
A., loc. cit.)——Consequently, in the last two cases: inflammation of the
membranes of the brain, or meningitis with accompanying influence upon
the superficial layer of the brain, the cerebral cortex.
And still another case from PACCHIONI, which was still more convincing: A
youth was brought into the hospital in an almost unconscious condition,
spoke incoherently, cast himself about in all directions, etc.; and
furthermore——his _lips were somewhat drawn over to the left side_
(›_labris ad sinistrum paululum detractis_›), thus a right-sided _facial
paralysis_! On examination after death no injuries could be found upon
the integuments of the head, nor upon the outer or inner sides of the
cranium, but on the left side of the brain _a depression of the cortex_
was discovered, occasioned by the formation of a tumor or ›bladder› on
that part of the surrounding dura mater lying just over the place of
depression: ›_ibi depressus et durioris consistentiae cortex cerebri
cavernam ostendebat vesicae congruentem_.›[70]
SWEDENBORG brought forward still more cases, so incomplete, however,
that it is not worth while to repeat them here. But he had at hand a
very large number of cases, as he says: ›phalanges observationum idem
testificantium› (Œc. R. A. No. 154), or, as he says in another place, so
many that a bare enumeration of them would fill two whole pages (Œc. R.
A. II., 154).
SWEDENBORG had made a specially careful study of a great many _cases of
apoplexy_ and _hemiplegy_, which naturally, in so far as they affected
the cortex, gave him direct guidance in judging of its function. And he
also understood very well how to judge at the same time with regard to
the importance of bleedings in the soft membrane of the brain, the pia
mater, on and between the convolutions of the brain, the ›gyri›, and
the pressure that these exercise upon the cortex, and the results of
prevented circulation in cases of apoplexy. For in all these cases, he
says, the transmission of blood to the cortex is checked, and by this the
cortex was disturbed in its function, and this was the cause of the loss
of sensation and of the paralysis. (Œc. R. A., III., No. 411 and III.,
No. 413; see also ›The Brain›, No. 89).
But SWEDENBORG had also directed his attention to that method of
investigation which, to the brain physiologists of the present day, is
the best aid for the examination of the motor functions of the cerebral
cortex, namely, _experiments on animals_. He quotes such experiments, in
which _incisions_ had been made into the cortex ›just to the marrow›,
as it is expressed, (›usque ad substantiam medullarem› [RIDLEY], Œc. R.
A., I., No. 505); or when the brain (in dogs) had been _pierced_, (Œc.
R. A., II., No. 154), and how these injuries had occasioned spasms or
contractions of the trunk or extremities (RIDLEY). He also describes
such cases in which fine needles had been pierced through the dura mater
and corrosive liquors introduced through the holes, with the result
that severe disturbances occurred in both motility and sensibility, and
also how through such injuries muscular contractions had been provoked,
by which it was sometimes observed that with certain stimuli the
contractions first occurred in certain groups of muscles (for example, in
the head or neck) and afterwards spread to the other parts of the body.
(BAGLIVI ›The Brain›, No. 20).
As will be seen, these experiments were no ›precision-investigations›;
and the same may be said of the clinical and pathological ones. And
this may be the more easily understood, when we consider that in those
times so much interest was not attached to such special observations of
pathological changes in the cerebral cortex; for this was then regarded
only as a gland, a secreting organ or reservoir for the ›spiritus
animalis›. These observations were therefore made more as it were in
passing. The same is also true of the experimental investigations on
animals, quoted above. These were in reality made not in order to
investigate any function of the cortex, but for other purposes, namely,
in order to search out the causes of the pulsations of the brain, or the
qualities and functions of the dura mater, etc.
Yet, as we shall see later on, some of the cases, in the original
descriptions, really contain statements somewhat more exact and of
greater interest even for the theory of cortical localizations, than
those which SWEDENBORG quoted; but he seems to have here adduced no more
than what had reference to the _cortex regarded as a whole_, and which
showed what great changes in both the power of sensation and motion
injuries in the cortex could produce. If we take this into consideration,
and if we synthesize all these experiences, and add to this the increased
knowledge concerning the minute structure of the brain, which had been
produced especially by MALPIGHI’s discoveries, we must admit that
SWEDENBORG had good reasons for his view that the soul’s activity had its
seat in the cortex of the cerebrum.
THE DOCTRINE OF LOCALIZATIONS.
But SWEDENBORG, as is well known, did not stop here. The cerebral cortex
certainly constituted a whole which transformed the sensations into
thoughts and determinations, but all the regions of the cortex were not
of the same degree: some ruled the higher, others the lower functions,
thus also containing subdivisions, in some of which the sense-impressions
were received, in others from which the motor impulses proceeded. (See
›The Brain›, Nos. 66, 68, 71, 88, 98, 100, 102, etc.).
This conception of the brain appears at first glance as very modern.
But upon searching the literature before SWEDENBORG’s time one finds
that the thought was not so entirely original. New was the thought of
attributing the psychical functions to the cortex, new also was the
attempt to accurately determine upon the place where the different
functions originate; but the _idea of localization_ itself is found again
in the literature which SWEDENBORG already had at his disposal.
BOERHAAVE, for instance, says, in his ›Institutiones medicæ›, when
speaking of the sensations, that they give rise to _different
perceptions_, partly owing to the differing species and nature of the
outer objects, and partly to the different natures of the sense-organ
and the affected nerve, but partly also _to the different regions in the
cerebral medulla from which the nerve proceeds_. Thus we have here a
kind of localization to a special region of the brain, although in its
_medulla_.[71] And still more clearly does BOERHAAVE express the same
idea in his ›Prælectiones academicae,› where he says: ›In the ’Sensorium
commune’ there are _regions locally distinguished for the different
senses, just as every sense has its own special sense-organ_.›[72]
And before BOERHAAVE the philosopher DESCARTES had expressed an idea
concerning a certain form of localization of the various elements of
psychic activity. For he supposed that the images of sensation and the
images of the memory, etc., which the soul perceives, arise on those
places on the walls of the brain’s central ventricle, where, according
to his opinion, the various nerves originate. In a similar way he also
imagined the origin of motility localized. (R. DESCARTES: ›De homine›,
publ. by F. SCHUYL, Ludg. Bat., 1662).
We here reproduce some illustrations from the work of DESCARTES just
mentioned, which are designed to show how he thought that the images of
sensation arise. — — See the figures 1, 2, 3.
We thus see that the idea of localization itself was not altogether new.
But how did SWEDENBORG ultimate and develope it?
With regard to function SWEDENBORG divided the hemispheres of the
cerebrum into two parts: one anterior region and one posterior,
conceiving the fissure of Sylvius as the dividing boundary between them.
(›The Brain›, Nos. 16, 88, 91).
[Illustration: Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4.
Figures 1-3. Reproduced from Descartes: ›Tractatus de homine›.
Fig. 1. A part of the wall of the central ventricle of the brain. The
points of the dotted area represent the openings of the nerves, which,
according to the opinion of Descartes, take their origin in the wall
of the ventricle. The figures O (star) and B (lily) are formed by
combinations of such nerve openings.
Fig. 2. View of the left hemisphere from the medial side. The dotted
area B represents the place, where, according to Descartes, the nerves
originate. The vesicle H is the pineal gland, wherein the soul was
thought to have its seat.
Fig. 3. Illustrates the act of seeing. The object ABCD forms an image,
1357, on the retina of the eye. This image provokes a similar image,
2468, on the wall of the brain’s ventricle, by exciting a stream of
›spiritus animalis› from the central ventricle through certain of the
fine nerve tubules of the optic nerve, the openings of the nerve tubules
in the wall of the ventricle being widened and thus forming images (of
sight), which the soul is able to perceive from its seat in the pineal
gland.
Fig. 4. Reproduced from Vieussens: ›Neurographia universalis›, Tabula
XVI. Illustrates the passage of the coarse fibres of the _middle region
of the brain’s medullary substance_ through the capsula interna, pons
and the pyramids on the front of the medulla oblongata downwards to _the
anterior part of the spinal cord_.]
To the anterior region he attributed the actual operation of the soul,
while he supposed that the posterior region was chiefly engaged in the
animation of the blood. He adds, however, ›it cannot be denied that
sensations reach even the posterior region of the brain, yet our mind
does not become conscious of them to the same degree as it does in the
anterior region› (›The Brain›, No. 71).
In this _anterior region of the cerebrum_ he distinguished _three
lobes_, or so called ›curiae›, the first one highest up, ›in the crown›,
a middle one below it, and a third one lowest down, _i. e._, nearest
to the fissure of Sylvius.[73] In these three lobes the actual psychic
life is developed, and that so much the more clearly and perfectly, the
higher up in the region these intricate processes occur. It is here that
perceptions, thoughts, judgments, conclusions, come into being; it is
from here that ultimately will and determination issue. (See ›The Brain›,
Nos. 12, 66, 71, 88, 98, 100, 102).
As regards the sensory part of the psychic activity, SWEDENBORG does not
make any attempt at a detailed localization; but as regards the motor
functions he arranges their centres within the above-mentioned regions as
follows: ›_The muscles and actions_ which are _in the ultimates of the
body_ or in the soles of the feet seem to depend more immediately _upon
the highest parts_ (_of the brain_), upon _the middle lobe_ the muscles
which belong to _the abdomen and thorax_, and upon the _third lobe_ those
which belong to _the face and head_;› and he adds, ›for they seem to
correspond to one another in an inverse ratio› (›The Brain›, No. 68).
Whence did SWEDENBORG get all this? Whence the whole of this doctrine
of localizations? In his first great anatomical work, ›Œconomia Regni
Animalis›, nothing is said about it; first in his last anatomical work,
›De Cerebro›, is it advanced, and then — — — quite finished! One is at
first glance tempted to think that he had succeeded in finding some new
clinical experiences, upon which he could found this doctrine. For he had
not even finished the account of the function of the brain’s anterior
region, before interjecting: ›Therefore, if this portion (the anterior
region) of the cerebrum is wounded, then the internal senses—imagination,
memory, thought—suffer; the very will is weakened, and the power of its
determination blunted. This is not the case if the injury is in the back
part of the cerebrum› (›The Brain›, No. 88). But afterwards he does not
bring forward (in ›De Cerebro›) any observations which could serve as
proof with regard to this. And if one examines the cases he has referred
to in his preceding works, one cannot possibly arrive at the localization
of the psychic functions which he has here (in ›De Cerebro›) sketched;
for the evidence concerning the _position_ of the injuries in the cortex
are entirely too scanty and incomplete. But if we consult the _original
descriptions_, we find there many other and more particular data than
those quoted by SWEDENBORG when he was only concerned in explaining the
function of the cortex as a whole. WEPFER, for instance, reports in his
›Historiæ apoplecticorum› concerning the woman seventy years of age, who
suddenly _lost the power of speech_, that the cavity, filled with blood,
which was found in the cortex at the autopsy, was located in the right
hemisphere, _just behind the forehead_ (›ad frontem fere antrorsum›), and
that it extended rather far both backwards and upwards; even measurements
were given (length 8, breadth 4, depth about 2 uncias). It was also
stated that the blood-vessels whose bursting caused bleeding belonged
to the antero-lateral branches of the carotid artery in the brain. It
is also mentioned that no changes were found in the left hemisphere of
the brain; and from the clinical account it appears that even after the
stroke the woman was able to move the extremities of the right side.[74]
— — — All this indicates quite evidently that the lesion of the cortex
was situated in the anterior region of the brain!
And PACCHIONI reports concerning the youth, who was afflicted with the
right-sided _facial paralysis_, that even the extremities of the right
side were somewhat paralysed, and that the cyst, which at the post
mortem examination was found on the left hemisphere, extended _from the
crown to the region of the temple_ (›a capitis vertice in temporalem
regionem›).[75] Thus this case also furnishes an unmistakable indication
that the cortical lesion was situated in the anterior region of the brain.
It seems strange that SWEDENBORG did not here supply an account of
these interesting and convincing cases, which he nevertheless, as we
have seen, was well acquainted with. For his habit is to furnish the
chapters of his works with an introduction in which he reports, often in
very detailed form, the statements of the authors upon which he bases
his conclusions. Since in the present case such an account is lacking,
this may depend: either upon the fact that this last anatomical work of
SWEDENBORG, ›De Cerebro›, was not quite completed and finally edited for
the press, or thereon that Dr. RUDOLF TAFEL, who edited the translation
which is now accessible in print, excluded it. For Dr. TAFEL says in a
note that the introduction to the chapter in question would be introduced
into Part II., chapters 1 and 2, but—Part II. was never printed! Since,
however, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will publish ›De Cerebro›
in its edition of SWEDENBORG’s Scientific works, this question will no
doubt be cleared up. But this much is quite clear from what has already
been adduced, that the cases of paralysis which SWEDENBORG previously
quoted in a brief form are in the original descriptions reported so
completely and in such detail that one can without the least doubt
localize the cortical lesions reported in those cases in the anterior
(superior) region of the cerebrum.
We now pass to an examination of the _anatomical_ literature to which
SWEDENBORG had access. And, as we shall find, we can here see whence
SWEDENBORG derived _material for his detailed doctrine_ concerning
the function of the brain’s anterior region. This becomes evident on
comparing SWEDENBORG’s mode of thinking of the brain’s psychical activity
with the descriptions of preceding authors in anatomy.
The group of nuclei, ›_corpus striatum_›, in the cerebrum had been an
object of special interest for preceding authors.
The Englishman, THOMAS WILLIS, had for example in his ›Cerebri anatome›
(published in 1667) portrayed them as a kind of junction, ›internodes›,
by which the cerebrum coheres with the medulla oblongata; and he pays
special attention to it on account of its peculiar structure (›The
Brain›, No. 476); and he is said even to have attributed to them the
›Sens commun›.[76]
And the professor in Montpellier, RAIMOND VIEUSSENS, had given in his
›Neurographia universalis› (published in 1685) a very exact description
of the ›corpus striatum›, (not only of its ›superior nuclei›: ›Corp.
striat. sup. ant.› = Nucleus caudatus and ›Corp. striat. sup. post.› =
›Thalamus opticus›, but also of its lower lateral nucleus = ›Nucleus
lentiformis›) as also of the mighty medullary tract of nerve fibres,
i. e., ›capsula interna›, which passes through the same, and which on
the one hand is distributed to the brain, especially to its anterior
(superior) region, and on the other hand by means of the nerves radiates
into the various parts of the body.
(In order to facilitate orientation we may refer to C. TOLDT:
›Anatomischer Atlas›, 1899, 8 Lieferung, Fig. 92: ›Querschnitt des
verlängerten Markes und der Gehirnstiele. Verlauf der Pyramidenbahn von
der Pyramidenkreuzung an durch die Pyramide, die Brücke und die Basis
des Grosshirnstiels in die innere Kapsel, woselbst sie in den Stiel des
Stabkranzes, Pedunculus coronæ radiatæ, eingeht.›)
SWEDENBORG, who had studied and often quoted both WILLIS and VIEUSSENS,
likewise attributed a very great significance to the corpus striatum.
All the sensory impressions pass through it to the brain, and all the
voluntary impulses to motion pass out by the same path. (›The Brain›, No.
67). ›It is›, says he in his figurative way, ›in a certain sense, the
Mercury of the Olympus; it announces to the soul what is happening to the
body, and it bears the mandates of the soul to the body› (›The Brain›,
No. 67).
And as the corpus striatum lay most immediately under the anterior
(superior) region of the brain, and was in close connection with it, so
the sensory impressions would for the most part pass to this region, and
the voluntary impulses to motion would likewise proceed from it (›The
Brain›, Nos. 66, 67).
The same VIEUSSENS had furnished a very detailed description of the
passage of the nerve tracts in question, which pass through the corpus
striatum and capsula interna, and had followed them both upwards towards
the hemispheres of the brain and downwards towards the spinal cord. When
he followed them upwards, he found that they formed _three regions_
in the ›centrum ovale›: the _regio superna_, highest up nearest the
crown, the _regio media_, in the middle, and the _regio infima_, lowest
down, and consequently nearest the fissure of Sylvius. (R. VIEUSSENS:
›Neurographia univ.›, pp. 115 and 117).
In these regions of the cerebral medulla, especially in the highest,
VIEUSSENS considered that the soul’s activity had its seat: with the help
of ›spiritus animalis› the soul here had an opportunity of receiving the
sensory impressions, and in the fine and finest nerve fibres there were
here formed sensory images, conceptions, (Op. cit. p. 129), here the
memory images were preserved, (Op. cit. p. 135), and here the faculty of
judgment had its seat, (Op. cit. p. 137), etc.
In these regions, especially in the highest, the will also had its seat
and origin, and at its command the ›spiritus animalis› streamed out
through the nerves, thus conveying the impulses to motion to the various
muscles of the body. (Op. cit. pp. 122, 123, 188, _et seqq._).
For SWEDENBORG, who had arrived at certainty with regard to the seat
of the soul’s activity in the cerebral cortex, and not in the cerebral
medulla!, and who through MALPIGHI and others had been led to see that
_the fibres of the cerebral medulla_ were _continuations of the processes
of the cortical elements_,—for SWEDENBORG it naturally lay very near at
hand to _follow the fibres of the three regions of_ VIEUSSENS _out to the
cortical substance_ on the surface of the brain; and so SWEDENBORG has
his _three cortical lobes_! And to them, especially to the highest, he
could now attribute the source of the soul’s life.
When VIEUSSENS followed the nerve tracts of the corpora striata and
capsula interna downwards, he found:
that the _fibres of the uppermost region_ led down to the _posterior
region of the spinal cord_; (›ad posticam spinalis medullæ regionem›);[77]
that the _fibres of the middle region_, which were especially coarse and
traversed the capsula interna and pons, forming thick tracts, could be
clearly followed down into the _anterior portion of the spinal cord, (›in
anticam spinalis medullæ partem›)_, where they came into connection with
the anterior origins of the spinal nerves, (›ad antica nervorum spinalium
principia›), also paying, on their passing through the medulla oblongata,
›necessary tribute›, (›necessarium vectigal›), as it is expressed, to
certain of its nerves;[78]——See the figure 4!——
that the _fibres of the lowest region_ were distributed to certain
_nerves, which proceed from the medulla oblongata_, and to _some of the
anterior origins of the spinal nerves_ (›quædam illius pars ad quosdam e
Medulla oblongata prodeuntes, altera vero ad antica nervorum spinalium
principia›).[79]
In SWEDENBORG’s time it was, however, known that the muscles which
produce the movements of the head and face receive their nerves just
from the medulla oblongata and the uppermost part of the spinal cord;
and it therefore lay near at hand for SWEDENBORG, when he saw that
paralyses arose when certain cortical regions were destroyed, to draw the
conclusion, that the muscles and movements which belong to the _face and
head_, depend more immediately upon the _lowest_ region of the third lobe
of the cerebral cortex.
And as it was also known that the muscles of the thorax and abdomen
receive their nerves from the superior portion of the spinal cord,
whither just the tracts of coarse fibres from the middle region of the
brain could be followed, (see figure 4), so SWEDENBORG could likewise
draw the conclusion from this that the muscles and movements which belong
to the _thorax and abdomen_ depend more immediately upon the _middle_
region or lobe.
It might now appear tempting to continue the conclusion by connecting the
remaining highest lobe and the lower extremity. But probably SWEDENBORG
did not consider that he had sufficient ground for this. The description
by VIEUSSENS did not here furnish any suitable guidance, for it was
possible that the coarse fibres of the middle region continued so far
down into the spinal cord that they could innervate not only the muscles
of the abdomen but also those of the lower extremity. For this reason
SWEDENBORG refrains from localizing exactly the centre of motion of
the lower extremity and contents himself with stating in general terms
only that this centre might lie above that of the abdomen. He therefore
says: ›the order seems to be so disposed that——the muscles and actions,
which are in the _ultimates_ of the body, or in the soles of the feet,
depend more immediately upon _the highest parts (of the brain)_›, whereas
concerning the thorax and abdomen he says that they depend upon the
middle _lobe_, and of the head that it depends upon the third _lobe_.
(›The Brain›, No. 68). I believe that this is the reason why SWEDENBORG’s
doctrine of localizations as concerns the motor centre of the lower
extremity is expressed in such vague terms.
From a comparison of these descriptions by SWEDENBORG and VIEUSSENS we
have found that there are such considerable similarities between them
that they in many respects agree point for point. And it therefore seems
to me rather probable that SWEDENBORG derived his conception of the more
detailed localization of the soul’s activity from the descriptions of
VIEUSSENS.
THE ›CEREBELLULAR THEORY›.
But SWEDENBORG was not satisfied with knowing only that the psychical
functions arise within certain regions of the cortex of the large
anterior region of the cerebrum: but he continued his search for their
inmost origin, and thus he came to the conviction that the _psychical
processes in reality result from the joint work which is performed by
the minute cortical elements_, which SWEDENBORG called ›_Sphaerulae_› or
›_Cerebellula_›, that is, the same bodies which we now call the _cortical
nerve-cells_. These were the units of which the brain was in reality
composed and out of which its actual esse was derived. (See ›The Brain›,
No. 34). It was to these ›Cerebellula› that the sensory impressions went,
and in these they were perceived and brought to consciousness; it was
in these that conceptions, thoughts, judgments, conclusions, came into
being. (Œc. R. A. II., No. 191, and ›The Brain›, No. 98). And this was
possible because there were as many kinds of ›Cerebellula› as there were
kinds of sensory impressions, and that these ›Cerebellula› were connected
together into groups with different subdivisions. (Œc. R. A. II., No.
193; VII., chap. XX.). It was also from the ›Cerebellula› of the cortex
that the determinations and impulses to the various movements of the
body emanated. (›The Brain›, No. 99). And this was possible because the
›Cerebellula› cohered each with its own nerve-fibril, which in their turn
innervated the muscle fibre, and that the ›Cerebellula› were _arranged
into groups, these into greater groups, these into convolutions (gyri)_,
etc., corresponding to muscle fibres, muscles, groups of muscles, etc.
(Œc. R. A. II., Nos. 146, 156, and ›The Brain›, No. 99). And it is in
this connection that SWEDENBORG _refers to experiments on animals by
which it might be shown which gyre or part of convolution it is, which
answers to this or that muscle in the body_.[80]
How SWEDENBORG was able to come to this modern conception ought not to be
so exceedingly difficult to understand if we summarize what was already
known at that time about these cortical elements and add thereto the
conclusions as to the functions of the cortex to which SWEDENBORG had
already come.
In SWEDENBORG’s time the conception of HIPPOCRATES of the brain as a
gland was still generally received. In this one had, however, as MALPIGHI
says, ›since the time of PICCOLOMINEUS› learned to distinguish between an
outer, greyish layer, ›cerebral cortex›, and an inner, more pure white
mass, the ›cerebral medulla›.[81]
Through the microscopic investigations of LEEUWENHOEK (1632-1723) it had
further been discovered that the substance of the brain (especially of
the cortex) contained, besides a great mass of blood-vessels and very
fine fibres, _a numberless mass of_ peculiar _small bodies_ of varying
size, by him called ›globuli›, connected with the vessels and fibres.
(See Œc. R. A. II., Nos. 71-75, 112, etc.).
MALPIGHI, (1628-1694), had closely examined these ›globuli› and described
them as small oval or polygonal ›glands›, which were closely surrounded
by blood-vessels, and in _their inner central ends sent forth processes
forming vessel-like fibres which continued into the cerebral medulla_.[82]
As these fibres or vessels formed small clusters, the little glands
hanging on their extreme ends, like ›dates on their stems›, as MALPIGHI
expresses it, thus formed _small groups_.
Within these groups the cortical elements were, however, _well isolated
from each other_ by clefts, which indeed sometimes were very small, but
could nevertheless be plainly demonstrated with the aid of colouring
matter.[83]
The cortical elements taken together formed the winding groups which on
the surface of the brain gave rise to the so called gyres.[84]
The profusion of blood-vessels, as was said, LEEUWENHOEK and MALPIGHI
had already described as being very great, but RUYSCH (1638-1731) had
afterwards by his famous vascular injections found it to be so great
that he would not call the cortex a glandular but actually a ›vascular›
tissue. (Œc. R. A., II., No. 86). Because of the enormous wealth
of blood-vessels there was thus carried to the cortical substance,
especially to the little follicles, a plenteous quantity of blood,
and from this, according to the opinion of that day, the most subtile
components of the blood could pass to the cortical elements and thereby
be transformed into ›spiritus animalis›. And finally, the Italians
BELLINI, (1643-1704), and ZAMBECCARI had shown by their analyses that the
juice of the brain possessed a highly subtile composition, above all a
great volatility and lightness, and was exceedingly mobile. (See Œc. R.
A. II., Nos. 88, 96, 119). All this SWEDENBORG has himself quoted in his
works.
On the basis of these and some other anatomical and physiological data,
in conjunction with a number of clinical and experimental observations,
SWEDENBORG, as we have before seen, came to the conclusion that it is in
the _cortex_ that the soul’s activity comes into being; but at the same
time he concluded that, strictly speaking, the cortical elements were
the real work-shops. For he reasoned in the following manner: When the
sensory impressions enter the brain, they certainly proceed no further
than to the _›Sphaerulae› of the cortex, since these constitute the
beginnings of the nerve and medullary fibres_: were they to go further,
for instance to the small arteries which surround the cortical elements,
or to the membranes of the brain, then they would overstep the boundary,
as he says, and leave the actual centre and go out to the more peripheral
parts.[85]
SWEDENBORG consequently here followed the same line of thought as his
predecessors. DESCARTES supposed that the nerves originated from the wall
of the central ventricle of the brain and therefore located the images of
sensory impressions, etc., there. VIEUSSENS and others thought that the
nerves originate from the centrum ovale, and thus he placed the psychic
activity there. And SWEDENBORG now proceeded in a similar manner when he
attributed the psycho-sensory operations to the ›Cerebellula›. And what
other parts of the cortex were better fitted to perform the demanding
and ever-shifting psychical labour than the ›Cerebellula›, to which the
life-giving powers of the blood were so plentifully admitted, and in
which, according to the testimony of many, the highly subtile nervous
fluid was created, whose office it was to communicate the rapid and
shifting utterances of the soul’s life!
SWEDENBORG’s predecessors had thought that the distinctions between
the sensory impressions depended partly upon what kind of nerve was
affected, and VIEUSSENS had located the images of perception and memory
in the nerve-tubes in the centrum ovale, which had the finest caliber.
What, then, was more natural than that SWEDENBORG should now locate
these images in the ›Cerebellula› of the cortex? For what substance
of the cortex was better fitted, a more suitable medium to comprehend
and distinguish the innumerable shades of the impressions than these
myriads of ›Cerebellula›—of different sizes, forms and consistency,
etc., which were connected each with its own special nerve-fibril and so
well distinguished from their neighbors! And at the same time they were
connected with the other ›Cerebellula› into groups of different kinds, by
which the psychical elaboration of the impressions was made possible.
On similar grounds SWEDENBORG supposed that the psycho-motor labour was
performed by the ›Cerebellula›, from which the nerves derived their
origin. And here we may recall that VIEUSSENS had already _connected
certain groups of nerves with certain bundles of medullary fibres_, and
that MALPIGHI had shown how _bundles of fibres of the cerebral medulla
corresponded to smaller and larger groups of cortical elements_, each
one of which, hanging by its fibre, formed the different _gyres of
the brain_. If we consider this, then we can easily understand how
SWEDENBORG, with his view of the cortex, could divine the correspondence
between the components of the convolutions and the muscles.
It is interesting to here follow him in his line of thought and to
see how well he understood how to combine his anatomical and clinical
experiences: With the magnifying glass one can see how the nerve-fibres
spring forth from the cortical substance like a brook from its source;
if now the cortical substance be injured (as in the case of certain
brain diseases, and which one may clearly see upon autopsy), then the
injury is spread through the nerves connected with the cortex and at
last all the way down to the muscles, and that, he thought, explained
the motor disturbances.[86] And further ... when one or several of the
›Cerebellula› of the cortex are destroyed, then the damage is spread more
immediately only to their proper nerves and muscles.[87]
In this manner did SWEDENBORG synthesize his anatomical,
pathological-anatomical and clinical experiences and extracted from
them his conclusions, and by them he arrived at essentially the same
conception, as our times, of the principles of the nervous system, its
cellular structure. He did not indeed employ the same nomenclature for
the nerve-cells and their long processes, as we do; but the matter
itself: the nature of the nerve-cells as elementary organs of the nervous
system, the intimate connection between the nerve and its cell-body,
indeed even its dependence upon it in regard to nourishment, etc., he was
able to clearly grasp in this way,—and this more than a century before
our modern theory of these relationships, the ›neurone-theory› saw the
light.
CONCLUDING SUMMARY.
I hereby conclude my presentation of the grounds upon which SWEDENBORG
appears to have founded his doctrine of the cerebral cortex as the seat
of the soul’s activity.
I. It has here been my endeavour to show, that his _first_ general
statement that the centres of the psychical functions are to be found
in the cortex was a conclusion, which he derived from three premises,
secured in different ways:
The _1st_ premise was a conclusion drawn from the clinical observations,
post mortem discoveries and results obtained from experiments on animals,
which he had collected from literature;
The _2nd_ premise was a summing up of the comparatively recent
discoveries in microscopic cerebral anatomy, and
The _3rd_ was an hypothesis, concerning the continuous connection between
the cortical elements and the fibres of the cerebral medulla, by which
an easy communication was established between those elements and the
distributions of the nerves in the various parts of the body. In his
conclusions from these premises SWEDENBORG had some guidance in preceding
authors, who placed at least the sensory function in a certain connection
with the cortical substance.
II. His second statements, his essential _doctrine of localization_,
showed in many points a great agreement with that presented by VIEUSSENS,
but also contained important differences, which partly rested upon the
conclusion to which SWEDENBORG had previously come, concerning the
importance of the cortex for the psychic life, partly depended upon the
new point of view concerning the correspondence of the cerebral regions
to those of the body, to which he had arrived in his work supported by
clinical results. The _detailed_ doctrine of localizations seems to have
been constructed with the assistance of VIEUSSENS’ detailed statements
concerning the connection of the nerves with the various regions of the
cerebral medulla.
III. His third statement, his—so to speak, ›_Cerebellular theory_›,
that the ›Cerebellula› were the units of which the brain was in reality
composed, and that the function of the cortex was essentially the summing
up of the activity of the ›Cerebellula›, and that the ›Cerebellula› were
connected with one another into various kinds of groups, corresponding to
the various kinds of perceptions and to the different movements of the
body, etc., this was grounded in part upon the discoveries of Malpighi
and others and their detailed descriptions of the structure and situation
of the cortical elements and their connection with each other, in part
upon SWEDENBORG’s clinical experiences and his own previously drawn
conclusions, which be further followed up.
The first two statements have in our time been embraced with the
liveliest interest and essentially corroborated. And as concerns the
third, the same applies in part; but how great the validity of this
statement is, it is for the future to decide.
Consequently SWEDENBORG arrived at almost the same result as that to
which our own day has attained, although in a partly different manner.
Our times have had the assistance of exact methods of investigation
and of a most highly developed technique. In SWEDENBORG’s time the
research method of microscopical anatomy and experimental physiology
were yet in their cradle; and the two branches of science, medicine and
pathology, which afterwards with the greatest interest have taken part
in the investigation of the function of the cortex, had then hardly as
yet turned their attention thither. As to how SWEDENBORG nevertheless
succeeded in winning such rich and beautiful results in this field,
and how well he employed the widely spread literature in question, I
have attempted to show in this my presentation by tracing his path
through the folios of the old authors and indicating the places where
he gathered the material for his doctrinal structure and the premises
for his conclusions. Finally, however, it should be emphasized that,
when SWEDENBORG collected his facts from the many separated fields of
literature, he found them not at all presented in the large works as
important ›chief subjects›, or even as lying plainly at hand. No, he
was often, so to say, obliged to dig out his material from a chaos of
erroneous observations, false interpretations and curious conceptions;
and afterwards he had to still further sift and elaborate it, before he
could draw his conclusions out of it.
In view of all this one must say that it was in truth a _work of genius_
to search out of such a chaos the guiding threads which were concealed
within it, and that, in spite of their imperfection in many points,
nevertheless to be able to find so much of the truth!
NOTES.
[1] See the treatise of ANDERS RETZIUS on: ›The Origin and Development
of Anatomy in the Scandinavian North›, which he delivered as an address
on the occasion of his leaving the presidency of the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences on April 9th, 1845. See also GUSTAF RETZIUS: Preface
to ›EMANUEL SWEDENBORG’s Scientific Works›, edit. by the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences, Vol. I., 1907, p. V., _et seqq._, and ALFRED H.
STROH, M. A.: ›Some testimonies concerning SWEDENBORG, the Scientist›,
Stockholm 1909, p. 10.
[2] In an address before the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at
Stockholm in connection with a reference to SWEDENBORG’s work: ›De
Cerebro›, which had just appeared in the English translation by DR.
RUDOLF TAFEL; See GUSTAF RETZIUS: Op. cit. p. VI. and ALFRED H. STROH:
Op. cit. p. 11.
[3] See an address of MAX NEUBURGER concerning ›Swedenborg’s Beziehungen
zur Gehirnphysiologie›, delivered before the ›Versammlung deutscher
Naturforscher und Ärzte›, Hamburg, 1901.
[4] See the article by C. G. SANTESSON concerning SWEDENBORG in ›Nordisk
Tidskrift›, 1904, No. 5.
[5] See an address of GUSTAF RETZIUS as president of the ›Versammlung der
Anatomischen Gesellschaft›, Heidelberg, 1903; and also his preface to the
edition of EMANUEL SWEDENBORG’s Scientific Works, which the Royal Academy
of Sciences began to publish in 1907; and the references by the same
author to SWEDENBORG’s statements concerning the anatomy and physiology
of the brain in the Croonian lecture delivered by him in London, in the
year 1908.
[6] See the address of J. J. BERZELIUS at the meeting of Scandinavian
Natural Scientists in 1842 concerning: ›The rise of the Scandinavian
shore above the level of the surrounding ocean› etc., quoted from ALFRED
H. STROH: Op. cit. p. 6.
[7] See the address of A. E. NORDENSKIÖLD before the Royal Academy of
Sciences on March 26th, 1888, quoted from A. H. STROH: Op. cit. p. 6.
[8] See A. G. NATHORST’s introduction to the edition of SWEDENBORG’s
Scientific Works of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Vol. I., 1907.
[9] See ›Vierteljahrschrift der Astronomischen Gesellschaft›, Part 14,
1879, quoted from A. H. STROH: Op. cit. p. 8.
[10] See S. ARRHENIUS’ introduction to the edition of SWEDENBORG’s
Scientific Works of the R. Acad. of Sciences, Vol. II., 1908.
[11] See GUSTAF RETZIUS: Preface to ›E. SWEDENBORG’s Scientific Works›,
edit. by the R. Acad. of Sciences, Vol. I., 1907, p. V. _et seqq._
[12] EMANUEL SWEDENBORG was born at Stockholm, January 29th, 1688;
matriculated at the University of Uppsala and ›Västmanlands-Dala-nation›,
1699; Diss. cum consensu Fac. Philos. publico examini submissa, Upsaliæ,
1. Junii, 1709; appointed assessor extraordinary in the Royal College of
Mines, 1716; ordinary assessor in the same College, 1724; retired from
the assessorship, 1747; died in London, March 29th, 1772. His name was
SWEDBERG until the year 1719, when he was ennobled and his name changed
to SWEDENBORG.
[13] Epistola Eman: Swedbergii ad Ericum Benzelium, Londini, Oct., 1710.
See EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: Opera quædam aut inedita aut obsoleta de rebus
naturalibus, nunc edita sub auspiciis Regiæ Academiæ Scientiarum Suecicæ,
I. Geologica et Epistolæ, Edit. ALFRED H. STROH, Holmiæ, 1907, p. 206 _et
seqq._
[14] Epist. Em. Sw. ad E. Benz., London, April, 1711, see Op. cit. p. 208
_et seqq._
[15] Epist. Em. Sw. ad E. Benz., London, Augusti, 1712, see Op. cit. p.
218 _et seqq._
[16] Epist. Em. Sw. ad E. Benz., Paris, Augusti, 1713, see Op. cit. p.
222 _et seqq._
[17] Epist. Em. Sw. ad E. Benz., Rostock, September, 1714, see. Op. cit.
p. 224 _et seqq._
[18] Suggestions for a Flying Machine by EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, translated
from the original Swedish by HUGO LJ. ODHNER and CARL TH. ODHNER,
published by the Swedenborg Scientific Association, Philadelphia, Pa.,
1910.
[19] Dædalus Hyperboreus, Eller Några Nya Mathematiska och Physicaliska
Försök och Anmerckningar: Som Wälborne Herr Assessor Polhammar och
Andre Sinrike i Swerige Hafwa giordt Och Nu tijd efter annan til almen
nytta lemna. Printed in Uppsala (and Skara), 1716-1718. Preface by EM.
SVEDBERG, Stockholm, Dec. 23rd, 1715.
[20] ›Förslag til wart Mynts och Måls Indelning, så at Rekningen kan
lettas och alt Bråk afskaffas›. Stockholm, Kongl. Boktryckeriet, 1719, 8
pp. 4:o. See ALFRED H. STROH and GRETA EKELÖF: Chronological list of the
works of Emanuel Swedenborg, dedicated to the Swedenborg Society by the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Uppsala and Stockholm, 1910, pp. 17
and 19.
[21] Eman. Swedbergs Assess. i Kongl. Bergz Coll. Försök At finna Östra
och Westra Lengden igen igenom Månan, Som Til the Lärdas ompröfwande
framstelles. Upsala, 1718. See ALFR. H. STROH and G. EKELÖF: Op. cit. p.
17. See also the letters of Eman. Swedberg ad Ericum Benzelium in the
Swedenborg edition of the Acad. of Sciences, Vol. I.
[22] See E. LILJEDAHL: ›Swedenborg›, Stockholm, 1908; and HJ. HOLMQUIST:
›Från Swedenborgs ungdom och första stora verksamhetsperiod›,
Bibelforskaren, 1909, No. 3.
[23] See also ALFR. H. STROH and G. EKELÖF: Chronological list of the
works of E. Swedenborg, pp. 15 and 16. The titles of the three pamphlets
are in English: ›On the way to improve commerce and manufactures›,
›Memorial on the institution of saltboileries in Sweden›, ›On the utility
and necessity of instituting an observatory in Sweden›.
[24] ›Om Watnens Högd och Förra Werldens starcka Ebb och Flod, Bewjs utur
Swergie›. (Stockholm, 1719; see also Acta Literaria Sueciæ Upsaliæ publ.
1720, pp. 5-11). Reprinted in the edition of Swedenborg’s Scientific
works, publ. by the R. S. Acad. of Sciences, Vol. I., pp. 1-27.
[25] See concerning this the above-named work by HJ. HOLMQUIST, in which
he says p. 223 concerning SWEDENBORG’s method of research: ›SWEDENBORG
himself indicates the scientific method which he followed: first, the
collecting of as many experiments and investigations as possible,
afterwards the working over of these according to the laws of geometry,
and lastly, speculation, hypotheses: ’as long as proofs are lacking,
principles may not be accepted and hypotheses defended, as they then
deserve better the name of fantasies than of principles’. ’Experientia,
geometria et facultas ratiocinandi’, experience, geometry and reason,
were the foundations of SWEDENBORG’s work both within the world of nature
and that of spirit.›
[26] See ›Œconomia Regni Animalis›, Vol. I., No. 360, where Swedenborg
mentions Parts IV., V., VI. of the Œc. R. A.
[27] Œc. R. A. Vol. III., ›De Fibra›, translated into English by Rev.
Prof. ALFRED ACTON in ›New Philosophy›.
[28] See Œc. R. A. Vol. II., Nos. 71-75, 76-82, 112; III. No. 59, etc.
[29] See Œc. R. A. Vol. II., Nos. 100, 101, 191; ›Quod sensationes
externae non ad ulteriores metas quam ad sphaerulas corticales
pertingant, id satis in confirmato est, quando hae fibrarum nervearum et
medullarium sunt principia›; and 113, 130, 140, 141, etc. See also ›The
Brain› No. 98.
[30] As observed in Quain’s ›Elements of Anatomy›, Tenth edition, edit.
by E. A. SCHÄFER and G. D. THANE, Vol. III., Part. I, p. 39: ›The term
medulla oblongata, as employed by WILLIS and VIEUSSENS, and by those who
directly followed them, included the crura cerebri and pons Varolii,
as well as that part to which by HALLER first, and by most subsequent
writers, this term has been restricted.›
[31] See Œc. R. A. Vol. II., Nos. 83-85, 91, 93, 95, 114, 140: ›Proinde
cum totidem origines motus sunt, quot sphaerulae istius substantiae;› and
144, 146: ›Sic distinctissime quaevis (sphaerula) suam fibrulam animat
& usque ad ejus finem in fibram corporis motricem influit;› 157 and
191-194-95, 202 etc. See also ›The Brain›, No. 399.
[32] So, for example, in Œc. R. A. Vol. II., No. 100: ... ›quod Cortex
sit principalis totius Cerebri substantia; in ipso termino primo Fibrarum
et ultimo Arteriarum sita; See also Œc. R. A. Vol. II., 111-116, 133,
134, 138, 152, 197, 290, etc., or, for example, Œc. R. A. III., No.
127, fin., and No. 404, where we read as follows: ›Ex anatome Cerebri
id constat, quod Cerebrum, seu substantia ejus corticalis, quae proprie
cerebrum audit, sit _Sensorium commune_, nam quinque organa suos sensus
externos ad corticem ut ad suum sensorium commune et unicum internum
referunt. Cerebrum corticale etiam est _Motorium commune voluntarium_,
quicquid enim agendum est mediantibus nervis et musculis, id praevia
voluntate a cerebro determinandum est.›
[33] Œc. R. A. II., 107: ›Partes hujus substantiae — — — merentur _Organa
Sensuum interiorum_ et Cerebellula nuncupari, nam media substantia
medullari et sanguine ab Organis externis alluentes modos et tactus
recipiunt, et ad judicem animam referunt.› See also Œc. R. A. 191, 192,
Œc. R. A. II., 195: — — ›Substantiae Corticales totidem sunt Cerebellula,
— —; singula enim sensorium est in particulari, quale est Cerebrum in
communi.›
[34] Œc. R. A. II., 193: ›Haec minime effectum consequerentur, — — —
nisi _partes substantiae Corticalis inter se, atque in gradus et series
sint divisae, in quales sunt modificationum causae: seu nisi series
substantiarum corticalium sint uti series sensationum_; nisi sphaerularum
Corticis perfectissima sit varietas harmonica, ita ut nulla earum,
praeter qua essentialia et attributa, alteri sit simillima.› For the
same see also ›Regnum Animale›, VII., chap. XX; Œc. R. A. II., No. 307:
›Ex lustratione ipsius Cerebri apparet, quod _substantiae corticales ita
Sapienter sunt ordinatae, ut cuilibet sensationi externae ad amussim
correspondeant_; nam _dictae substantiae_, ut unitates glomatim in
quendam numerum coalescunt, et _hi glomuli_ tanquam novae unitates _in
congeries_ adhuc majores, et hae in maximam, quae est ipsum Cerebrum:
_singulae partitiones_ discriminatae sunt per rimas, sulcos et anfractus,
et consertae per vasa et productiones meningeas, sic ut quasi sint numeri
unitatum in analogiae formam redacti, prorsus ut decet sensorium commune,
quod _recepturum sit omnem speciem sensationis externae, distinctim suum
visum, distinctim auditum, gustum et olfactum_. Œc. R. A. II., chap. XX.
[35] Œc. R. A. II., No. 192, ›Ex anatome Cerebri in ipsius oculi luce
est, quod _radii visuales_ medio nervo optico _influant in thalamos
nervorum opticorum_, et abinde per collectas e toto Cerebro, perque
Fornicis basin transmissas, et thalamis superinstratas fibras,
quaquaversum in _corticem_ diffundantur.›
[36] Œc. R. A. II., No. 192. — — ›quod _subtiles tactus membranae
Olfactoriae_ cavitates labyrintheas narium investientis, et inde oriundae
subtiles contremiscentiae aut modificationes per laminam cribrosam et
processus mammillares _in Corpora striata_, aut in medullam totius centri
ovalis enitentes non desinant nisi in peripheriam fibrarum, seu _in
ambitum corticalem_;› See also II., 38-42, where the processus mamillaris
is supposed to mediate a reflex action from the sense of smell upon the
muscles of breathing.
[37] Œc. R. A. II., No. 101: — — ›totidem origines motus sunt, quot
sphaerulae illius substantiae (corticis)›; II., 140, 153, etc.
[38] Œc. R. A. II., No. 146, ›Sic distinctissime quaevis (Sphaerula)
suam fibrulam animat, et usque ad ejus finem in fibram corporis motricem
influit›; see also II., 135, 147, 150, 156: ›Ex his ... fluit consequens
de singulis Cerebellulis ..., quod vitiato uno aut pluribus ... contagium
se non latius quam in appensas fibras et subjectos musculos immediate
extendat.› And III., 59, 127, at the end, and 197.
[39] Œc. R. A. II., No. 147: ›Sphaerulae illum sortitae sunt in Cerebro
ordinem et situm, ut _singulae aut plures simul, aut omnes in communi_
queant systolen suam et diastolen perficere›. Œc. R. A. II., No. 156:
›Quare ita compaginatum est Cerebrum, ut totum queat alterna vertigine
auferri, utque solum ejus medietas aut semiglobi Haemisphaerium; aut
solum plures aut una circumgyratio; aut utmodo hujus glomus, minor
congeries, aut pars.› The same in ›The Brain›, No. 104 c.
[40] Œc. R. A. I., No. 505: ›Ergo inquirendum venit, _qui tori corticei
his aut illis musculis in Corpore correspondent_; quod fieri non potest
nisi _per experientiam in vivis Animalibus; per punctiones, sectiones
et compressiones_ plurium, perque inde in Corporis musculis redundantes
effectus.›
[41] Œc. R. A. II. Nos. 151, 157: › — — — licet _ipsa fibra Cerebri non
agat motricem in musculis, agit tamen in utraque illa Medulla, quarum
fibras ad sic non aliter agendum disponit_, uti ab Anatomia Cerebri tam
humani, quam animalium brutorum, imo insectorum, clare colligitur: idque
ob rationem, ut _Cerebri Voluntarium abeat in spontaneum et naturale
mediis Medullis_, ne toties in particulares profundas motiones auferatur,
_quoties actio semel incepta ex consueto continuanda sit_; id ejus
sublimiorum officiorum administrationem toties alias interturbaret, et in
Homine analyses rationales, quae quietiorem Cerebri statum poscunt: quare
_ut primum actio voluntaria poscit seriem agendorum continuam, Cerebrum
annuet et consentiet, tum et actionis actualitatem producet_: Sic _ejus_
est _causa principalis, Medullis autem incineratis injuncta secundaria_.›
See also I., No. 574:—›_origo secundaria_ vel causa intermedia _actionum
Voluntariarum in Spontaneas abeuntium_ sit _in Medulla Spinali et
oblongata_.›
[42] Œc. R. A. II., No. 107: ›Partes hujus substantiae ex eadem ratione
merentur _Organa Sensuum interiorum_, et Cerebellula nuncupari›. See also
II., No. 191, etc.
[43] Œc. R. A. II., No. 159: ›Id jam extra omnem dubitationis aleam
ponimus, quod _substantia corticalis_ sit _determinans, licet non omnium
primum_, actionum Corporis, quia determinans est fibrarum, et fibrae
musculorum, a quibus actio›. — — — II., No. 160: ›Sed hae _substantiae
corticales_ licet sunt determinantes actionum sui Corporis, respective
tamen sunt _modo subdeterminantes et mediantes_, quibus respondent
subdeterminantes in Corpore, quae sunt fibrae motrices.› See also II.,
No. 204.
[44] Œc. R. A. II., No. 277: ›— — — dicere quod _Anima sit supra mentem
intellectualem_, — — —› See also II., No. 280. II., No. 160: ›_Per illas
(substantias corticales) etenim determinatur in actum voluntas_, cujus
principium altius est rimandum. — — — _requiritur vis_ altior, sublimior,
principalior, et universalior, _in qua sit principium voluntatis, qua his
mediis determinatur in actum_. Proinde est fluidum spirituosum, in quo
est _vita, et proinde anima_.›
[45] Œc. R. A. II., 285: ›Ex his jam sequitur, quod _Anima sit, quae
intelligit, cogitat, judicat, vult, desiderat, imaginatur, cupit,
reminiscitur, videt, audit, gustat, odorat, sentit, loquitur, agit_, — —
—.› See also II., 287.
[46] Œc. R. A. II., No. 160, 161: ›Et haec denique concludit, quod sit
_anima, quae huic fluido (spirituoso) inest_, cujus est determinare in
actum.› II., 165. II., 303: ›Ipsum Fluidum Spirituosum est substantia
eminenter organica suae Animae; uti Oculus est organum visus, Auris
auditus, Lingua gustus, Cerebrum perceptionis omnium›; etc. See also ›The
Brain›, No. 7.
[47] See for example Œc. R. A. II., No. 246: — — — ›sic etiam quod hoc
Fluidum sit Spiritus et Anima sui Corporis›. — — — Œc. R. A. III., No.
317: ›_Anima est purissima essentia animalis, caelestis et spiritualis_,
quae fibram simplicem excitat et simul sanguinem tam candidum quam rubrum
ingreditur.›
[48] See also Œc. R. A. II., No. 348: ›Ex his jam praemissis usque ad
fidem intellectus demonstrari potest, quod _Fluidum Spirituosum humanum_
immunissimum sit ab omni injuria contingentium in regione sublunari;
nec exstinguibile, sed _immortale_, tametsi non per se, _post casum sui
Corporis_. Quod exsolutum a vinculis et laqueis terrestrium in omnem
sui Corporis formam coaliturum sit et victurum vitam omni imaginatione
puriorem. Tum quod nulla sit actiuncula ex consulto, et nulla vocula
ex consensu, in vita ejus corporea, edita, quae non affulgente luce
sapientiae, inhaerenter designatae, tunc ante ejus conscientiae judicium,
distincte compariturae sint›.
[49] Œc. R. A. II., No. 303: ›_usque eodem recidit, sive memoratum
fluidum dicimus Spiritum aut Animam, sive ejus facultatem_ sibi
repraesentandi universum et intuendi fines, nam unum non concipi potest,
quia non datur sine altero.›
[50] J. J. GARTH WILKINSON has published Part I. in an English
translation in 1843, and Parts II. and III. in 1844, London.
[50 b] ›Regnum Animale›, Pars quarta: ›De Sensibus›, publ. by IM. TAFEL,
London, 1848; transl. into English by ENOCH S. PRICE in ›New Philosophy›;
›R. A.›, Pars septima: ›De Anima›, publ. by IM. TAFEL, Tübingen and
London, 1849; transl. into English by FRANK SEWALL, New York, 1887 and
1900.
[51] The words enclosed in parentheses have been added by the author of
this paper to make the meaning more clear, and are unmistakeably inferred
from the connection.
[52] As Professor G. RETZIUS also says in his ›Croonian lecture›,
delivered in London, 1908: ›The theses cited [especially those concerning
the localization of the motor centres in the cerebral cortex] are drawn
up with such precision by SWEDENBORG that they cannot possibly be based
on divination only, but must rest upon a real grasp of natural phenomena
as well as on actual experiments and dissecting work›.
[53] See ›Œconomia Regni Animalis›, I., Nos. 559 _et seqq._; also 571 and
572, and R. VIEUSSENS: ›Neurographia universalis›, Lugduni, 1685, pp.
123, 124, etc.
[54] See ›Œconomia Regni Animalis›, I., Nos. 559 _et seqq._, as also R.
VIEUSSENS: ›Neurographia universalis›, Lugduni, 1685, pp. 123, 124, _et
seqq._
[55] See BOERHAAVE: ›Institutiones medicae›, Lugduni Batavor. 1720, No.
415: ›Ergo musculi voluntarii nervos habent ultimo oriundos a cerebro.
Illi vero, qui spontaneis, vitalibusque motibus serviunt, a cerebello
nervos accipiunt.›
[56] See TH. WILLIS: ›Cerebri Anatome›, Amsterdam, 1667, pp. 73-74:
›Cerebrum motuum et conceptuum omnium origo et fons. Sensus et motus,
item passiones et instinctus mere naturales, licet a Cerebro quadantenus
dependent, tamen proprie in Medulla oblongata et Cerebello aut
perficiunter aut ab iis procedunt.
[57] See Œc. R. A. III., No. 404, etc.: ›Medulla oblongata — — —
sensorium et motorium commune tam Cerebri quam Cerebelli, sed secundarium
et instrumentale superius. Medulla spinalis similiter — — — sensorium et
motorium commune, sed secundarium et instrumentale inferius.›
[58] Œc. R. A., III., No. 133: ›Substantia — — — corticalis est ipsum
Cerebrum seu Sensorium — — — commune›; No. 404, etc.
[59] See R. DESCARTES: ›Tractatus de homine›, Lugd. Bat. 1662, pp. 77,
81, 82; 32, 67 etc.: 72, 79 etc.
[60] See H. BOERHAAVE: ›Institutiones medicae›, Lugd. Bat. 1720, p.
253: ›Sensorium commune est pars cerebri, — — —, adeoque, ut apparet,
medulla cerebri in capite;› and BOERHAAVE: ›Praelectiones academicae,
(published by HALLER), Göttingen, 1743, p. 451: ›Haec ergo sedes animae
non est in pineali glandula, uti CARTESIUS voluit,—neque est in medulla
spinali, neque est in cerebello, verum _in fornicata medulla circumstante
cavitatem ventriculorum cerebri_.›
[61] See CASP. et THOM. BARTHOLIN: ›Instit. anatom.›, 1641, p. 265:
›Putamus enim in Cerebro proprie dicto, vel cortice servari spiritum
animalem pro sensu, in medulla vero tota tam quoad caput quam quoad
caudam, reservari spiritum pro motu.›
[62] See THOMAS WILLIS: ›Cerebri Anatome., 1667, pp. 76, 77: ›Etenim
existimare fas est, spiritus animales — — in corticali cerebri substantia
procreari› — — — ›hæ partes medullares spirituum animalium exercitio et
dispensationi — — — inserviunt;› and J.J. WINSLOW: ›Exposition anatomique
— — —›, 1732, IV., p. 210: ›WILLIS nous donne un système tout-à-fait
particulier. Il loge le sens commun dans le corpus striatum ou corps
rougé, l’imagination dans le corps callosum, et la mémoire dans l’écorce
ou dans la substance grisâtre qui envelloppe la blanche.›
[63] See M. MALPIGHI: ›Opera Omnia›, 1686-87, Tom. II., p. 85:
›Suspicari possumus minimis hisce glandulis ex delato sanguine separari,
recolligique particulas illas a natura ad promendum instrumentaliter
sensuum destinatas, quibus per nervorum tubulis delatis continuatae
partes inbibantur et turgeant.›
[64] See MALPIGHI: ›Opera Omnia›, 1686-87, Tom. II., De Cerebri cortice,
pp. 78 _et seqq._ ›In — — cerebro corticem affusum minimarum glandularum
proventum et congeriem esse deprehendi: hæ in cerebri gyris et protractis
veluti intestinales, ad quæ desinunt albæ nervorum radices, vel inde, si
mavis, oriuntur — — —›; and SWEDENBORG: Œc. R. A. II., Nos. 76-82, 112,
114 etc.
[65] See BOERHAAVE: ›Institutiones medicae›, 1720, No. 266: ›folliculi
illi minimi glandulosi emittunt tenues fibras, albas, compactas quibus
adenutis fit callosum, medullosumque corpus› — — —; No. 274: ›fibras
has canaliculos tenuissimos pervios esse, qui in se excipiant humorem
corporis humani omnium quidem subtilissimum, qui fabrica mirifica
corticis praeparatus, secretus atque vi in has fistulas impulsus est, ex
omni quidem parte hujus in medullam oblongatam collectus; see also No.
263; No. 284: ›fibrillas nerveas humorem medullae — — ad omne punctum
totius corporis distinctissimis viis deferre.› — —
[66] ›Nisi mutua sit connexio et perpetua communicatio substantiae
medullaris qua fibrillas et manipulos intra thecam vertebralem et
cranium, undecunque ducitur ad corticem cerebri. — — —› (Œc. R. A. II.,
No. 193; See also No. 115).
[67] See above CASP. and THOM. BARTHOLIN: ›Inst. Anat.›, 1645, p. 265.
[68] See H. BOERHAAVE: ›Inst. Med.›, 1720, N. 574. or 274.
[69] See above A. V. HALLER: ›Elem. Physiol.›, 1762, IV., p. 392.
[70] Œc. R. A. loco cit. and II., 88. See also A. PACCHIONI: ›Opera›, Ed.
quarta, Romæ, 1741, p. 112.
[71] See BOERHAAVE: ›Instit. med.›, 1720, No. 570, 574. The edition used
by SWEDENBORG was printed 1727.
[72] ›Nempe in sensorio communi distinctas loco provincias esse pro
diversis sensibus, uti cuilibet sensui suum externum proprium organum
datum est.› BOERHAAVE: ›Prael. acad.›, published by HALLER 1743, Vol.
IV., p. 435. See also BOERHAAVE: ›Inst. med.›, 1720, No. 568.
[73] These lobes are, as he says, ›marked out and encompassed by the
carotid artery, a statement by which he probably means the same as
RIDLEY, when the latter says of the whole anterior region that it is
marked out, as it were, by two branches of the carotid artery, one at the
front and one at the side, i. e., _Arteria cerebri anterior_ and _Arteria
cerebri media_.
[74] J. J. WEPFER: ›Observationes anatomicæ ex cadaveribus eorum, quos
sustulit Apoplexia›. Amstelædami, 1681, pp. 5-11, Case II.
[75] See A. PACCHIONI: ›Opera›, Ed. quarta, Romæ, 1741, p. 112.
[76] See J. B. WINSLOW: ›Exposition anatomique de la Structure du corps
humain.› Paris, 1732, IV., p. 210. With WILLIS one also finds the same
subdivision of the hemispheres of the brain into an anterior and a
posterior ›province›, as that employed by SWEDENBORG.
[77] VIEUSSENS: ›Neur. univ.›, pp. 115, 117, and Tab. X.
[78] Op. cit., pp. 115, 117, and Tab. XVI.
[79] Op. cit., pp. 115, 117 and Tab. XV.
[80] Œc. R. A. II., No. 153: ›Experientiae est et temporis, ut
evestigetur, qui gyrus et qui serpens tumulus in cerebro hunc aut illum
musculum ut correspondentem suum in corpore respiciat. ’Cuniculos cerebri
serpere, per autopsiam deprehenditur’ ait Clar. PACCHIONUS, BELLINUS et
alii plures.›
[81] See MALPIGHI: ›Op. omnia›, II., De Cerebro, p. 2, and SWEDENBORG:
Œc. R. A., II., Nos. 82, 58, etc.
[82] MALPIGHI: ›Opera omnia›, 1686-87, II., De Cerebri cortice, p. 78,
and SWEDENBORG: Œc. R. A., II., Nos. 76-82, 112, 114, etc.
[83] MALPIGHI: Op. cit. p. 78: ›Harum glandularum distinctionem affuso
atramento (ink) et leviter gossypio deterso, videbis, intercepta enim
spatia ita denigrantur, ut circumscriptas glandulas facilius exhibeant.›
See also Œc. R. A. No. 76.
[84] MALPIGHI: Op. cit., p. 79: ›Corticales hae glandulae tortuose
locatae exteriores cerebri gyros componunt, et exorientibus inde
medullaribus fibris seu vasculis appenduntur›. See also Œc. R. A., II.,
No. 76.
[85] See Œc. R. A., II., No. 191: ›Quod sensationes externæ non ad
ulteriores metas quam ad sphaerulas corticales pertingant, id satis
in confirmato est, quando hae fibrarum nervearum et medullarium sunt
principia, ultra quae si progrederentur, ut si in arteriolas aut
meninges, tunc praescriptos terminos superscanderent et a centris in
remotiores peripherias se conjicerent.›
[86] See Œc. R. A., III., No. 127: ›Si enim vivum corticem in apertis
cerebris lente microscopica, sive delineatum ex vivo contemplamur,
evidenter conspicitur, quomodo fibra ex illo procedat, et tanquam
rivulus ex fonticulo scaturiat; id etiam in hydrocephalis, apoplecticis,
catalepticis, paralyticis, maniacis, motibus convulsivis et spasmis
cynicis vexatis confirmatur, nam ipsa labes substantiæ eorum corticalis
post mortem deprehensa in continuas fibras, et tandem in musculares,
unde prodeunt actiones et inconcinni motus, derivatur. — — — Ergo, quia
substantia corticalis est parens fibrarum, sequitur, quod cerebrum non
nisi quam in hac sua substantia incipiat cerebrum esse, quatenus ibi
est receptaculum sensationum seu sensorium commune, et simul principium
actionum, seu motorium commune.›
[87] See Œc. R. A., II., No. 156: ›Vitiato uno cerebellulo aut pluribus
in toto, contagium se non latius quam in appensas fibras et subjectos
musculos immediate extendat.›
[Illustration]
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