A History of Science — Volume 4Williams, Henry Smith
History
A History of Science — Volume 4
Williams, Henry Smith
Science -- History
This discovery very naturally reopened the entire subject of brain
localization. It was but a short step to the inference that there must
be other definite centres worth the seeking, and various observers set
about searching for them. In 1867 a clew was gained by Eckhard, who,
repeating a forgotten experiment by Haller and Zinn of the previous
century, removed portions of the brain cortex of animals, with the
result of producing convulsions. But the really vital departure was
made in 1870 by the German investigators Fritsch and Hitzig, who, by
stimulating definite areas of the cortex of animals with a galvanic
current, produced contraction of definite sets of muscles of the
opposite side of the body. These most important experiments, received at
first with incredulity, were repeated and extended in 1873 by Dr. David
Ferrier, of London, and soon afterwards by a small army of independent
workers everywhere, prominent among whom were Franck and Pitres in
France, Munck and Goltz in Germany, and Horsley and Schafer in England.
The detailed results, naturally enough, were not at first all in
harmony. Some observers, as Goltz, even denied the validity of the
conclusions in toto. But a consensus of opinion, based on multitudes of
experiments, soon placed the broad general facts for which Fritsch and
Hitzig contended beyond controversy. It was found, indeed, that the
cerebral centres of motor activities have not quite the finality at
first ascribed to them by some observers, since it may often happen
that after the destruction of a centre, with attending loss of function,
there may be a gradual restoration of the lost function, proving that
other centres have acquired the capacity to take the place of the one
destroyed. There are limits to this capacity for substitution, however,
and with this qualification the definiteness of the localization of
motor functions in the cerebral cortex has become an accepted part of
brain physiology.
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