Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, December 1898: Volume LIV, No. 2, December 1898Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, December 1898: Volume LIV, No. 2, December 1898
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
There can be no doubt that the brain moves in the skull, changing
its position, according to the laws of gravitation, in much the
same way as the lungs, heart, and liver do in the body. It has been
observed many times to move, as well as to pulsate, when exposed to
view during the life of the individual. It is subject to two regular
and constant motions--one produced by the arteries, the other by
respiration. It has also a third motion, discovered and described
by Dr. M. Luys, who stated, in a paper read before the Academy of
Medicine of Paris, that "the brain is subject to certain changes
of position, dependent on the attitude of the body. Thus, if a man
lies on his back or side, or stands on his head, the brain undergoes
certain changes of position in obedience to the laws of gravity; the
movements take place slowly, and the brain is five or six minutes in
returning to its previous position." From these anatomical data M.
Luys deduced some interesting and practical conclusions, by which
he explained, for example, the symptoms of vertigo which feeble
persons experience when suddenly rising from a horizontal position.
He suggested whether the pains of meningitis may not be due to an
interference with these normal movements, and urges the value of
giving the brain the change produced by a horizontal position at
night.
The average cranial capacity is admitted to be 96 cubic inches in
England and 94 in New York; and it is to the unusual quantity of
fluid of some cases, and to the extraordinary thickness of the skull
in others, that we are to attribute the frequent discrepancy between
the external dimensions and the size of the encephalon. Daniel
Webster's cranial capacity was 122 cubic inches, yet his brain of
53.5 ounces was just what George Combe has laid down as the average
weight for an adult man. Water and lymph, we are told, filled the
skull. Professor De Morgan's head, almost free from hair, measured
24.87 inches in circumference, and the dimensions were all those of a
very large head, sufficient to contain from 65 to 70 ounces of brain,
yet his brain weighed only 52.75 ounces, or little, if at all, above
the average in the cold parts of the temperate zones. De Morgan was
sixty-five years of age when he died. He was much emaciated, and "the
brain was distinctly shrunken," not filling the interior cavity,
where its place was supplied, as is usual in such cases, by serum or
water. There is no known method whereby any man can determine whether
brain or water fills the greater part of any living skull. A small
orange may have a thin rind, and contain a good amount of eatable
substance, while a large one may have so thick a skin that the fruit
proves utterly disappointing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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