Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888: Volume 1, Number 12
Religion
Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888: Volume 1, Number 12
Medicine -- Periodicals; Phrenology -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
Organs which easily expand laterally by encroachment upon their
neighbors, which is a common effect of local excitement, must be slow
to make any impression upon the superjacent bone of the cranium.
Cranioscopy, moreover, is incompetent to indicate the development of
small regions or portions of a convolution; it gives but a rude survey
of development. Being thus incapable of minuteness, accuracy and
certainty, it cannot be considered a proper and sufficient basis for
cerebral science. In the hands of Gall and Spurzheim, it had already
very nearly attained its limits as regards the subdivision of organs,
and the progress of their followers in discovery has been unimportant
or fallacious.
To what, then, can we resort, when the failures of Pathology and
Vivisection are admitted, and we perceive the limited extent of the
uncertain results of Craniology? Shall we not be compelled to resort
to the same methods of investigation in the brain, which have been so
successful in establishing the physiology of the nerves, viz.: direct
experiment in exciting and arresting the action of the various masses
of nervous fibre. Every sound physiologist must perceive that we are
compelled to resort to experiment, or else to rest contented in
ignorance of the true cerebral physiology. Muller, perceiving this,
remarks, "The principle for the advancement of the physiology of the
nerves then remains the same, viz.: experiment on the living nerves."
We therefore experiment on the living brain in that class of persons
who are susceptible of being thus influenced; hence arises the last
and most perfect method of cultivating Anthropology, by means of HUMAN
IMPRESSIBILITY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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