Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887: Volume 1, Number 8 — John Shaqi
Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887: Volume 1, Number 8
Philosophy
Buchanan's Journal of Man, September 1887: Volume 1, Number 8
Medicine -- Periodicals; Phrenology -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
While the nervaura of the human constitution (which is as distinctly
perceptible to the sensitive as its caloric and electricity) is
emitted from every portion of the surface of the head and body, the
quality and quantity of that which is emitted from the inner surface
of the hand, render it most available, and the application of the hand
of any one who has a respectable amount of vital and mental energy,
will produce a distinct local stimulation of functions wherever it may
be applied upon the head or body. In this manner it is easy to
demonstrate the amiable and pleasing influence of the superior regions
of the brain, the more energetic and vitalizing influence of its
posterior half, and the mild, subduing influence of the front.
In my first experiments, in the spring of 1841, I found so great
susceptibility that I could demonstrate promptly even the smallest
organs of the brain, and it was gratifying to find that the
illustrious Gall had ascertained, with so marvellous accuracy the
functions of the smallest organs in the front lobe, and the subject
could be engrossed in the thought of numbers and counting by touching
the organ of number or calculation. Eagerly did I proceed in testing
the accuracy of all the discoveries of Gall and the additions I had
made by craniological studies, as well as bringing out new functions
which I had not been able to anticipate or discover. Omitting the
history of those experiments, I would but briefly state that in 1842 I
published a complete map of the brain, in which the full development
of human faculties made a complete picture of the psycho-physiological
constitution of man, and thus presented for the first time a science
which might justly be called _Anthropology_.[2]
[2] I do not publish or circulate this map apart from the
explanatory volume (Outlines of Anthropology) for the reason
that it is impossible by any nomenclature of organs to
convey a correct idea of the functions, and hence, such a
map would tend to a great many misconceptions.
It is obvious that prior to 1842 there was nothing entitled to the
name of ANTHROPOLOGY, as there was no complete geography before the
discovery of America and circumnavigation of the globe. When man is
fully portrayed by the statement of all the psychic and all the
physiological faculties and functions found in his brain, which
contains the totality, and manifests them in the soul and body, it is
obvious that we have a true Anthropology, which, to complete its
fulness, requires only the study of the soul as an entity distinct
from the brain, and of the body as an anatomical and physiological
apparatus. The latter had already been well accomplished by the
medical profession, and the former very imperfectly by spiritual
psychologists. But neither the physiology, nor the pneumatology had
been placed in organic connection with the central cerebral science.
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