It appears strange that a man who in 1807 had commenced what proved to be such an epoch-making series of discoveries in regard to the nervous system should have so long allowed them to lack general publicity. His manuscript was first shown to his brother and other friends in 1808. But it is to be noted, that when in 1811 he privately circulated a pamphlet under the title of “An Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain,” submitted for the observation of the author’s friends, they received it with but scant appreciation, and either failed to regard it as remarkably novel, or considered the views it put forth incredible. At this period, while the brain was believed to be the organ of thought, it was also supposed to discharge some nervous fluid through the spinal cord to the nerves. Little was accurately known about the functions of the nerves: even John Bell and Astley Cooper had advised the section of the facial nerve to cure tic, thus paralysing the muscles of the face instead of relieving the pain. Microscopy had not yet revealed the multitudinous fibres of which nerves are composed, and experimental evidence was confined to comparatively coarse forms. Thus on cutting across the main trunk of a nerve, both sensation and motion were lost in the parts supplied by the nerve. Bell first disentangled the functions of sensation and motion, and found that they were carried on through distinct nerve fibres. He noticed the distinct properties of the nerves of the senses, for instance the fact that a prick of the optic nerve in an operation caused a flash of light to be perceived, not a sensation of pain: when the pricking of certain papillæ of the tongue gave rise to a sensation of taste, not of pain, and when a blow upon the ear occasioned the hearing of noises. Thus he acquired the conception that in the brain the powers of the nerves were distinct and peculiar, and due to the portion of the brain from which they started.