The cerebrum is divided into two hemispheres, connected beneath by fibers
of white matter. Thus we have two brains, [Footnote: This doubleness has
given rise to some curious speculations. In the case of the hand, eye,
etc, we know that the sensation is made more sure. Thus we can see with
one eye, but not so well as with both. It is perhaps the same with the
brain. We may sometimes carry on a train of thought, "build an air castle"
with one half of our brain, while the other half looks on and watches the
operation; or, we may read and at the same time think of something else.
So in delirium, a patient often imagines himself two persons, thus showing
a want of harmony between the two halves.--DRAPER, _Human
Physiology_, p. 320.] as well as two hands and two eyes. This provides
us with a surplus of brains, as it were, which can be drawn upon in an
emergency. A large part of one hemisphere has been destroyed without
particularly injuring the mental powers, [Footnote: A pointed iron bar,
three and a half feet long and one inch and a quarter in diameter, was
driven by the premature blasting of a rock completely through the side of
the head of a man who was present. It entered below the temple, and made
its exit at the top of the forehead, just about the middle line. The man
was at first stunned, and lay in a delirious, semistupefied state for
about three weeks. At the end of sixteen months, however, he was in
perfect health, with wounds healed and mental and bodily functions
unimpaired, except that sight was lost in the eye of the injured side.--
DALTON. It is noticeable, however, that the man became changed in
disposition, fickle, impatient of restraint, and profane, which he was not
before. He died epileptic, nearly thirteen years after the injury. The
tamping iron and the skull are preserved in the Warren Anatomical Museum,
Boston.]--just as a person has been blind in one eye for a long time
without having discovered his loss. The cerebrum is the center of
intelligence and thought. [Footnote: In man, the cerebrum presents an
immense preponderance in weight over other portions of the brain; in some
of the lower animals, the cerebrum is even less in weight than the
cerebellum. Another interesting point is the development of cerebral
convolutions in certain animals, by which the relative amount of gray
matter is increased. In fishes, reptiles, and birds, the surface of the
hemispheres is smooth; but, in many mammalia, especially in those
remarkable for intelligence, the cerebrum presents a greater or less
number of convolutions, as it does in the human subject.--FLINT. The
average weight of the human brain in proportion to the entire body is
about 1 to 36. The average of mammalia is 1 to 186; of birds, 1 to 212; of
reptiles, 1 to 1,321; and of fishes, 1 to 5,668. There are some animals in
which the weight of the brain bears a higher proportion to the body than
it does in man; thus in the blue-headed tit, the proportion is as 1 to 12;
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