After the physicist has arrived at the idea that the semi-circular
canals are the organ of sensation of rotation or of angular
acceleration, he is next constrained to ask for the organs that mediate
the sensation of acceleration noticed in forward movements. In
searching for an organ for this function, he of course is not apt to
select one that stands in no anatomical and spatial relation with the
semi-circular canals. And in addition there are physiological
considerations to be weighed. The preconceived opinion once having been
abandoned that the _entire_ labyrinth is auditory in its function, there
remains after the cochlea is reserved for sensations of tone and the
semi-circular canals for the sensation of angular acceleration, the
vestibule for the discharge of additional functions. The vestibule,
particularly the part of it known as the sacculus, appeared to me, by
reason of the so-called otoliths which it contains, eminently adapted
for being the organ of sensation of forward acceleration or of the
position of the head. In this conjecture I again closely coincided with
Breuer.
That a sensation of position, of direction and amount of
mass-acceleration exists, our experience in elevators as well as of
movement in curved paths is sufficient proof. I have also attempted to
produce and destroy suddenly great velocities of forward movement by
means of various contrivances of which I shall mention only one here.
If, while enclosed in the paper box of my large whirling apparatus at
some distance from the axis, my body is in uniform rotation which I no
longer feel, and I then loosen the connexions of the frame _rr_ with _R_
thus making the former moveable and I then suddenly stop the larger
frame, my forward motion is abruptly impeded while the frame _rr_
continues to rotate. I imagine now that I am speeding on in a straight
line in a direction opposite to that of the checked motion.
Unfortunately, for many reasons it cannot be proved convincingly that
the organ in question has its seat in the head. According to the opinion
of Delage, the labyrinth has nothing to do with this particular
sensation of movement. Breuer, on the other hand, is of the opinion that
the organ of forward movement in man is stunted and the persistence of
the sensation in question is too brief to permit our instituting
experiments as obvious as in the case of rotation. In fact, Crum Brown
once observed while in an irritated condition peculiar vertical
phenomena in his own person, which were all satisfactorily explained by
an abnormally long persistence of the sensation of rotation, and I
myself in an analogous case on the stopping of a railway train felt the
apparent backward motion in striking intensity and for an unusual length
of time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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