Anatomy, Comparative; Embryology, Human; Evolution; Human beings -- Origin
Of late years great attention has been paid to this special branch of
cerebral anatomy, and very striking individual differences have been
detected within the limits of the human race. In all human beings of
special gifts and high intelligence the convolutions and fissures are
much more developed than in the average man; and they are more
developed in the latter than in idiots and others of low mental
capacity. There is a similar gradation among the mammals in the
internal structure of the fore brain. In particular the corpus
callosum, that unites the two cerebral hemispheres, is only developed
in the Placentals. Other structures--for instance, in the lateral
ventricles--that seem at first to be peculiar to man, are also found
in the higher apes, and these alone. It was long thought that man had
certain distinctive organs in his cerebrum which were not found in any
other animal. But careful examination has discovered that this is not
the case, but that the characteristic features of the human brain are
found in a rudimentary form in the lower apes, and are more or less
fully developed in the higher apes. Huxley has convincingly shown, in
his Man's Place in Nature (1863), that the differences in the
formation of the brain within the ape-group constitute a deeper gulf
between the lower and higher apes than between the higher apes and
man.
The comparative anatomy and physiology of the brain of the higher and
lower mammals are very instructive, and give important information in
connection with the chief questions of psychology.
(FIGURE 2.304. Brain of the rabbit. A from the dorsal, B from the
ventral side, lo olfactory lobes, I fore brain, h hypophysis at the
base of the intermediate brain, III middle brain, IV hind brain, V
after brain, 2 optic nerve, 3 oculo-motor nerve, 5 to 8 cerebral
nerves. In A the roof of the right hemisphere (I) is removed, so that
we can see the corpora striata in the lateral ventricle. (From
Gegenbaur.))
The central marrow (brain and spinal cord) develops from the medullary
tube in man just as in all the other mammals, and the same applies to
the conducting marrow or "peripheral nervous system." It consists of
the SENSORY nerves, which conduct centripetally the impressions from
the skin and the sense-organs to the central marrow, and of the MOTOR
nerves, which convey centrifugally the movements of the will from the
central marrow to the muscles. All these peripheral nerves grow out of
the medullary tube (Figure 1.171), and are, like it, products of the
skin-sense layer.
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