When we pass to the brain-region, to the anterior dilated portion of the
tube, embryology tells a different story. Here, as in the spinal cord, the
nervous masses are grouped at first laterally and ventrally to the
epithelial tube, as is seen in Fig. 21, B (2), but owing to the large size
of its lumen here, the nervous material is not able to enclose it
completely, as in the case of the spinal cord; {45}consequently there is no
posterior fissure formed; but, on the contrary, the dorsal roof, not
enclosed by the nerve-masses, remains epithelial, and so forms the
membranous roof of the fourth ventricle and of the other ventricles of the
brain (Fig. 21, B (3)). In the higher animals, owing to the development of
the cerebrum and cerebellum, this membranous roof becomes pushed into the
larger brain cavity, and thus forms the choroid plexuses of the third and
lateral ventricles. In the lower vertebrates, as in Ammocoetes and the
Dipnoi, it still remains as a dorsal epithelial roof and forms a most
striking characteristic of such brains.
In this part of the nervous system, then, the nervous material is all
grouped in its original position on the ventral side of the tube; and yet
it is the same nervous material as that of the spinal cord, all the
elements are there, giving origin here to the segmental cranial nerves just
as lower down they give rise to the segmental spinal nerves, connecting
together the separate segments each with the other and all with the higher
brain-centres--the supra-infundibular centres--just as they do in the
spinal region.
Why should there be this striking difference between the formation of the
infra-infundibular region of the brain and that of the spinal cord? Do the
advocates of the origin of vertebrates from Balanoglossus give the
slightest reason for it? They claim that their view also provides a tubular
nervous system for the vertebrate, but give not the slightest sign or
indication as to why the nervous material should be grouped entirely on the
ventral side of an epithelial tube in the infra-infundibular region and yet
surround it in the spinal cord region. And the explanation is so natural,
so simple: embryology does its very best to tell us the past history of the
race, if only we look at it the right way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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