Emanuel Swedenborg's Investigations in Natural Science and the Basis for His Statements Concerning the Functions of the Brain

by Martin Ramström

THE ›CEREBELLULAR THEORY›.

But Swedenborg was not satisfied with knowing only that the psychical functions arise within certain regions of the cortex of the large anterior region of the cerebrum: but he continued his search for their inmost origin, and thus he came to the conviction that the psychical processes in reality result from the joint work which is performed by the minute cortical elements, which Swedenborg called ›Sphaerulae› or ›Cerebellula›, that is, the same bodies which we now call the cortical nerve-cells. These were the units of which the brain was in reality composed and out of which its actual esse was derived. (See ›The Brain›, No. 34). It was to these ›Cerebellula› that the sensory impressions went, and in these they were perceived and brought to consciousness; it was in these that conceptions, thoughts, judgments, conclusions, came into being. (Œc. R. A. II., No. 191, and ›The Brain›, No. 98). And this was possible because there were as many kinds of ›Cerebellula› as there were kinds of sensory impressions, and that these ›Cerebellula› were connected together into groups with different subdivisions. (Œc. R. A. II., No. 193; VII., chap. XX.). It was also from the ›Cerebellula› of the cortex that the determinations and impulses to the various movements of the body emanated. (›The Brain›, No. 99). And this was possible because the ›Cerebellula› cohered each with its own nerve-fibril, which in their turn innervated the muscle fibre, and that the ›Cerebellula› were arranged into groups, these into greater groups, these into convolutions (gyri), etc., corresponding to muscle fibres, muscles, groups of muscles, etc. (Œc. R. A. II., Nos. 146, 156, and ›The Brain›, No. 99). And it is in this connection that Swedenborg refers to experiments on animals by which it might be shown which gyre or part of convolution it is, which answers to this or that muscle in the body.[80]

How Swedenborg was able to come to this modern conception ought not to be so exceedingly difficult to understand if we summarize what was already known at that time about these cortical elements and add thereto the conclusions as to the functions of the cortex to which Swedenborg had already come.

In Swedenborg’s time the conception of Hippocrates of the brain as a gland was still generally received. In this one had, however, as Malpighi says, ›since the time of Piccolomineus› learned to distinguish between an outer, greyish layer, ›cerebral cortex›, and an inner, more pure white mass, the ›cerebral medulla›.[81]

Through the microscopic investigations of Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) it had further been discovered that the substance of the brain (especially of the cortex) contained, besides a great mass of blood-vessels and very fine fibres, a numberless mass of peculiar small bodies of varying size, by him called ›globuli›, connected with the vessels and fibres. (See Œc. R. A. II., Nos. 71-75, 112, etc.).

Malpighi, (1628-1694), had closely examined these ›globuli› and described them as small oval or polygonal ›glands›, which were closely surrounded by blood-vessels, and in their inner central ends sent forth processes forming vessel-like fibres which continued into the cerebral medulla.[82]

As these fibres or vessels formed small clusters, the little glands hanging on their extreme ends, like ›dates on their stems›, as Malpighi expresses it, thus formed small groups.

Within these groups the cortical elements were, however, well isolated from each other by clefts, which indeed sometimes were very small, but could nevertheless be plainly demonstrated with the aid of colouring matter.[83]

The cortical elements taken together formed the winding groups which on the surface of the brain gave rise to the so called gyres.[84]

The profusion of blood-vessels, as was said, Leeuwenhoek and Malpighi had already described as being very great, but Ruysch (1638-1731) had afterwards by his famous vascular injections found it to be so great that he would not call the cortex a glandular but actually a ›vascular› tissue. (Œc. R. A., II., No. 86). Because of the enormous wealth of blood-vessels there was thus carried to the cortical substance, especially to the little follicles, a plenteous quantity of blood, and from this, according to the opinion of that day, the most subtile components of the blood could pass to the cortical elements and thereby be transformed into ›spiritus animalis›. And finally, the Italians Bellini, (1643-1704), and Zambeccari had shown by their analyses that the juice of the brain possessed a highly subtile composition, above all a great volatility and lightness, and was exceedingly mobile. (See Œc. R. A. II., Nos. 88, 96, 119). All this Swedenborg has himself quoted in his works.

On the basis of these and some other anatomical and physiological data, in conjunction with a number of clinical and experimental observations, Swedenborg, as we have before seen, came to the conclusion that it is in the cortex that the soul’s activity comes into being; but at the same time he concluded that, strictly speaking, the cortical elements were the real work-shops. For he reasoned in the following manner: When the sensory impressions enter the brain, they certainly proceed no further than to the ›Sphaerulae› of the cortex, since these constitute the beginnings of the nerve and medullary fibres: were they to go further, for instance to the small arteries which surround the cortical elements, or to the membranes of the brain, then they would overstep the boundary, as he says, and leave the actual centre and go out to the more peripheral parts.[85]

Swedenborg consequently here followed the same line of thought as his predecessors. Descartes supposed that the nerves originated from the wall of the central ventricle of the brain and therefore located the images of sensory impressions, etc., there. Vieussens and others thought that the nerves originate from the centrum ovale, and thus he placed the psychic activity there. And Swedenborg now proceeded in a similar manner when he attributed the psycho-sensory operations to the ›Cerebellula›. And what other parts of the cortex were better fitted to perform the demanding and ever-shifting psychical labour than the ›Cerebellula›, to which the life-giving powers of the blood were so plentifully admitted, and in which, according to the testimony of many, the highly subtile nervous fluid was created, whose office it was to communicate the rapid and shifting utterances of the soul’s life!

Swedenborg’s predecessors had thought that the distinctions between the sensory impressions depended partly upon what kind of nerve was affected, and Vieussens had located the images of perception and memory in the nerve-tubes in the centrum ovale, which had the finest caliber. What, then, was more natural than that Swedenborg should now locate these images in the ›Cerebellula› of the cortex? For what substance of the cortex was better fitted, a more suitable medium to comprehend and distinguish the innumerable shades of the impressions than these myriads of ›Cerebellula›—of different sizes, forms and consistency, etc., which were connected each with its own special nerve-fibril and so well distinguished from their neighbors! And at the same time they were connected with the other ›Cerebellula› into groups of different kinds, by which the psychical elaboration of the impressions was made possible.

On similar grounds Swedenborg supposed that the psycho-motor labour was performed by the ›Cerebellula›, from which the nerves derived their origin. And here we may recall that Vieussens had already connected certain groups of nerves with certain bundles of medullary fibres, and that Malpighi had shown how bundles of fibres of the cerebral medulla corresponded to smaller and larger groups of cortical elements, each one of which, hanging by its fibre, formed the different gyres of the brain. If we consider this, then we can easily understand how Swedenborg, with his view of the cortex, could divine the correspondence between the components of the convolutions and the muscles.

It is interesting to here follow him in his line of thought and to see how well he understood how to combine his anatomical and clinical experiences: With the magnifying glass one can see how the nerve-fibres spring forth from the cortical substance like a brook from its source; if now the cortical substance be injured (as in the case of certain brain diseases, and which one may clearly see upon autopsy), then the injury is spread through the nerves connected with the cortex and at last all the way down to the muscles, and that, he thought, explained the motor disturbances.[86] And further ... when one or several of the ›Cerebellula› of the cortex are destroyed, then the damage is spread more immediately only to their proper nerves and muscles.[87]

In this manner did Swedenborg synthesize his anatomical, pathological-anatomical and clinical experiences and extracted from them his conclusions, and by them he arrived at essentially the same conception, as our times, of the principles of the nervous system, its cellular structure. He did not indeed employ the same nomenclature for the nerve-cells and their long processes, as we do; but the matter itself: the nature of the nerve-cells as elementary organs of the nervous system, the intimate connection between the nerve and its cell-body, indeed even its dependence upon it in regard to nourishment, etc., he was able to clearly grasp in this way,—and this more than a century before our modern theory of these relationships, the ›neurone-theory› saw the light.