Curiosities of Medical Experience

by J. G. Millingen

We have, moreover, convincing proof that the brain may be materially affected, without any deterioration of the mental faculties. Dr. Ferriar mentions a man in whom the whole of the right hemisphere, that is, one half of the brain, was found destroyed, but who retained all his faculties till the very moment of his death. Diemerbrook states another case where half a pound of matter was found in the substance of the brain. O’Hallaran relates the history of a man who had suffered such an injury of the head, that a large portion of his brain was removed on the right side; and extensive suppuration having taken place, an immense quantity of pus, mixed with large masses of the substance of the brain, was discharged at each dressing, through the opening. This went on for seventeen days, and it appears that nearly one half of the brain was thrown out, mixed with the matter, yet the man retained all his intellectual faculties to the very last moment of his dissolution, and through the whole course of the disease, his mind maintained uniform tranquillity. I attended a soldier at Braburne Lees, who had received a wound in the head during ball practice. The ball remained in the brain, and during three weeks large masses of brainular substance were brought away with pus. To the last day of his life he would relate, with every circumstantial particular, the neglect of the comrade by whom he had been wounded, and who fired while he was running to the target to mark the shots. It is somewhat singular, but suppuration of the brain is more offensive than the foulest ulcer, and it is with great difficulty that the pestilential effluvia can be tolerated. These cases plainly show that cerebral diseases have but little influence on the manifestations of the mind.

Amongst the many curious doctrines that have been started, to account for the operations of memory, some philosophers have compared it to the art of engraving; pretending that on those subjects where it requires much time and trouble to work an impression it was more durable, while it was only traced in a superficial manner on those brains that were ever ready and soft to receive this plastic influence. These several faculties they therefore compared to bronze or marble, to butter and to wax. Descartes, following up the phantasy, compared recollection to etching, and said that the animal spirits, being passed over the lines previously traced, brought them more powerfully to the mind; thus comparing the brain to the varnished copper-plate over which the engraver passes his mordants. Malebranche endeavoured to establish another doctrine, and compared our cerebral organ to an instrument formed of a series of fibres, so arranged, that when any recent emotion agitated one of these chords the others would immediately be thrown into vibration, renewing a past chain of ideas. As these chords became less flexible in old age, of course these vibrations were more difficult to obtain. Recollection was also considered an attribute of each molecule of the brain; and Bonnet endeavoured to count how many hundred ideas each molecule was capable of holding during a long life.

The controversies of learned psychologists on the relation of memory and judgment, indeed on the analogies that exist between our several mental faculties, have been as various as they are likely to prove interminable. Without offending these illustrious controversionalists, we may endeavour to enumerate these faculties, which, despite the ingenuity of theorists, appear in a practical point of view to exercise a wonderful influence upon each other. The first may be considered the faculty of perception, assisted by that of attention, to which we are indebted for our ideas. These are preserved and called into action from the rich stores of the mind by memory, justly called by Cicero the guardian of the other faculties. Imagination is the faculty of the mind that represents the images of remembered objects as if they were actually present. Abstraction forms general deductions from the foregoing faculties; while judgment compares and examines the analogies and relations of the ideas of sense and of abstract notions. Finally, reason draws inferences from the comparisons of judgment.

It is from the combination and the workings of these wonderful powers that appetency, desires, aversions, and volition arise. Appetency occasions desires, and these, when disappointed or satiated, inevitably usher in aversions and antipathies; although, as we shall see in another article, our antipathies are frequently instinctive, and not arising from any combination of the faculties I have enumerated.

Dr. Gall has considered these mental faculties as fundamental; and in this view he was certainly correct, since they may be considered the source whence all other distinct capacities are probably formed by particular habits of study and the nature of our pursuits, independently of those specific capacities which appear to be innate, and, according to the system of the phrenologists, organic. Every man possesses these fundamental faculties in a greater or less degree, according to the obtuseness or the energies of his mind; but it is absurd to conceive that specific capacities can be brought into action without the agency of those which are fundamental. Let us take the instinct to destroy life, the sentiment of property, metaphysical sagacity, or poetic talent,—in short, any one of Gall’s various faculties; can we for one instant conceive that they are not under the influence of perception, memory, imagination, and abstraction, although they may not be properly ruled by judgment and by reason? Instincts are equally under a similar influence, and are, according to circumstances, regulated by judgment in the various modes of life of animals. Phrenologists deny that instinct is a general faculty, and assert that it is an inherent disposition to activity possessed by every faculty, and that there are as many instincts as fundamental faculties. This is a postulation by no means clear. Instinct is an inherent disposition possessed by every animal, but not by every faculty. It is a disposition dependent upon the combination of all the mental faculties, according to the degree in which the animal may possess them: the reminiscences of animals prove it. We have instanced the horse, who endowed with the memory of locality, starts when passing by the same spot where he had started before. But here the memory of facts, memoria realis, and probably of words, memoria verbalis, are superadded to the memoria localis. The horse recollects the tree, the carrion, the object that startled him, whatever it might have been; but to this reminiscence are associated the chiding, the punishment he received from his rider. If this horse had possessed the faculties of abstraction, judgment, and reason, he would not have started, to avoid a reiteration of punishment; but he started under the impression of perception, attention, and memory. Wherever there does not exist a combination of the faculties, the intellectual ones may be considered imperfect. We certainly may have a greater perception and memory of one subject than of others. Thus, a man with a musical organisation will recollect any tune he may have heard, though it may not have attracted the attention of one who “hath no music in his soul.” We daily perceive different talents in children educated together. This is, no doubt, a strong corroboration of the doctrine of organic dispositions, which in reality no philosophic observer can deny; but to assert that these several dispositions are not regulated by what have been called the fundamental faculties, is, I apprehend, a position that cannot well be maintained; and we may be warranted in the conclusion that a particular faculty may be the result of the combined action of several faculties, if not of all; for, whether a man be a poet or a painter, a miser or a spendthrift, an affectionate father or an assassin, every one of the mental faculties that I have enumerated will to a certain extent be brought into action, however morbid that action may be.

All these disquisitions, however attractive they may be, when decked out with the fascination of the fancy, are the mere wanderings of metaphysical speculation, that never can be proved or refuted until we attain a knowledge of the nature and quality of the perceptions which material objects produce in the mind through the medium of the external senses. But while some of these speculations are idle and harmless, others may be fraught with danger, and occasion much misery to society. Let us for one moment conceive the possibility of our resolves and actions being dictated by a supposed phrenological knowledge,—a knowledge earnestly recommended to statesmen, and indeed to mankind in general;—what would be the result? A diplomatic bungler would be sent on an embassy, because a minister, or a sovereign, with a phrenological map before him, may fancy that he displays the faculty of circumspection, or the sense of things; and a chancellor of the exchequer be found in some needy adventurer who possessed the organ of relation of numbers!

I do not at all presume to invalidate the statements of Dr. Gall. The profession is highly indebted to him for his accurate description of the brain; and physiology must ever consider him as one of the brightest ornaments of science: but I do maintain, that to recommend his conclusions as a guide to society would be the most rash of visionary speculations; and, to my personal knowledge, no man was ever more mistaken in his estimate of the persons whom he met in society than the learned doctor himself. Of this I had frequent opportunities of convincing myself, when I met him in Paris in the circle of a Russian family which he daily visited. If I could admit, with a late ingenious writer, “that phrenology teaches the true nature of man, and that its importance in medicine, education, jurisprudence, and everything relating to society and conduct must be at once apparent,” I should certainly agree with him in recommending its study to parents, judges, and juries; but for the present, I am inclined to believe that, although it may prove a most interesting and valuable pursuit to the physiologist, it is by no means calculated to be the vade mecum of any liberal man.

The memory of various persons is amazing, and has been remarked in ancient times with much surprise. Cyrus knew the name of every soldier in his army. Mithridates, who had troops of twenty-two nations serving under his banners, became a proficient in the language of each country. Cyneas, sent on a mission to Rome by Pyrrhus, made himself acquainted in two days with the names of all the senators and the principal citizens. Appius Claudius and the Emperor Hadrian, according to Seneca, could recite two thousand words in the order they had heard them, and afterwards repeat them from the end to the beginning. Portius Latro could deliver all the speeches he had hastily written without any study.

Esdras is stated by historians to have restored the sacred Hebrew volumes by memory when they had been destroyed by the Chaldeans; and, according to Eusebius, it is to his sole recollection that we are indebted for that part of Holy Writ. St. Anthony, the Egyptian hermit, although he could not read, knew the whole Scripture by heart: and St. Jerome mentions one Neopolien, an illiterate soldier, who, anxious to enter into monastic orders, learned to recite the works of all the fathers, and obtained the name of the Living Dictionary of Christianity; while St. Antonius, the Florentine, at the age of sixteen, could repeat all the Papal Bulls, the Decrees of Councils, and the Canons of the Church, without missing a word. Pope Clement V. owed his prodigious memory to a fall on his head. This accident at first had impaired this faculty; but by dint of application he endeavoured to recover its powers, and he succeeded so completely, that Petrarch informs us he never forgot anything that he had read. John Pico de la Mirandola, justly considered a prodigy, could maintain a thesis on any subject,—de omni re scibili,—when a mere child; and when verses were read to him, he could repeat them backward. Joseph Scaliger learned his Homer in twenty-one days, and all the Latin poets in four months. Haller mentions a German scholar, of the name of Muller, who could speak twenty languages correctly. Our own literary annals record many instances of this wonderful faculty.

To fortify this function when naturally weak, or to restore it to its pristine energy when enfeebled by any peculiar circumstances, has been long considered an essential study both by the philosopher and the physician. Reduced to an art, this pursuit has received the name of Mnemonia; and at various periods professors of it, more or less distinguished by their success, have appeared in the several capitals of Europe.