[202] Cours de Phrén. 218.
[203] P. 221.
[204] See M. Leuret: Anat. Comp. du Syst. Nerv. &c. 1839.
[205] Cours de Phrén. p. 350.
[206] Ibid. p. 117.
[207] De l’Irritation et de la Folie, p. 2.
[208] Ibid. p. 76.
[209] Steno had already said, “If the medullary substance be every where fibrous, as in fact, in most parts it appears to be, you must confess that the disposal of these fibres must be arranged with great skill, since the whole diversity of our feelings and motions depend upon them. We wonder at the artifice of the fibres in each muscle, but how much more are they worthy of admiration in the brain, where these fibres, enclosed within so small a space, perform each its own function without confusion and without disorder.”—Discours sur l’anat. du cerveau, 1668.
[210] Long before his time the same had been seen by Mistichelli, Pourfour du Petit, Winslow, and several others, but it had been forgotten. “Each pyramidal body,” says Pourfour du Petit, “is divided at its inferior part into two large bundles of fibres, most frequently into three, and in some instances into four. Those of the right pass to the left side, and those of the left pass to the right side, mingling with each other.”—Lettre d’un médecin des hôpitaux du Roi. Namur 1710.