It was absolutely necessary that the functions of the brain should be demonstrated as positively as those of the spinal nerves had been demonstrated by Majendie and Bell. Two methods appeared possible. The two agents were galvanism and the aura of the nervous system, commonly called animal magnetism. My first experiments in 1841, satisfied me that both were available, but that the nervaura was far more available, efficient, and satisfactory. Upon this I have relied ever since, though I sometimes experiment with galvanism, to demonstrate its efficiency, and Dr. De la Rua, of Cuba, informed me over twenty years ago that he found very delicate galvanic currents available for this purpose in his practice.
Animal magnetism or mesmerism had been involved in mystery and empiricism. There had never been any scientific or anatomical explanation of the phenomena, and this mystery I desired to dispel. My first step was to ascertain that for experiments on the nervous system we did not need the somnambulic or hypnotic condition, and that it was especially to be avoided as a source of confusion and error. Whenever the organ of sensibility, or sensitiveness, was sufficiently developed and predominant, the conditions of neurological experiments for scientific purposes were satisfactory, and to make such experiments, the subjects, instead of being ignorant, passive, emotional, hysteric, or inclined to trance, should be as intelligent as possible, well-balanced and clear-headed,—competent to observe subjective phenomena in a critical manner. Hence, my experiments, which have been made upon all sorts of persons, were most decisive and satisfactory to myself when made upon well-educated physicians, upon medical professors, my learned colleagues, upon eminent lawyers or divines, upon strong-minded farmers or hunters, entirely unacquainted with such subjects, and incapable of psychological delusion, or upon persons of very skeptical minds who would not admit anything until the phenomena were made very plain and unquestionable.
While the nervaura of the human constitution (which is as distinctly perceptible to the sensitive as its caloric and electricity) is emitted from every portion of the surface of the head and body, the quality and quantity of that which is emitted from the inner surface of the hand, render it most available, and the application of the hand of any one who has a respectable amount of vital and mental energy, will produce a distinct local stimulation of functions wherever it may be applied upon the head or body. In this manner it is easy to demonstrate the amiable and pleasing influence of the superior regions of the brain, the more energetic and vitalizing influence of its posterior half, and the mild, subduing influence of the front.
In my first experiments, in the spring of 1841, I found so great susceptibility that I could demonstrate promptly even the smallest organs of the brain, and it was gratifying to find that the illustrious Gall had ascertained, with so marvellous accuracy the functions of the smallest organs in the front lobe, and the subject could be engrossed in the thought of numbers and counting by touching the organ of number or calculation. Eagerly did I proceed in testing the accuracy of all the discoveries of Gall and the additions I had made by craniological studies, as well as bringing out new functions which I had not been able to anticipate or discover. Omitting the history of those experiments, I would but briefly state that in 1842 I published a complete map of the brain, in which the full development of human faculties made a complete picture of the psycho-physiological constitution of man, and thus presented for the first time a science which might justly be called Anthropology.[2]
It is obvious that prior to 1842 there was nothing entitled to the name of Anthropology, as there was no complete geography before the discovery of America and circumnavigation of the globe. When man is fully portrayed by the statement of all the psychic and all the physiological faculties and functions found in his brain, which contains the totality, and manifests them in the soul and body, it is obvious that we have a true Anthropology, which, to complete its fulness, requires only the study of the soul as an entity distinct from the brain, and of the body as an anatomical and physiological apparatus. The latter had already been well accomplished by the medical profession, and the former very imperfectly by spiritual psychologists. But neither the physiology, nor the pneumatology had been placed in organic connection with the central cerebral science.
In consummating such tasks, I felt justified, in 1842, in adopting the word Anthropology, as the representative of the new science, though at that time it was so unfamiliar as to be misunderstood. This science, as presented in my Outlines of Anthropology in 1854, embraced another very important and entirely novel discovery—the psycho-physiological relations of the surface of the body, the manner in which every portion of the body responds to the brain and the soul, the final solution of the great and hitherto impenetrable mystery of the triune relations of soul, brain, and body. This discovery, constituting the science of Sarcognomy, became the basis of a new medical philosophy, explaining the influence of the body on the soul, in health, and disease, and the reciprocal influence of the soul on the body.
This manifestly modified our views of therapeutics and revolutionized electro-therapeutics by pointing out the exact physiological and psychic effects of every portion of the surface of the body, when subject to local treatment, and hence, originating new methods of electric practice, in which many results were produced not heretofore deemed possible. All this was fully presented in my work on Therapeutic Sarcognomy, published in 1885, which was speedily sold.
In contemplating these immense results of a successful investigation of the functions of the brain, I can see no logical escape from the conclusion that such a revelation of the functions of the brain is by far the most important event that belongs to the history of vital science—an event so romantically different from the common, slow progress of science when cultivated by men of ability, that I do not wonder at the incredulity which naturally opposes its recognition, and seems to render the most unanimous and conclusive testimony from honorable scientists apparently ineffective. The support of the medical college in which I was Dean of the Faculty, the hearty endorsement by the Faculty of Indiana State University, and by numerous committees of investigation, seem to count as nothing with the conservative portion of the medical profession, who have ever understood how to ignore so simple and positive a demonstration as that of Harvey, or so practical a demonstration as that of Hahnemann, or so irresistible a mass of facts as those of modern psychic science.
The question will naturally arise among the enlightened lovers of truth, why so grand and so demonstrable a science should for forty-five years have made so little progress toward general recognition. It is sufficient to say that new and revolutionary truth is never welcomed, and, if the discoverer is not active as a propagandist it has no diffusion. I did not feel that there was any receptiveness across the ocean for what was resisted here. Nevertheless I did prepare and send to Edinburgh, in 1841, a brief report of my discoveries accompanied by an endorsement or introduction from the venerable Prof. Caldwell, the founder of the successful medical college at Louisville, whose lectures were attended by four hundred pupils. I supposed the gentlemen of the Phrenological Society at Edinburgh the most liberal parties in Great Britain, but they declined publishing my memoir as too marvellous, and proposed merely to file it away as a caveat of the discovery. That ended all thoughts of Europe; and, indeed, it seemed to me premature to urge such a discovery and so grand a philosophy upon the world in the present state of its intellectual civilization. I ceased to agitate the subject for many years, and allowed myself to be drawn into the political agitations connected with our civil war, to mitigate some of its social and political evils.
Of late, however, an urgent and imperative sense of duty has put my pen in motion as the remnant of my life will be hardly sufficient to record the results of my investigations.