"

young dog that had been exposed to similar suffering from having had " the cranium and cerebral hemispheres sawed transversely," escaped from its torturer by a comparatively easy death. "To prevent its plaintive cries disturbing my neighbours, I enveloped it in a thick sack. On examining it sometime afterwards, I found it had died from suffocation." Another dog was selected, "possessing the reputation of being lively, docile, and intelligent." The anterior part of its brain was transfixed on the 28th June, and day after day, for several weeks, it was tortured in every possible way, and the effects recorded. After detailing the results, he says, on the 7th July, "when menaced, it crouches, as if to implore mercy, but does not in consequence obey. It, on the contrary, utters cries which nothing can repress, similar to those of an uneducated dog, whose intellect is undeveloped. It eats with great voracity, and is in good health. I watched it attentively for the remainder of this, and for the first fifteen days of the succeeding month. Its want of docility was remarkable: when called it did not come, but lay down and wagged its tail with an air of stupidity. When we tried to lead it, it resisted, rolled upon the ground, and

* Phrenological Journal, vol. vii., p. 143-229.

cried, but at last walked, again stopped, and drew back, and cried anew. When confined it cried continually, in spite of all correction. It appeared astonished at every thing; it was easily alarmed; and when menaces were succeeded by blows, in place of flying, or acting so as to avoid them, it merely lay down in a supplicating posture and cried. It did not caress us on our return, (!) although absent for many days." "Some days afterwards, I led it to the river, and regardless of its terror, threw it in; on this occasion it quickly swam on shore, and returned to the house. I sometimes put it out at the door, menacing to make it go away, but it remained, or if it did go, it was only for a few steps, when it returned, uttering slight cries, as if entreating us to re-open the door. All its docility consist

ed in coming, when, after

caressing it, we called

upon it in a tone of kindness; or, if we had menaced, beat, or called upon it in vain, in going away, holding down its head and tail, and in crouching down as if in the act of supplication. It was sacrificed on the 15th August, in the performance of a new experiment." "I have made many experiments," says M. Bouillaud, "similar to the one now de tailed, but the subjects of them died too soon to allow me to draw any clear and definite conclusions."

§ 56. If it should be supposed by any, that these are experiments of rare and peculiar atrocity, I refer them to the Phrenological Journals, and to the Medical Periodicals, both of this country and the Continent, for multitudes of similar cases. Let it be understood, that the supporters and the opponents of the doctrines of Phrenology are equally guilty. Gimlets, chisels, pins, red-hot irons, continue to be used on both sides, although every man of real science or humanity protests against the legitimacy of conclusions arrived at by such methods of inquiry. Drs Gall and Spurzheim long ago denied the utility of experiments of mutilation; and they are disavowed as a means of establishing the functions of the parts of the brain, by Dr Elliotson and many other phrenologists. "These means," says Spurzheim, "are not only useless under such circumstances, but they can at no time serve to determine the functions of the cerebral parts." Dr Elliotson maintains that, " attempts to mutilate the cerebral substance are not calculated to afford much information. When various portions of the brain are removed, how can any inference be drawn, during the short existence of the poor animal, as to the state of its various faculties and inclinations? It is difficult, besides, if not ge

nerally impossible, to remove one cerebral organ entirely and alone. Other parts are almost certain to be injured, or if they should not thus be injured, they may be so by the extension of the irritation produced by the operation, and by sympathy with the injured parts." There are other sources of error inseparable from such methods of inquiry. For instance, the loss of any particular faculty after the destruction of a certain part of the cerebral substance, is no adequate proof of the alleged connection between that organ and the manifestations referred to it; because the same loss might follow a violent injury of any part of the brain, or indeed of any part of the body. A bird would be as little likely to manifest the power of singing with a bodkin or a red-hot iron in its organ of combativeness, as in its supposed organ of tune. Yet conclusions have been often drawn from the absence of certain manifestations after the destruction of different portions of the brain. Thus M. Bouillaud argued from the last of the horrible operations referred to in the preceding paragraph. "This experiment," he says, "is well worth our attention. The animal scarcely understood us when we called on it; it no longer played with or caressed other dogs; it had a stupid or astonished air: all the corrections in

flicted to compel it to remain in one place were unavailing, if the place did not please it; it no longer understood their meaning; its want of docility was extreme." "We found, on examining the body, that there remained of the wounds inflicted, solely a canal traversing the anterior part of the brain; it is to this, the only existing lesion, that the impairment of the intellectual powers is to be attributed.”* It was therefore demonstrated, according to this philosopher, that the particular part of the brain referred to was the seat of the faculties deranged, and that to its lesion was to be attributed the "stupidity" which restrained a sentient being from caressing its torturers; the "want of docility" which prevented a poor brute, writhing in agony, from understanding the meaning of the blows inflicted to compel it to remain in one place!

§ 57. It is to be hoped, that the strange infatuation which has led physiologists to apply themselves with such assiduity for some years back to the study of the functions of the brain, by means of experiments on living animals, will soon subside. So many sources of fallacy have been shown to attend the operations; the objections urged against their conclusiveness are so strong; and the contradictions

* Phrenological Journal, vol. vii., p. 230.