“The central gray matter of the spinal cord. This has no connection with
the higher senses. It is capable in itself of the simplest kind of
reflex acts by means of the spinal nerves. These can be produced at the
will of the experimenter, in the beheaded frog, when an irritation of
the skin by an acid, etc., is created; and Robin has satisfactorily
performed the same experiment upon a beheaded criminal. We have reason
to believe that the spinal cord can be slowly and in a purely automatic
way taught to perform certain series of muscular movements (as in
playing scales upon a musical instrument, for example,) without any
intervention of the higher ganglia.”
This is physiology. Is it true that the central gray matter of the
spinal cord has no connection with the higher senses? The complicated
movements which are performed by a person playing on a musical
instrument, like the piano, for instance, are more than a simple reflex
action of the spinal cord; and we do not believe that the spinal cord
can be taught to perform such movements without the intervention of the
higher ganglia. When one is learning to play the piano or other musical
instrument, the higher centres are constantly in action, guiding and
regulating the muscular contractions which go to make up the act of
playing; after constant repetition under the guidance of the higher
centres, the spinal cord and lower centres, as it were, learn and retain
the combinations necessary to the performance of the act, all that is
necessary is to start the particular combination, and the spinal cord
will carry it on automatically.
The spinal cord cannot be taught to perform such complicated acts
without the intervention and guidance of the higher centres to begin
with.
Dr. Ranney has done a great deal of work in the preparation of this
volume, and deserves much credit for his endeavors to collect this
somewhat scattered material.
The work has numerous illustrations and diagrams, most of them
exceedingly good, but we observe among them some of the worthless and
often fanciful illustrations from Luys’, which are reproduced here.