SWEDENBORG also placed the centres of the soul’s motor activity in the
cerebral cortex (See Œc. R. A., No. 127, etc.).
I have not been able to find anything of this kind even hinted at in the
antecedent literature. We are reminded of how preceding authors, who
made an attempt at some kind of localization of the origin of motion,
in most cases placed this in the medulla of the brain, as for example
the BARTHOLINS;[67] and also BOERHAAVE.[68] And as we have just heard,
HALLER still held the same view.[69] Nevertheless SWEDENBORG expresses
his conception without the slightest hesitation, and this he did because
he regarded it as resting on a sure foundation. His strongest grounds
and proofs were here also derived from the _clinical and pathological
observations_ in certain cerebral diseases which had caused changes in
the cortex, and in patients, who had been injured in the cerebral cortex.
It was these clinical cases at which I hinted just now. And now some of
these may be brought forward, for the most part as SWEDENBORG himself has
related them—with some few abbreviations:
A female seventy years of age, who after exhibiting the premonitory
symptoms of apoplexy for some months suddenly _lost the power of speech_,
and on being conveyed to bed, lost all sensation and motion. On a post
mortem examination a large cavity was found in the cortical substance of
her brain (›in ejus Cerebri substantia corticali ampla cavitas reperta
fuerit›, see Œc. R. A. II., No. 154). The case was taken from J. J.
WEPFER’s ›_Historiae Apoplecticorum_› (Amsterdam, 1681, pp. 5-11).
Another case taken from WEPFER was the following: A man 50 years of age
had for some weeks before his death suffered from excruciating headache,
the pain of which sometimes drove him mad, so that he was not seldom
unconscious of what he said and did. On examining his head after death,
the whole surface of the cerebrum and cerebellum, including both the
convolutions and the furrows between them, seemed to be clogged all
over with a gelatinous substance, from which, when it was pricked with
a lancet, genuine serum oozed out. And also the very substance of the
cerebrum and cerebellum had imbibed a large quantity of serum. (Œc. R.
A., loco cit. and J. J. WEPFER: Op. cit., p. 15-19).
A case from A. PACCHIONI was as follows: A young man had died under
symptoms of fever, severe headache and _spasms_, or _cramp_. On opening
his cranium, it appeared that the firm fibrous membrane of the brain, the
dura mater, was loosened from the bone on the top of the head; and here,
according to the description, it had exercised a strong pressure upon the
underlying portion of the brain and was tightly adherent to it. (Œc. R.
A., loc. cit.)——Consequently, in the last two cases: inflammation of the
membranes of the brain, or meningitis with accompanying influence upon
the superficial layer of the brain, the cerebral cortex.
And still another case from PACCHIONI, which was still more convincing: A
youth was brought into the hospital in an almost unconscious condition,
spoke incoherently, cast himself about in all directions, etc.; and
furthermore——his _lips were somewhat drawn over to the left side_
(›_labris ad sinistrum paululum detractis_›), thus a right-sided _facial
paralysis_! On examination after death no injuries could be found upon
the integuments of the head, nor upon the outer or inner sides of the
cranium, but on the left side of the brain _a depression of the cortex_
was discovered, occasioned by the formation of a tumor or ›bladder› on
that part of the surrounding dura mater lying just over the place of
depression: ›_ibi depressus et durioris consistentiae cortex cerebri
cavernam ostendebat vesicae congruentem_.›[70]
SWEDENBORG brought forward still more cases, so incomplete, however,
that it is not worth while to repeat them here. But he had at hand a
very large number of cases, as he says: ›phalanges observationum idem
testificantium› (Œc. R. A. No. 154), or, as he says in another place, so
many that a bare enumeration of them would fill two whole pages (Œc. R.
A. II., 154).
SWEDENBORG had made a specially careful study of a great many _cases of
apoplexy_ and _hemiplegy_, which naturally, in so far as they affected
the cortex, gave him direct guidance in judging of its function. And he
also understood very well how to judge at the same time with regard to
the importance of bleedings in the soft membrane of the brain, the pia
mater, on and between the convolutions of the brain, the ›gyri›, and
the pressure that these exercise upon the cortex, and the results of
prevented circulation in cases of apoplexy. For in all these cases, he
says, the transmission of blood to the cortex is checked, and by this the
cortex was disturbed in its function, and this was the cause of the loss
of sensation and of the paralysis. (Œc. R. A., III., No. 411 and III.,
No. 413; see also ›The Brain›, No. 89).
But SWEDENBORG had also directed his attention to that method of
investigation which, to the brain physiologists of the present day, is
the best aid for the examination of the motor functions of the cerebral
cortex, namely, _experiments on animals_. He quotes such experiments, in
which _incisions_ had been made into the cortex ›just to the marrow›,
as it is expressed, (›usque ad substantiam medullarem› [RIDLEY], Œc. R.
A., I., No. 505); or when the brain (in dogs) had been _pierced_, (Œc.
R. A., II., No. 154), and how these injuries had occasioned spasms or
contractions of the trunk or extremities (RIDLEY). He also describes
such cases in which fine needles had been pierced through the dura mater
and corrosive liquors introduced through the holes, with the result
that severe disturbances occurred in both motility and sensibility, and
also how through such injuries muscular contractions had been provoked,
by which it was sometimes observed that with certain stimuli the
contractions first occurred in certain groups of muscles (for example, in
the head or neck) and afterwards spread to the other parts of the body.
(BAGLIVI ›The Brain›, No. 20).
As will be seen, these experiments were no ›precision-investigations›;
and the same may be said of the clinical and pathological ones. And
this may be the more easily understood, when we consider that in those
times so much interest was not attached to such special observations of
pathological changes in the cerebral cortex; for this was then regarded
only as a gland, a secreting organ or reservoir for the ›spiritus
animalis›. These observations were therefore made more as it were in
passing. The same is also true of the experimental investigations on
animals, quoted above. These were in reality made not in order to
investigate any function of the cortex, but for other purposes, namely,
in order to search out the causes of the pulsations of the brain, or the
qualities and functions of the dura mater, etc.
Yet, as we shall see later on, some of the cases, in the original
descriptions, really contain statements somewhat more exact and of
greater interest even for the theory of cortical localizations, than
those which SWEDENBORG quoted; but he seems to have here adduced no more
than what had reference to the _cortex regarded as a whole_, and which
showed what great changes in both the power of sensation and motion
injuries in the cortex could produce. If we take this into consideration,
and if we synthesize all these experiences, and add to this the increased
knowledge concerning the minute structure of the brain, which had been
produced especially by MALPIGHI’s discoveries, we must admit that
SWEDENBORG had good reasons for his view that the soul’s activity had its
seat in the cortex of the cerebrum.