injured, the Senfes are, in general, proportionably affected. This feems to point out a difference in the Caufes of Thought and Sensation.*

Cafes in which confiderable parts of the fubftance of the brain have been loft, either by immediate injuries, or by fuppuration following wounds and fractures of the Skull, are more numerous, than conclufive. Neither will Neither will you make much account of them, as they chiefly relate to the hemifpheres, and you seem to make the bafis of the brain the most effential part to perception, confequently, according to your scheme, to the procefs of thinking. Of this I am very glad, for a reafon which fhall be given afterwards.

The

Do not call this affertion extravagant, till you read the following Story, quoted by WEPFER.

"Mirabilis eft capitis vulneratio, quam recenfet Valle"riola Obf. Med. 1. 4. obf. 10. de milite quodam, qui ænei "tormenti globulum excepit in tempore finiftro, eo paulo "altius egrediente ex oppofito latere, diftracto et dilace"rato utrinque Cranio; qui citra apoplectica fymptomata, "miraculo integre curatus fuit, nifi quod furdafter et " cæcus manferit. De loc, affect. in Apopl. p. 205.

I dare not tranfcribe the story of the Polish Nobleman which follows; (p. 206, 207) - the ridiculum acri may coalefce, but the ridiculum vero is a hazardous conJunction.

+ V. Hailer. Phyfiolog. T. 4. p. 316 et feq. and refpe&ing the Cerebellum, Morgagni, Epift. lii. $27. Haller T. 4. P. 350 et feq.-Diemerbroeck Anatom. p. 582. Wepfer Hift. Apoplecticor. (Ed. 1727) p. 208, 209.

Tracts, vol. 1. p. 181. Note

The late Dr. HUNTER was in poffeffion of a fkull, in which the bones of the Cranium, on the right fide, were every where corroded. He had opened the head foon after the deceafe of the Patient, and found the whole of the right hemifphere destroyed by fuppuration. Yet the man retained his faculties perfectly till the inftant of his death, which was fudden.

Dr. HALLER mentions a cafe, in which half a pound of Pus was found in the ventricles of the brain, yet the faculties had been unimpaired till death.

Sir JOHN PRINGLE found an Abfcefs in the right hemifphere of the brain, as large as an egg, in a patient" who had never been delirious, nor altogether infenfible;* and in another, who "had never been fo infenfible, as not to anfwer reafonably when spoke to," he difcovered an abfcefs of the Cerebellum, as large as a fmall pigeon's egg.t

66

66

LA PEYRONIE found pus lodged between the hemifpheres, and compreffing the Corpus Callofum: when the matter was evacuated, the patient recovered, without detriment to his faculties.

363.

* Diseases of the Army, p. 259.

VESALIUS

For a fimilar cafe, fee Wepfer. Hift. Apoplect. p.

Memoir de l'Academ, de Chirurg. An. 1703.

VESALIUS found almost nine pints of water, in the brain of a girl only two years old. She had retained her fenfes perfectly till death.*

DIEMERBROECK, among other obfervations of the little effect produced on the mind, by wounds of the brain, mentions one which came under his own. notice. A young Man received a thruft with a fword, in the inner Canthus of the eye, which paffed through the right lateral ventricle, and flanting upwards, almost paffed through the skull, at the upper angle of the Lambdoidal Suture: yet the Patient remained in his ufual ftate of mind, "cum fociis convenienter et bono cum judicio quacunque de re differens," till the tenth day, when he was carried off by a fever.t

The fame Author quotes a cafe from LINDANUS, of a patient, who, after receiving a wound in one D

of

Morgag. de Cauf. & Sed. Morb. p. 37, § 2. Wepfer. 56. In one cafe mentioned by Morgagni, where the patient died, a month after falling on the head, and where the faculties were retained to the laft, there was a curious affection of the brain: "Vix Dura detecta fuerat, cum “animadverfum eft, in Cerebri hemifphærio finiftro "tertiam anteriorem partem multo humiliorem effe fua "compari, multoque molliorem, neque in fummo tantum, fed ubique penitus ne bafi quidem excepta. Scilicet "ob eam Mollitiem ita fubfederat: quæ Mollities cu " in corticali fubftantia erat, tum multo majus in medul"lari. Hæc enim in quandam velut gelatinam magna ex parte mutata erat."

+ Anatom, Lib. 3. p. 637.

of the lateral ventricles went about as ufual, for a fortnight. He then died. It seems that his Surgeon thrust a probe into the ventricle daily, without exciting any fenfation.*

A woman, infpection, whofe fkull was fractured by the fall of a large ftone, loft a quantity of brain equal in fize to a man's fift, yet fhe lived thirty-fix days after the accident, without alienation of mind, though paralytic on the fide oppofite to the fracture. On diffection, a confiderable vacuity appeared on the right fide (from which the portions of brain had been difcharged) accompanied with fuppuration, and extending through the lateral to the third ventricle, and to the Os fphenoides. †

under Diemerbroeck's immediate

The most remarkable cafe of this kind is quoted by La Peyronie: A child, fix years old, received a piftol-fhot in the head; a fuppuration followed, during which he loft a great quantity of the brain at every dreffing. At the end of eighteen days he died, having retained his faculties to the laft. When the head was opened, the portion of Brain remaining in the fkull did not exceed the fize of a fmall egg.

Left

* In Dr. Haller's experiments on living Animals, the bafis of the brain appeared to be the feat of Senfibility. Phyfiolog. T. 4. P. 315.

+ Anatom. p. 580, 1.

Mem. de l'Academ. Ann. 1741.

Left this narration fhould ftartle you, as La Peyronie, in the effay referred to, had a favourite fpot which he wished to render the feat of the Soul, namely, the Corpus Callofum, fuffer me to guard it by a fimilar quotation from the cautious MORGAGNI: "et fi parietum lateralium ventricu

lorum craffitudo vi aquæ fuerat in quinquenni "illo Tulpii, non modo in trienni Hildani, aut "bienni Vefalii, fuperné, & ad latera ufque

adeo extenuata, ut prima infpectione nulla effe videretur, cum inftar alicujus craffioris membrane adhærefceret undique arcuate diffolutorum offium circumferentie; nihil dubii eft quin, &c.*

After reading thefe hiftories, you would be greatly furprized to find, in Mr. Pott's treatife on Injuries of the Head, that death has fo often followed flight effufions and extravafations under the dura mater, preceded by comatofe fymptoms, and frequently by total infenfibility. The contraft

has often aftonished me, but does not alter the nature of the facts; and only ferves to fhew the danger of analogical reafoning in Neurology, or perhaps, as a French wit has expreffed

Epift. Med. Anat. XII. Art. 8.-Confult fome prereding palages, where he aícribes the apparent defect of brain in fome fœtufes to a wasting caufed by the continued preffure of effufed water,