The localisation of cerebral disease : being the Gulstonian lectures of the Royal College of Physicians for 1878 / by David Ferrier.

Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The localisation of cerebral disease : being the Gulstonian lectures of the Royal College of Physicians for 1878 / by David Ferrier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    THE LOCALISATION OF CEEEBBAL DISEASE. LECTURE I. Mb. Peesidknt and Gtentlembn,—In these lectures I propose to discuss a question which is at present attracting considerable attention in the world of physiology and medicine, viz., whether dififerent regions of the cerebral hemispheres have different functions, and whether, therefore, the symptoms of cerebral dis- ease vary with the locality of the lesion. Assuredly, if the problem before us had been an easy one, it would have been definitively solved long ere now, when we con- sider the frequency of cerebral diseases and the large amount of attention they have received, not only from physicians and phy- siologists, but from all who interest themselves in the relations between body and mind. But, notwithstanding all the laborious researches and speculations which have been directed towards the elucidation of this subject, we do not seem even yet to have arrived at any general agreement, except on a very few propo- sitions, some of these even now contested: a position con- trasting strongly and unfavourably with the state of our knowledge respecting almost every other organ and function in the body. It is not very difficult to discover many causes of this obscurity and confusion. Two of these only I will mention as being specially worthy of note. B