Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/236

 his Opinion was rejected. Plato took it to be Marrow, such as nourishes the Bones; but its Weight and Texture soon destroyed his Notion, since it sinks in Water wherein Marrow swims; and is hardned by Fire, by which the other is melted. Galen (x) saw a little farther, and he asserts it to be of a nervous Substance, only something softer than the Nerves in the Body. Still they believed that the Brain was an uniform Substance, and as long as they did so, they were not like to go very far. The first Anatomist who discovered the true Texture of the Brain was Archangelus Piccolhomineus (y) an Italian, who lived in the last Age. He found that the Brain properly so called, and Cerebellum, consist of Two distinct Substances, an outer Ash-coloured Substance, through which the Blood-Vessels which lie under the Pia Mater in innumerable Folds and Windings, are disseminated; and an inner every where united to it, of a nervous Nature, that joins this Bark (as it is usually called) to the Medulla Oblongata, which is the Original of all the Pairs of Nerves that issue from the Brain, and of the Spinal Marrow, and lies under the Brain and Cerebellum. After him Dr. Willis (z) was so very exact, that he traced this medullar Substance through all