Page:The Harveian oration 1903.djvu/35

 cognised—cerebrum and cerebellum, medulla, corpus callosum, corpora striata, ventricles, and even such smaller parts as the corpora geniculata, pituitary body, pineal gland, infundibulum and septum lucidum. The distinction into white and grey matter was also appreciated, and that the former was made up of fibres was supposed. But the structural relation of the several parts to one another was very indistinctly realised, and anything further as to minute structure was of course unknown. The following extract from Read's Mannuall of Anatomy, already mentioned, will serve to show what was taught in a standard text book, as we should now call it, concerning the functions of the brain.

"Of the action of the brain. The action of the brain is this: After that the spirits and blood are discharged into the Sinus of the dura mater by the veines and arteries to temper the heat of them, the brain is ordained (seeing it is colder than the heart) that the animall functions, which are feeling and moving may be the more readily executed. Wherefore the animall spirits seem not to differ from the vitall spirits in substance, but in qualities, viz. the temperament and attenuation; for they must be more temperate because heat doth both taint the