Stories Your Brain May Tell.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 22 May 1914, Page 2

Stories Your Brain May Tell.

WOMEN HAVE BETTER BRAINS THAN MEN.

• The human brain at the moment is under keener scientific investigation than ever before. 'No less • than one hundred and fifty men famous in one or another of the allied . branches of biological research, are studying the mysterious motor of intellect, feeling, they know not why, that it soon may be given to one of them to announce a new discovery worthy of all their efforts. It may have special reference to the brain of women. Dr. Henry H. Donaldson, Professor of neurology, and his associates in the department of nerve study in Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, which, with its endowment of millions and more than one thousand human brains on its shelves, is a research centre, are even now seeking to determine with infinite exactness wherein the brains of men and women differ, if at all. In his investigation -on the growth of the central nervous system, Prof. Donaldson has already discovered that where body weights are similar the spinal cord in woman is heavier than in the man. By independent investigations, extending over a period of years, Prof. Donaldson has also shown that the weights of brains according to sex, as given by a Frendh colleague, are so related that wjhen the body weight of the female- corresponds to that of the male ajHproximately the same brain weight is " iound as iv. the male. So, at a time when women are playing their part i"n many new fields and makiing a larger impression than ever before, we now" know that there's areason.: The central nervous system of woman weighs as much as man's .if the - scales show her to be his equal in weight. JWHY WOMEN THINK QUICKER THAN. MEN. : . Comparing the actual brain functions of the sexes, no less distinguished a physfician than Sir James Crichton-Browme asserts, as a result of his . long professional investigation, that the posterior region of a woman's brain'receives a richer flow of blood direct from the heart than does man's, ami that as a consequence women have - more delicate! powers of phyjsical emotions and greater rapidity of thought. • Romanes, an observer known to fame in his day, had shown by. experiments that, women could read faster than man, whereas men had more decision of character. Sir James now teßls why. He credits man with stronger will, calmer judgment and .greater originality, and says it is* due to the richer flow of arterial Iblood to the anterior section of the jirain. Dr. Charles L. Dana, known all the world over through his text books on diseases of the brain none the less. than for his professional work, popularised the "subject, tb . women at least, .when he was credited with saying : "Women have better brains than men. Their brains are better nourished. Why this is so, I, do not know, except that God- made it so." Except for: the whale, the elephant, and the porpoise, no living thing has a brain which weighs as much as the minimum of the .human brain. In the entire human nervous system, according to the estimates of Prof. Donaldson,1 there is the astounding total of 11,200,000,000 nerve cells. In the study of these cells and their grouped relation to the five divisions of the brain as well as to the functions which they perform, several ■ classes of scientific investigators are engaged. OBSERVING THE PROCESS OF THOUGHT. \ Dr. Max Baff, Fellow of Psychology at Clark University, working in conjunction with others, is seeking to perfect a photo-magnifying instrument which will give in continuous film x-ray pictures of the living human brain cells. 1£ may seem wildly extravagant, but it is the hope of Dr. Baff that with such an instrument completed so that each- of its parts will work in: harmony with the others there is a possibility of observing the brain jells under different conditions and arriving a little closer to a definite knowledge of the processes of thought. Dr. Baff says : "Such an apparatus will make it possible to ti«l ! whether a man is sane or insane, whether he is a criminal or an innocent man, whether he is contemplating fraud or crime, and, in short, will reveal all the more or less hidden operations of the mind. It will aid us in solving some of the thoughts that are forming in the minds of lovers. A young j woman may then be able to have her brain photographed, and the pic- ; tures when thrown upon a screen \ will enable her fond admirer, with the aid of a scientific chart, to j disclose the condition of her mind in relation to his love affairs." Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe, widely recognised for his studies of the di- ' seased mind, recently told the So- j ciety of Jurisprudence at the Aca- I demy of Medicine in New York that most of the forms of insanity which until recently were known generally as paranoia could now be classified with exactness as independent mental diseases. Thus, while the biologists are working on the brain after death, and others are studying the normal living brain, still others in the alienists' field are carrying forward their investigations cm the

abnormal brain. Success in solving a problem of the brain in one field becomes a stepping stone to progress in the others ;so the interest is general among these men. At the distant goal of epochmaking achic.ement, whiltv-;- they are working along independent highway . lie the mysteries of the huma;;. mind. Why is it that two j men equal in things physical show : such wide variance in common \ sense ? Why is one man sound in ; his conclusions and the other woe- [ fully lacking in judgment ? One ' man physically strong may have a j dull wit ; another drawn from the ! same class may possess a mind of j snap and activity. j Houdin, the sleight : of-hand per- j former, in one of his acts, used to keep four balls moving in air, ; and this complex series of actions, I which at the start depended upon a guiding perception, finally became mere automatic, mechanism to him. He frequently read from a book or a newspaper while he was tossing the balls. Why is it that anger and resentfulness over an insult will move one man to seek reparation by physical means, while another as deeply aggrieved relieves his emotions by forthwith writing a letter ? Science lives in the hope that it may discover the method by which the billions of brain cells operate in making 'us the thinking creatures that we are. It would know why the large mind is not always in the large brain, why we reach our everyday conclusions in the diversified affairs ; why we act, plot, scheme. Why, as Fjrof. Scott 'asserts, the brain can stand the strain of persistent work better than the muscles of the body.— '"Popular Science Siftings."