THE SEAT OF THE SOUL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 12, 15 April 1871, Page 16

THE SEAT OF THE SOUL.

In a work entitled " Force and Matter," being empiro-philosophical studies intelligibly reudered by Dr Louis Buchner, of Hesse-Darmstadt, the following remark by Professor Erdmann, of Halle, is introduced in a chapter on the seat of the soul:—" The theory that the aotil has its seat in the brain, must lead to the result that, when the body is separated from the head, the soul should continue to exist." Dr Buchner says this " would undoubtedly be the case if we were able, in an artificial manner, to supply the brain with a continued stream of blood necessaryfor its nourishment, integrity, and action. This," he says, " has been fully verified by the experiments of physiologists. For instance,on decapitating an animal, say a dog or rabbit, the severed bead gradually loses its excitability, the eyelids are closed, the eyes rigid, the nostrils immovable. Now, if at that moment blood of a bright red, and deprived of its fibrous matter, be . injected into the arteries of the brain, the previously lifeless head reanimates; the eyelids open, the nostrils expand, warmth and sensibility return, the eyes revive, look at the bystanders and move in their sockets. If the animal be called by its name, the eyes turn in the direction whence the sound came. These signs of returning life last as long as the injection is continued, and vanish and reappear as the operation is suspended or recommenced. These experiments have not yet been tried on human heads severed from their bodies, but we may safely assume' that the same results would follow. But BrownSequard, to whom especially we are indebted for these investigations, made the attempt on a human arm recently cut off, though already cold and insensible. In a few moments, warmth, sensibility, contraction of the muscles, in fact, all the normal activities returned, and M. Brown-Sequard was enabled to repeat the experiment with the same success, until sheer fatigue compelled him to desist.