THE BRAIN IN RELATION TO THE MIND.

Temuka Leader, Issue 162, 16 July 1879, Page 2

THE BRAIN IN RELATION TO THE MIND.

A lecture was delivered by Dr A. K. Newman, M. 8., M.R.C.P., at the Colonial Museum, on Saturday evening, under the auspices of the Wellington Philosophical Society. There was a very large attendance, about half of those present being ladies. Dr Newman, in commencing his lecture, stated it seemed to him that few things were more curious than the wonderful fact that, though now-a-daya the higher classes were really ; highly educated, and at a time when most men learnt at least two or three languages, a large amount of mathematics, history, geography, politics, and one or two or more sciences, and the details of a business or profession, in addition to a great amount of other knowledge ; yet it seemed strange that about themselves— i.e., about their bodies, with its many and varied functions—that they should know absolutely nothing. If you were to ask any schoolboy who Achilles was, who Romulus, Hannibal, and other names in the far past history were, he could tell you much. He knew all about the cakes that the unfortunate Alfred had allowed to burn, or about some English Prince having been drowned in a but of wine ; with all these and a thousand other similar facts he had an ir.timate acquaintance ; but if the schoolboy were asked, or if the educated man were asked, where his heart was, and what were its uses ; or if he were asked how he saw, heard, tasted, felt, or thought, he could not answer —not even the simplest question about his own body. To him (the lecturer) that state of things had ever appeared very odd, because he had always thought such things were of the greatest importance, and were most fascinating ; indeed, more interesting than anything else in the range of human study. He intended bringing before them a few broad facts ; butofthe microscopical structure of the brain, its ultimate chemical constituents, and several other subjects, he should steer clear, and did not intend going into metaphysics. Formerly it had been the custom of clever metaphysicans—or psychologists, as many of them preferred being called—to shut themselves up in a room, and evolve out of their own inner consciousness what they imagined was the varied mental process ; but the more closely that nature had been studied, the more successful had the efforts been of those who had closely investigated it. The lecturer then proceeded to describe, by the aid of a number of human skulls and anatomical charts, the anatomy of the brain, and its chemistry and physiology ; the connection of the brain and mind ; and the effects of alcohol, coffee, &c, on the brain. He heped that before they left that evening they would be convinced that all thephenomeua of thought were as entirely the result of brain work as the hall in which they were that evening was the result of the labor of men on wood. The brain could be roughiy divided into several portions—a big brain called the cerebrum, and a little brain called a cerebellum, with several other portions; while springing from'the under surface w r as the spinal cord. The big bram was divided by a deep groove h.to two halves—a right and a left one —and there was a broad band of stuff connecting the two, so that they looked for all the world like the Siamese twins, and though distinct, yet they were joined. In each brain there was a hollow space called a ventricle, and there werethree other ventricles, each of which was joind to the other by little canals. There were other parts having long names, irregular shapes, and special uses; but their functions Ka'd not yet, in many cases, been discovered. One of these was called a hippocampus minor—so called because it somewhat resembled a small fish which was known as the sea horse, a specimen of which the lecturer exhibited, and which, he said, could be seen ; in the Museum. There was great commotion about the hippocampus minor in the scientific world at one time, because cer- ! tain anatomists, who happened to be believers in the Darwinian doctrine of development, discovered that it was absent in the lower animals and in monkeys, and then came the terrible discovery that it was also absent in women. Therefore, it was argued that, as women were nearer, in consequence, to apes, they bad no right to vote until such time as they were developed enough to grow a hippocampus minor. However, he (the lecturer) assured his lady readers that happily the question had been set at rest, and they could be happy in the belief that each of them had a hippocampus minor, and some day also they would have votes as well. The left half of the brain was educated : with it we thought, spoke, remembered, judged, loved, and hated. As regarded all the functions of the mind, the right half of the brain was a sort of shadow of the left half; but why it was so was as yet little known. The whole brain' <ras carefully protected from injury by a tough coat and two delicate ones, and the better to protect it from injury there were about 30 joints or buffers to break any shock which it might be subjected to ; in addition to which the brain lies on a watery bed, in order that it might still be further protected. Yet, notwithstanding all these precautions, it was very often easily damaged. Besides all these, there were what were termed convolutions, or folds of brain substance —or, as ladies might call them, puckerings—which were of immense importance ; and if one of them was cut through it would be seen that it was composed of white and grey matter. White matter had few original functions—it was principally a conducting medium ; but the grey matter was the seat of the mind, and upon the extent and activity of it largely depended our mental power. Animals which were low in the scale had almost smooth brains, which were scarcely convoluted at all ; whilst the higher animals, such as the monkeys, had larger and more

tortuous bruins, but liacl I'jss convolutions than were to be found in savages, which latter had less tha'i were to b?. found ia civilised men. It was formerly believed that man's br:>in w-iis larger tlvm that of any other animal ; but it had been pr-ved that a whale's brain was three or four times -larger than a man's, and even an elephant's brain dwarfed ours. It might be laid down as a broad rule that the bigger and heavier ih« brain, the stronger and more capable-minded was the owner. The weight of the brain of an ordinaryeducated Englishman was about 48 ozs., or three pounds. Women's brains were smaller, and, on the average, about 5 ozs. less than men's, although it had been asserted by John Stuart Mill and other enthusiastic devotees of women's rights that the female sex had brain? equal in size and weight to that of man. Dr Carl Vogt, a celebrated German anthropologist, had collected a series o£ brain weights, and a perusal of the table which he "had prepared would show that it ascended from the lightest, such as were to be found in the Australians and South Sea Islanders, until it culminated in the English, with the Germans and French running close up. Thus, by being told the average brain weight of a nation, it was quite possible to very closely assign its position in the civilised world. Of late years, Mr Darwin had told U 3 that the monkeys and ourselves had sprung from some common wood-inhabiting, hairy, long-armed, l&ig-tailed animal ; but people had said thaf it was all wrong. However, they were forced to admit that in their skeletons, and in the arrangement of their muscles and organs, they were driven from stronghold to stronghold, until at last they had to fall back upon their citadel—the mind ; but by-and-bye even that citadel would fall. It could be seen that from the big brain of the Englishman gradations could be traced to the lowest types of mankind to be found ; and going still further, it had been ascertained that the brains of gorillas and other animals corresponded closely in shape to the human brain, although they were smaller and less in weight than the brains of savages. Although the average brain of an Englishman would weigh 48 ounces, some would be found with giant brains, and others with dwarf ones, until they ranged down, to 32 ounces in idiots. The brain of Baron Cuvier, the celebrated French naturalist, weighed 63| ounces, and that of Dr. Abercrombie over 60 ounces. Oliver Cromwell and Napoleon the first had very big, heavy brains ; and most celebrated men—such, for instance, as the Lord Chancellors and Premiers of England—had very big, heavy brains. In adult age, when brain power was much needed, it was greatest; and in old age, when the mental powers were on the wane, the brain's weight became lessened. The brain, like the muscles, grew by exercise : the more a person, studied, the bigger his brain grew, and this was especially the case if he began young, and studied till he was about thirty, for the elastic skull would then yield freely to \the willing brain. Hence the value of early training, in proof of which the speaker instanced the fact that Dr Schliemann had learnt Greek in six weeks, while John Stuart Mill was able to master the same language before he was six years of age. Turning his attention to a number of skulls placed before him, the lecturer stated that the lowest nations"had long skulls,' whilst the higher oiies had broad skulls. The brondesfc skulls were to tie found in England and Germany, and everywhere the broad-skulled races subdued the longskulled ones. Even in the case of horses, the veterinary surgeons, when choosing these animals for the Horse Guards, always ' picked out tao broadest-skulled ones, because they were cleverer and require:! less training; And here he (the lecturer) would like to utter a protest against a popular error. Many people seemed to think that a good education would transform their children into geniuses, and they forced the miserable little creatures /to work, and work, rmd work. If a child had a small brain, it was no use imagining that it could ever have a great mind —it could not-. If one man's brain weighed 48 ounces, and another man's 60 ounces, and supposing that they worked equally hard, the small brained man could not rival the big brained one, ; all his attempts at rivalry would prove futiio, and would only fret and exhaust him. Many and many a young man was brought up to one of the learned professions, or an important position, but failed utterly, and in consequence incurred the wrath and contempt of his parents, when, poor fellow, the fault was not really, his. Had he been born with a few ounces more brain, he would have succeeded. It was all very well for moralists, with big, roomy skulls, to plume themselves, like the Pharisees of .old, upon their righteousness ; but it was all a question of brain, for had these good people been born with, the narrow little skulls to be found in the generality of criminals,, there would be a change in positions—-supposing the criminals had been born with the large skulls and brains possessed by the presiding judges'and magistrates, who sometimes called them hardened villians. The brain could be trained to do any kind of work just as well as the hands, and training was quite as necessary for the development of the brain as it was for the muscles of the body previous to a boat race or a foot race. A huge, untrained brain might be much weaker than a smaller one. Grote, the learned historian of Greece, hod a small, femiuine brain weighing only 44 ounces ; but he had trained it so carefully that he could do more difficult and more prolonged work with it than many a man with a brain 54 ounces in weight. The arm of the Scottish champion—Donald Dinnie — the modern Sampson—measured inches, yet, because of its superior development, it was ten times as strong as the arm of a fat woman, which measured 27 inches round. And so with the brain. If it was not continually exercised in a proper manner it grew fat and lazy, like the muscles, and could not do much work. Carlyle, the apostle of work, said that " genius was an unlimited capacity for work." All eminent men and women had been hard workers. The brother of Edmund Burke was a cleverer man than himself ; yet the latter had gained a mighty name, whilst the former was almost unknown. If we read the lives of men eminent in science, in art, in literature, and in every business and trade, on<> common cause for their success would be f "Mid— namely, hard work. It was a cm ii.'iio face that men. who learnt language* :\-ad'ly ? and had [a knowledge

■ rhaps seven or eight of them, were ly not noted for other nienta.l ;rs ; on the contrary, their thoughts thinner and weaker, and the more uages they learnt the more feeble did • mental powers become. " Cornelius ' owd" had told us that the celebrated .<\n Cardinal, Mexzofanti, who knew ty-eight languages, was remarkable for poverty of thought. Doubtless, in .-e who had a wonderful the speech $y developed. The reading of good -ks, such as historical and scientific Hi.*, tended to the development of the .in to a large degree ; but novelreading, '.vspapcrs, and such like reading, did t do much in that direction, because :le thought was required for the latter—ieed, such reading produced a lazy action the brain, and consequently did not aid its development. The brain was really ce an engine, which was supplied conantly with fuel through the circulation 'the blood. The grey matter received >ur or five times the quantity supplied to le white matter, because, as the grey as the more active portion, therefore it ceded a far larger amount of fuel. The -uantity of fuel supplied to the brain aried with the amount of work done, and vas derived from the food which we partook of. If a man had a good digestion, ie would eat abundantly and take in a .arge supply of fuel ; but if he were a feeble or sickly man he would eat little, and send only a scanty supply of bad fuel to his brain, and however large, and fine, and capable his brain might be, he would never be' great, because his excellent machine could not get a sufficientquantity of driving power. Barristers had informed him (the lecturer) that if a man ever hoped to attain any eminence at the English Bar, he must be a strong, broadchested man, "with a digestion like a horse, sir," and that he must be u sound in ' wind and limb." The phrase, "a drunken, brainless sot," was more true than might at first sight appear to be in the case ; for the alcohol consumed and ate away the convolutions which supplied matter to the brain. Some asserted, like Sir James Mackintosh, that brain-work depended to a great extent upon the quantity of coffee which a person could take, but on that subject he (the lecturer) was not quite of the same opinion, and he did not think the theory would hold good. Broadshouldered, deep-chested, large-eating men were they who succeeded in life ; but many of these men u ere gouty—for instance, many English Premiers, such as Lord Chatham, Lord Palmerston, Earl Beaconsfield, Mr. Gladstone, and others. He (the lecturer) did not know, nor did he wish to pry into the secrets of these men's private'lives, but he felt sure that they were all fgreat eaters, and fond of good living. If they were not, how could they get power wherewith to accomplish j all the vast amount of work which they must have done before attaining to such eminence 1 But it was that class of men who generally suffered from ''rich, honest gout." In conclusion,'the lecturer said: — i( In childhood, train the child's _ brain and muscles. By gymnastics, the size of his chest will increase, and his whole body j .-iadll grow stronger. By-and-bye, when he is pleading at the bar, or preaching in the cathedral, or stumping the country for Parliament, those gymnastics, by giving him more lungs and a better digestion, will carry him triumphantly through ; while his narrow-chesbed, dyspeptic rival wil! falter and fail. ' You will now see the hn-anmg of the phrase, ' a sound mind in aAsound body.' " Mr. Hector, C.M.G., moved a hearty vote of thanks to Dr. Newman for the highly interesting lecture which he had delivered, which was carried. j