THE SEAT OF THE SOUL.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 178, 6 July 1871, Page 3

THE SEAT OF THE SOUL.

In a work entitled "Eprce and Matter," being empiro-phiiosophicial studies intelligibly rendered by Dr Louis Buchner, of Hesse- Darmstadt, the following remarks of Professor Erdmann, of Halle, is introduced in a chapter on the seat of the soul :

— " The theory that the soul has its seat in the brain, must lead to the result that when the body is separated from the head, the soul would 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 necessary tor its nourishment, integrity, and action." "This," he says, "has been fullyverified by the experiments of physiologists. For instance, on decapitating an animal, say a dog or. rabbit, the severed head gradually looses its excitability, the eyelids are closed, the eyes rigid, the nostrils immovable. Now, if at the moment, blood of a bright red, and deprived of its fibrous matter, be injected into the arteries of the brain, the previously lifeless head re-animates ; ;he 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 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 Brown Sequard, to whom especially we are indebted for these investigations, made the attempt on a human arm recently cut off, though already cold aud 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."