Show NEW LIGHT OX PHRENOLOGY Some of Its Teachings Found to Have a Firm Scientific Basis I is a curious fact that modern research appears about to establish a firm scientific basis for some of the teachings of phreno ogy just at a time when that doctrine has massed almost entirely out of vogue At the Antropological Institute in London sometime some-time since Mr Bernard Hollander read a paper on centers of ideation bringing together to-gether the results of many experiments in applying galvanic currents to different parts of the brain I has been pointed out for instance bj various trained observers that the emotion ofjoy throws into action the great zgo matic muscles which draw the mouth upward up-ward and backward while at the same time the obicular muscles are more or less contracted musces traded Now it has been found that there is a definate portion of the brain where a galvanic current produces exactly this effect upon the same muscles although a current applied elsewhere does not move them I is thus apparent that the effect of a galvanic current upon this portion of the brain is to produce the physical expression of joy and it is exactly in this place that Combo located his organ of cheerfulness which he afterwards called hope Another learned professor has stated that the brain centers for the facial movements are found to correspond with Galls center for mimicry mim-icry or imitation In still a different spot the galvanic current will cause movements of the lips tongue and cheeks indicating that belt must be the seat of gustatory sensation sen-sation In the year 1824 when phrenology was attracting great attention many men claimed to have discovered the organ of gustativeness or alimentiveness which they located over the same spot There is also another center where the current causes contraction of a certain mus clowhich retracts the angle of the mouth and is strongly contracted under the influence influ-ence of fear and for this reason has received re-ceived the name of the muscle of fright It is in this region that Gall and Spurzhem located their organ of cautiousness whi h they found largely developed in timid people peo-ple There is still another center which when excited by the current s said to cause raising of the shoulders with extension ex-tension of the arms and both Darwin and Mantegazza have long since referred this gesture to the expression of patience submission sub-mission and the absence of any intention to resist Just here was placed Galls organ of veneration and when this is defective iu children Combe says they are regardless regard-less of authority prone to rebellion and little attentive to command It would seem from the facts gathered and compared by Mr Hollandert that the founders of what we are accustomed to consider as the antiquated system of phrenology phren-ology though unable in what was the state of knowledge at that time to demonstrate their conclusions must have been extremely shrewd and careful observers of all the facts which lay within their reach and that the theories which they based upon these observations are well worth a careful reexamination in the light of modern science |