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Show BRAIN POWEPi IS NOT DUE TO GRAY MATTER Columbia Professor Advances Theory That Mentality : ' Is Dependent Upoii Health of Corpus Callosum. PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 28. A new theory of brain development baa been propounded by- Dr. Edward Anthony . Spltzka of Columbia university before the Arsociation of Anatomists at the University f Pennsylvania. It is, In effect, that the mentality is not depend-ent depend-ent on the relative proportion of white and pray matter so much as upon the ' health of the great bundle of fibers known as the corpus callosum. which connect the two rides of the brain. In announcing his theory. Dr. Spltzka exhibited the brains of more than a .dozen men who had been eminent in scl- ence, and In each case endeavored to show that they bore out his assertions. "The relative Importance of the white and gray matter to the brain la often 'misconstrued," he said. "Were It not for the manifold connections of the nerve cells in the cortex with each other, oth-er, as well as with the periphery by means of the millions and millions of fibers which make up the white matter, such brain would be as useless- as a multitude of telephone or telegraph stations sta-tions with all lnter-connecting wires destroyed. de-stroyed. ' "The corpus callosum is an index which places the brain of man so far over that of the brute. When this structure -is deficient or diseased It is Invariably attended by profound weak-mindedness weak-mindedness or total Idiocy. And the examination ex-amination of the brains of these notable men possessing large capacity for doing and thinking shows the converse to be Quite as true." '-. |