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Show 282 ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE VER'l'EBRATE ~1\ULI.J. epi· th et of "·1 nsp·u e d I'd 1'o t," applied to our own Gol.d smith: so strange is the mixture of insight and know~ed~e ;vit~ wh~t, t?, 1 'on 1my appre 1ens1 , 's me1·e " sound and fury, s1gn1fying nothing. B t th " Programm " contains far more of the former and lesus of eth e latter ingredient than is usually not1· 0ea ble I· n Oke n's lucubrations, and it appears to me to be, at the present. mmnent, b far the best specimen extant of the style of speculatiOn about t~e skull characteristic of the school which Oken originated. Indeed, if' for the term "cranial verte b rre, " "crani.a l .s~gmen t s " be substituted, I do not know that the plan of compositiOn of the osseous brain-case can be better described than in the langu age which I shall now quote.* The" ProD"ra~m" opens thus:- "A vesicl: ossifies, and it is a vertebra. A vesicle elongates into a tube, becon1es jointed, ossifies, and it is a vertebral column. The tube gives off (according to laws) blind lateral canals; they ossify, and it is a trunk skeleton. This skeleton repeats itself at the two poles, each pole repeats itself in the other, and they are head and pelvis. The skeleton is only a developed (aufgewachsenes), ramified, repeated, vertebra ; and a vertebra is the preformed germ of the skeleton. The entire man is only a vertebra. "I. "Take a lamb's skull, separate from it those bones which are considered to be facial, and those bones of the cerebral capsule which take no share in the base, such as the frontal bones, the pa~ietal bones, the ethmoid and the temporal .bone~ and there remains a bony column, which every anatomist will at once recognise to be three bodies of some sort of vertebrm, with their lateral processes and foramina. Replace the bones of the cerebral capsule, with the exception of the temporal bones (for the cavity is closed without these), and you have a vertob~al column, which is distinguished from the true one only by Its expanded spinal canal. As the brain is tho spinal marrow more voluminously developed [in relation J to more powerful organs, so the brain-case is a more voluminous spinal column. * "Ueber die Bedeutung der Schiidelknochon. Ein Programm bcim Antritt <lor Profossur an der Gcsommt-Universitat bei Jena." Von Dr. Okcn. J cua. 1807. THE THEORY OF '!'HE VERTEBRATE SKULL. 283 "If there are three vertebral bodies in the brain-case, there must be as many vertebral arches. These are to be sought out and demonstrated. . " You see the sphenoid separated into two vertebroo : through the first one ~ass the optic nerves, through the hinder the nerves of the Jaws (par trigerninum). I term the former the Eye vertebra,. the latter the Jaw vertebra. Against this last abuts the basilar process of the occipital bone with the rpetrous bone. The two form one whole. As the optic nerve traverses the Eye _vertebra, and the jaw nerve the Jaw vertebra so the hindermos.t vertebra is related to the auditory nerve. I therefore term It the Ear vertebra. Again, tl1is is the first cephalic vertebra; the precedent, the second; and the eye vertebra, the third. "It has given me unspeakable trouble to make out whether the petrous bone belongs to the first or to the second cephalic vertebra. Before I had taken into account the relations of the nerves, vessels, and muscles, my decision was based only upon the structure of the skulls of Birds, IJizards, and Chelonia; but now I have fortified it by a multitude of concurrent arau-ments, of which I will state only a few in this place. 5 "You will have observed, in fact, that each of the two anterior ~ertebroo has appropriated a sense. (As the jaws end in the hps, I reckon them also among the [organs of] sense, and I ~hall demonstrate that they are so, and how they are so.) Now, If the petrous bones belonged to the jaw vertebra, one vertebra would give off nerves to the sensory organs, while the first vertebra would be sent empty away. Trne, it transmits nerves to the tongue, but these are variable ; and it will Le shown in the sequel that neither tongue nor nose have, or can have, a proper vertebra. Lastly, in Lizards, the auditory apparatus lies distinctly in the occipital bone. " The cephalic vertebroo are, therefore, sensory vertebrte, and only exist in correspondence with the [cephalic J senses. ('rhe tongue and the nose are trunk senses, of which presently.) Vertebral divisions and eephalic sensory nerves go parallel with one another. Bones are the earthly, hardened nervous s~stem ; nerves are . the spiritual, soft, osseous system-cont2nens and contentum. |
