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tions directed against him, and how he was obliged to defend himself, and the complaints which were forced from him of the hatred which his discoveries had caused, and of the "calamitous state' to which they had reduced him.”

The same persecution was long the reward of Columbus, as Dr Fossati points out at some length, and also of: Harvey and of Jenner. For demonstrating the circulation of the blood, Harvey was cruelly persecuted both by the philosophers and medical men of his day, and after many honours, was at last disgraced by his own king, over whom the ignorance of his adversaries had greater influence than the merit of the illustrious discoverer. In the case of Jenner again, in our own day, not only the prejudices of the people warred against vaccination, but authors, magistrates, ministers of religion, and, what is still more remarkable, a very large proportion of medical men, declared themselves hostile to the discovery, and laboured with reckless animosity to extinguish its then feeble life.

But does any one now believe that those who denied the motion of the earth, those who denied the existence of another continent, those who denied the circulation of the blood, and those who arrayed themselves against vaccination, did so only after having studied the facts and the proofs upon which these great truths were established? Certainly not. We all know now, that they reasoned hastily from the knowledge they had previously acquired, and without taking the trouble to observe experiment, examine, or scrutinize by a sound logic, the new ideas which were laid before them; and that they preferred breaking out in diatribes, and redoubling in activity and hatred, not only against the principles, but also against the persons that wished to enlighten them. Such, in short, is human nature, and let them pause therefore who think themselves secure in rejecting the new philosophy on the notion that it must be false because it meets with opposition from the learned, and with disregard from the established teachers of youth.

Dr Gall's fate differed in no respect from that of the great men already alluded to. After he had advanced a considerable way in his discoveries, he held conferences at Vienna with his friends, and with men of learning, and submitted to them his observations and inferences. The Austrian government imposed silence on him, and did its best to strangle in its birth the new physiology of the brain. Circumstances led him to quit Vienna, and he then visited the north of Germany. Every where he astonished the savans and the public by the novelty and importance of his researches, and by the successful application of his principles in prisons, lunatic asylums, hospitals, and schools. At last he came to Paris, and, conjunctly with Dr Spurzheim, he demonstrated to the Institute the anatomy of the brain, and explained, in a memoir, his anatomical discoveries. The judgment passed upon them by this learned body, and the influence which the despot of the day exercised upon them, are well known. Almost every anatomical fact was denied, and they tried to show that the physiology was a deduction from the anatomy, and that it also must of course be false. The journalists adopted this decision, and gross pleasantries, absurdities, falsehoods, calumnies, and reproaches, were launched forth and spread from the centre of the civilized to the remotest regions of the scientific world. The founder of the new physiology, firm as the rooted oak, unshaken by the storm, was not disconcerted. He pursued his researches, and gave to the world his great work. He answered objections, added new facts, and completed the exposition of his principles. But man continued to act according to his nature, to judge without knowledge. The work remained unconsulted, and many physicians, philosophers, and men of genius, continued their ridicule and their pleasantries. They did not even stop here. They excited the femmes de la halle* against the person of Dr Gall; they prepared a masquerade to turn him

A kind of female porters at the public markets.

into ridicule, which, however, the prefect of police, M. le Comte Dubois, prohibited; and they attacked him by attempting to excite the authorities, by some of the charitable insinuations usual on such occasions, to remove him from Paris. Not being then naturalized in France, they sought to have him expelled, on the pretext of his being an alien.

Dr Fossati adds, in regard to the masquerade, that he is in possession of a plaster medal, which Dr Gall himself procured for him, representing the comic personages that were to have appeared in it. On the middle of the medal is engraved Marche comique du Docteur Gall. Our imperturbable philosopher, says Dr F., would have wished to amuse himself by seeing it performed; but the prefect pretended that it would be a disgrace to the nation.

The anathemas of the Academy of the Catholic Religion at Rome, in which Phrenology is condemned as "contrary "to the morality and precepts of the Catholic religion, and

as being based on the most absurd fatalism, and on the "erroneous doctrine of predestination," are next quoted, but need not be repeated. No reasonable mind can look back to the past history of the world, and continue to view the treatment of Gall as a proof of the erroneousness of his doctrines.

There is one illustration by analogy that struck us as a happy one. In a French journal in 1822, in speaking of the organ of Locality, which the critic calls the organ of travelling, he says, that "swallows and Captain Cook, cranes and "Christopher Columbus, &c. are equally remarkable for a "pretty little bump, which is half hidden in the frontal ❝ sinuses." Here there is an insinuation that it is impossible that the same cerebral organ determines man and animals to change place, or to travel. "But if I told you," says Dr Fossati, "that the same organ, the heart, causes the blood "of the swallow and that of Mr Canning to circulate; that "the same organ, the optic nerve, receives the impressions "of light in the eyes of a crane and of a Bolivar; and that "the same muscles the deer and the huntsman to

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"run, the surprise will immediately cease. It will be no "longer difficult to conceive the possibility of internal organs "of the same nature producing similar actions in different 66 species of animals.”

But I cannot conclude, continues our author, without drawing your attention to the fact, that, in spite of all the obstacles raised against it, Phrenology has ensured its triumph. It has triumphed in spite of the moderate means of its founder, and in spite of the war waged against it by philosophers and journalists. Dr Gall, alone and unaided, by the sole force of genius and perseverance, without the aid of any government, of any academy, or of any rich or powerful patron, has succeeded in securing the reception of his anatomical and physiological discoveries, and enjoys the satisfaction of seeing societies of intelligent men founded for the cultivation of his doctrines in the principal cities of Great Britain, America, and even in Asia. Not only at Edinburgh and at London, but also at Philadelphia and at Calcutta, do Phrenological Societies pursue their labours. The author then notices the Transactions of the Phrenological Society, the existence of our Journal, and concludes by quoting the rules of the London Phrenological Society, which he approves of, and supposes to be nearly the same in all other similar societies.

In a letter to Dr A. Combe, accompanying the pamphlet, the author, who is in constant and familiar intercourse with. Dr Gall, takes occasion to notice the feeling of respect and friendship which Dr Gall has for the Society, and the intention which he entertains of writing them, in regard to some of his views, and to the best means of forwarding the cause of truth. We shall be delighted to see this intention fulfilled, and we know that it would give infinite satisfaction to the Society.

ARTICLE VIII.

MORBID EXCITEMENT OF THE ORGAN OF NUMBER. BY DR ALDERSON OF HULL.

MASTER B., a very fine ingenuous youth, about fifteen, complained, on his return from school the last vacation, of an intense pain over the outer angle of each eye, darting obliquely through the eyeball to the root of the nose,there was not the slightest appearance of inflammation in any of the coats of the eye; his pulse full and hard, his manner highly excited, his tongue creamy, he was costive and chilly.

He had always shown a decided preference for figures, and was highly read in mathematics; but his father (himself eminent for the classics and mathematics, and a high wrangler,) was desirous that his son should persevere, and lay aside his mathematics, in order to perfect himself in classics before he went to Cambridge. To accomplish this wish of his parent, he bent the whole of his mind and faculties during the ses sion to this end, and at the vacation he returned with every demonstration of having done his utmost, to the entire satis faction of the master, for he had awarded him the prize for the first classic of the year; but, alas! this was not obtained without a high degree of morbid excitement in the brain, and that, too, precisely in the places I have already pointed at, as far at least as can be judged of by symptoms. I immediately forbade all application whatever to those studies to which he had hitherto addicted himself, and ordered employment in the trifling amusements of his young brothers; having put him under the most decided antiphlogistic treatment, he recovered in a few days, and was, to all appearance, perfectly himself again.

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In the course of a week I called upon him accidentally, when he declared himself perfectly well; but I detected him at his favourite pursuits; he had got a new publication on

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