Zoonomia, Vol. I | Page 5

The word sensorium in the following pages is designed to express not only the medullary part of the brain, spinal marrow, nerves, organs of sense, and of the muscles; but also at the same time that living principle, or spirit of animation, which resides throughout the body, without being cognizable to our senses, except by its effects. The changes which occasionally take place in the sensorium, as during the exertions of volition, or the sensations of pleasure or pain, are termed sensorial motions.
2. The similarity of the texture of the brain to that of the pancreas, and some other glands of the body, has induced the inquirers into this subject to believe, that a fluid, perhaps much more subtile than the electric aura, is separated from the blood by that organ for the purposes of motion and sensation. When we recollect, that the electric fluid itself is actually accumulated and given out voluntarily by the torpedo and the gymnotus electricus, that an electric shock will frequently stimulate into motion a paralytic limb, and lastly that it needs no perceptible tubes to convey it, this opinion seems not without probability; and the singular figure of the brain and nervous system seems well adapted to distribute it over every part of the body.
For the medullary substance of the brain not only occupies the cavities of the head and spine, but passes along the innumerable ramifications of the nerves to the various muscles and organs of sense. In these it lays aside its coverings, and is intermixed with the slender fibres, which constitute those muscles and organs of sense. Thus all these distant ramifications of the sensorium are united at one of their extremities, that is, in the head and spine; and thus these central parts of the sensorium constitute a communication between all the organs of sense and muscles.
3. A nerve is a continuation of the medullary substance of the brain from the head or spine towards the other parts of the body, wrapped in its proper membrane.
4. The muscular fibres are moving organs intermixed with that medullary substance, which is continued along the nerves, as mentioned above. They are indued with the power of contraction, and are again elongated either by antagonist muscles, by circulating fluids, or by elastic ligaments. So the muscles on one side of the forearm bend the fingers by means of their tendons, and those on the other side of the fore-arm extend them again. The arteries are distended by the circulating blood; and in the necks of quadrupeds there is a strong elastic ligament, which assists the muscles, which elevate the head, to keep it in its horizontal position, and to raise it after it has been depressed.
5. The immediate organs of sense consist in like manner of moving fibres enveloped in the medullary substance above mentioned; and are erroneously supposed to be simply an expansion of the nervous medulla, as the retina of the eye, and the rete mucosum of the skin, which are the immediate organs of vision, and of touch. Hence when we speak of the contractions of the fibrous parts of the body, we shall mean both the contractions of the muscles, and those of the immediate organs of sense. These fibrous motions are thus distinguished from the sensorial motions above mentioned.
6. The external organs of sense are the coverings of the immediate organs of sense, and are mechanically adapted for the reception or transmission of peculiar bodies, or of their qualities, as the cornea and humours of the eye, the tympanum of the ear, the cuticle of the finders and tongue.
7. The word idea has various meanings in the writers of metaphysic: it is here used simply for those notions of external things, which our organs of sense bring us acquainted with originally; and is defined a contraction, or motion, or configuration, of the fibres, which constitute the immediate organ of sense; which will be explained at large in another part of the work. Synonymous with the word idea, we shall sometimes use the words sensual motion in contradistinction to muscular motion.
8. The word perception includes both the action of the organ of sense in consequence of the impact of external objects, and our attention to that action; that is, it expresses both the motion of the organ of sense, or idea, and the pain or pleasure that succeeds or accompanies it.
9. The pleasure or pain which necessarily accompanies all those perceptions or ideas which we attend to, either gradually subsides, or is succeeded by other fibrous motions. In the latter case it is termed sensation, as explained in Sect. V. 2, and VI. 2.--The reader is intreated to keep this in his mind, that through all this treatise the word sensation is used to express pleasure or pain only in