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Reflex, Automatic, and Unconscious Cerebration: A History and a Criticism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

Thomas Laycock
Thomas Laycock*
Affiliation:
Queen for Scotland, and University of Edinburgh
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Extract

An Essay in the Journal of Mental Science for October, 1875, entitled, “Can Unconscious Cerebration be Proved ?” by Dr. Ireland, Superintendent of the Institution for the Education of Imbeciles at Larbert, ends thus:—“In any case the theory of ‘unconscious cerebration’ derives no support from physiology. It is a child of the old metaphysics, to be brought forward and repelled by the study and analysis of mental operations, cognisable by internal examination.”

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 21 , Issue 96 , January 1876 , pp. 477 - 498
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1876 

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References

Notes

∗ “Life and Letters of Faraday,” by Bence Jones, vol. ii., p. 304.Google Scholar

† On the Reflex Function of the Brain. Bead at York, before the Medical Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science on 28th September, 1844. With an Appendix.—British and Foreign Medical Be view, January, 1845, p. 298.Google Scholar

∗ This date refers to 1840, when my “Treatise on the Nervous Diseases of Women,” was published, in which there is a chapter (p. 105) headed, “The Instinctive Actions in Relation to Consciousness : the Brain snbjeot to the law of Reflex Action.”Google Scholar

∗ By T. Laycock, House-Surgeon to the York County Hospital: A Selection of Cases presenting Aggravated and Irregular Forms of Hysteria, with Analysis of their Phenomena. Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, Jan., 1888. Hysterical Ischuria, April, 1838. Hysterical Haemorrhages and Nervous Affections and part of Analysis, July, 1838. Analysis continued, October, 1838. Analytical Essay, July, 1839.Google Scholar

∗ “Brit, and For. Med. Rev;,” vol. xix. (Jan., 1845), p. 299, 800.Google Scholar

∗ I may properly remark here, as to this correspondence, that Forbes did not send the letters to me as being “private and confidential,” but in his public capacity as Editor of the “Brit, and For. Med. Beview,” in which my essay was to appear, and with the request that I should point out in what particulars my views differed from those of Dr. Carpenter, with a view to publication with the Essay. I wrote an addendum in compliance with this request, which now lies before me, but Forbes did not publish it.Google Scholar

∗ “Professor Müller conoeives the [motor] nerves tobe all spread ont at their oentral extremity to receive the influence of the will, and compares them, as they lie side by side, to the keys of a piano on which our thoughts play or strike. (Physiology, p. 686 of Dr. Baly's translation.) This seems to be a favourite idea, as it is repeated by the Professor.” —(My essay in Edin. Med. and Surg. Jour., July, 1889, p. 18.)Google Scholar

∗ Essay just quoted in Edin. Journal, p. 16, sect. 46, et seq., and my Treatise on the Nervous Diseases of Women (1840), in chapter x, p. 109, headed “The aotion of the Will and of Internal and External Stimuli on the Hemispherical Ganglia.”Google Scholar

† Journal of Mental Science, July, 1875, p. 158, 159.Google Scholar

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