Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/536

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

differentiating any special region related to this faculty, but that it is in close relation with the olfactory center is probable from the facts described. It was noted in connection with electrical irritation of the lower extremity of the temporo-sphenoidal convolutions in the monkey, and of the same region in the brain of the cat, that movements of the lips, tongue, cheek-pouches, and jaws were occasionally induced—phenomena which might be regarded as indications of the excitation of gustatory sensation. This interpretation receives support from the above-described results of destructive lesions; and we have, therefore, reasonable grounds for concluding that the gustatory centers are situated at the lower extremity of the temporo-sphenoidal lobes, in close relation with those of smell."

Page 431: "The physiological needs of the organism, in so far as they induce locally discriminable sensations, express themselves subjectively as definite appetites or desires, which are the conscious correlations of physiological wants. The appetite of hunger is the desire to satisfy or remove a local sensation, referable to the stomach, in which the physiological needs of the stomach express themselves. The substrata of the feeling of hunger and appetite for food are the stomachic branches of the vagus and their cerebral centers; and, as local conditions of the stomach may destroy or increase the feeling of hunger, so central disease may give rise to ravenous appetite or sitophobia, conditions exemplified in certain forms of insanity."

Ferrier thus proves the tip of the lower temporal convolutions to be the "gustatory center"; and even Hitzig, who is not always flattering to Prof. Ferrier, delights in noting this discovery. Yet I will show you immediately that this center—of which we are most certain—was known and correctly localized in the same portion of brain by the early phrenologists.

Many men claimed the discovery of the organ called "gustativeness," or "alimentiveness," but the editors of the Edinburgh Phrenological Journal, vol. x, page 249, give Dr. Hoppe, of Copenhagen, the credit of having been the first and most acute observer.

"In December, 1823, he expresses the opinion that, besides the nerves of the stomach and palate, of which alone he conceives the sensations of hunger and thirst to be affections, there must be also an organ in the brain of animals for the instinct of nutrition for the preservation of life, which incites us to the sensual enjoyments of the palate, and the activity of which is independent of hunger and thirst."

In a second communication to the same journal, dated 28th December, 1824, he says:

"Regarding the organ for taking nourishment, I have been led