Article February 20, 1902 Issue

The Seat of the Intellect

with contributions from Liddon

Birmingham Ledger

A man in a hospital in New York last week had a portion of his brain taken out entirely and he has recovered consciousness and will get well. The surgeons of to-day have cut away the stomach and men live without them; they have cut away one kidney and men live without it, and now they have cut away the brain and men live without them. We begin to wonder what is really essential to man; that the brain is the seat of the intellect is the commonly accepted theory, but if parts of it be taken away and the mind remains perfect, we get apprehensive that we have misplaced the mind.

It may be possible, after all, that the mind is like the soul, without an exact seat in the body. It may be that it acts through the brain nerves and blood vessels, but it is not certain that we think with the brain any more than we think with the hand, or the foot, or the heart.

Many a well-rooted belief has been torn up by the discoveries of modern science, and the brain theories may have to be reformed. Certainly if a part of the brain can be amputated without impairing the intellect, there will have to be a new theory of brain uses.—Birmingham Ledger.

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