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REPORT OF THE QUADRENNIAL MEETING LISBON, PORTUGAL, SEPTEMBER 7–12, 1953:REPORT OF THE SCIENTIFIC SESSION
Author(s) -
Ledeboer Dr. B. Ch.
Publication year - 1937
Publication title -
epilepsia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.687
H-Index - 191
eISSN - 1528-1167
pISSN - 0013-9580
DOI - 10.1111/j.1528-1157.1937.tb05579.x
Subject(s) - mistake , consciousness , psychology , feeling , argument (complex analysis) , cognitive psychology , cognitive science , psychoanalysis , epistemology , neuroscience , medicine , philosophy , social psychology , law , political science
It is asserted by some that the cerebrum is the organ of mind, and that it is not a motor organ. Some think the cerebrum is to be likened lo an instrumentalist. and the motor centres to the instrument; one part is for ideas, and the other for movements. It may then be asked, How can discharge of part of a mental organ produce motor symptoms only? I say motor symptoms only, because, to give sharpness to the argument, I will suppose a case in which there is unilateral spasm without loss of consciousness. But of what “substance” can the organ of mind be composed, unless of processes representing movements and impressions: and how can the convolutions differ from the inferior centres, except as parts representing more intricate co‐ordinations of impressions and movements in time and space than they do? Are we to believe that the hemisphere is built on a plan fundamentally different from that of the motor tract? What can an “idea,” say of a ball, be, except a process representing certain impressions of surface and particular muscular adjustments? What is recollection, but a revivification of such processes which, in the past, have become part of the organism itself? What is delirium, except the disorderly revival of sensori‐motor processes received in the past? What is a mistake in a word, but a wrong movement, a chorea? Giddiness can be but the temporary loss or disorder of certain relations in space, chiefly made up of muscular feelings. Surely the conclusion is irresistible, that “mental” symptoms from disease of the hemisphere are fundamentally like hemiplegia, chorea, and convulsions, however specially different. They must all be due to lack, or to disorderly development, or sensori‐motor processes.