The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-10-10

years he kept a record of all that he
saw, felt and did. He had a book in
which he recorded four times each day
just what the climate and other condl-
lions about him were. In another col
umn he put down his physical condi-
ton, stating just how he felt, measur-
ing just how much he ate, and, in
short. all that he did that would affect
his physical state In the third col
umn he recorded his mental conditions.
At the end of two years he went over
the record and generalized it. He
found that under certain conditions his
brain was more active than under oth-
erS, that he could write better at such
times and that his inventive faculties
were more active. After this he work
ed only under such conditions, and
found that ne could produce twelve
times as good results as. before, He
soon began to see that his work was
getting better and better, and later on
began a systematic study Of brain de-
Veiopment One of his first experiments
was as to the building the brain OF
dog. Said he: ~ wanted to see what
effect mental activity has upon the
brain, and it struck me, If | could
take certain number Of puppies and
keep them from their birth in absolute
darkness, and at the same time take
another set which should be trained in
seeing ard have plenty of light, that
upon comparing the brains of the two
| could tell whether the use Of the see
ing power had changed them. This [
did. | took seven shepherd puppies and
kept them in a room until they were
nine months old. the room was COM
pletely dark 1t had triple doors, so
that the mother could so in and out
without allowing the light to enter the
room. When the front door was open,
and the mother was let in, the doors
were closed behind it, and she was al
lowed to remain there some minutes.
Then the second door was opened and
she was kept there few minutes, and
then allowed to go into the room Where
her children were kept the puppies
there for nine months without light,
and then killed them by the use of
chIoroform L took out their brains,
eyes and spinal chords, and put them
aside for microscopic and chemical eX-
animation. At the same time / had
another group Of puppies which L al
lowed to lead the life Of the ordinary
deg, giving them no special attention
l chloroformed them when they were
nine months old. and preserved their
brains for examination. In addition to
these two 1 had third group of the
same kind of puppies which l put
through a course of training in seeing
I had one of the rooms of my labora-
tory covered with squares OF metal,
each square being insulated from the
other. To some of the squares l at
tached an electric battery and arrang-
ed them so that the moment a dog
touched one of them he would receive
shock.
"These squares had one color. The
other squares, which were not affected
by the electricity had another color.
I soon taught the dogs TO discriminate
between the squares by the colors, and
in this way actually taught them to
know colors. For instance, I had one
pan or pen, the bottom of which was
covered with tin painted white. Around
this I ran a black border of metal,
which was connected with the battery.
After a few days you could not get
the dogs to touch that border or any
thing black, but you might lay a white
strip across the black, and they would
walk over it. I also taught them col
ors by feeding them, placing the meat
under pans of certain color, scat
tered about among pans Of other col
ors. All of the pans were rubbed with
meat first to prevent the dogs from
picking out those with the meat under
them by the sense of smell. The dogs
would go to the right colored pans ey-
cry time After a while l changed the
meats to Qlnerent cOloreQ pans on oil
ferent mornings. The dogs soon
learned to recognize the change, and
there was one of the dogs who would
turn over all the pans until he came
to the first one having meat in it, and
after that he Wuld turn over only pans
of that color The dogs, in fact,
learned to surpass many Of our artists
in their discrimination of colors. They
could distinguish seven shades Of red
and about eight of green. Well, at the
end of nine months killed this set of
dogs, and then compared the brains
Of the three sets. 1 found that the
dogs who had been kept in darkness
had no brain cells in the seeing areas
Of their brains. The dogs who had
been allowed to run about had we'll
developed brain cells, just as you will
find in the ordinary dog of that age.
But I also found that my trained pup
pies had much greater number of
such cells, and that their cells We're
more highly developed. I found, in
short, that by educating the dogs 1
had added to their brains. TIED the
same thing on other dogs as to hearing
and also as to the training OF the mus
cles by making the dogs produce GER
tain leg motions, and found that this
produced similar results on the brain
I practiced similar experiments on
monkeys and rabbits as to colors, and