Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-07-01

Donaldson has already discovered that
where body weights are similar the
spinal cord in woman is heavier than
in the man.
This to The lavman is most interest
ing news Grediting woman with
many virtues and attributes. man has
never been willing To believe that her
backbone was worth while. In tie
presence OF the scientific fact he must
reverse his opinion.
BY independent Investigations ex-
tending over period of years, Prof.
Donaldson has also shown that the
weights of brains according to sex, as
given by a French colleague, are so
related that when the body weight OF
the female corresponds to that of the
male approximately the same brain
weight Is found as in the male.
So, at n time when women are play
ing the.:' part in many new fields and
making n larger impression that ever
before we nov ilnow that there's a
reason.
The central nervous system of wo-
man weighs as much as mans if the
scales show her to be his equal in
weight.
Comparing-the actual brain func-
tions of the sexes, no less distinguish
ed physician than Sir James erich
ton-Browne. vice president of the Roy
al Institution, London, asserts as a re-
salt of his long professional investiga-
ton that the posterior region OF wo-
mans brain receives a richer flow of
blood direct from the heart than does
mans. and that as consequence wo-
men have more delicate powers of
physical emotion and greater rapidity
of thought.
Remanes, an observer known to
fame in his day. had shown by expert
ments that women could read faster
than men, whereas men had more de-
eision OF character. Sir James now
tells why.
He credits man with stronger will,
calmer Judgment and greater original
ity, and says ii is due to the richer
flow Of arterial blood to the anterior
section of the brain.
Our own Dr. Charles l.. Dana, known
around the world through his text
books on diseases of the brain none
the less than for his professional work
in hispital and clinic. popularized the
subject, to women at least. when he
was credited with saying: women
have better brains than men Their
brains are better nourished Why this
is so l do not know. except that God
made it So
Except for the whale. the elephant
and the porpoise, no living thing has
brain which weighs as much as the
minimum of the humans. In the en-
tire human nervous system, according
to the estimates of Prof. Donaldson,
there is the astounding total of II .2o0,-
000,Uo0 nerve cells. In the study of
these cells and their grouped relation
to the five divisions of the brain as
well as to the functions which they
perform, several classes of scientific
investigators are engaged.
DIR. Max Baff, fellow of psychology
at Clark University, working in con-
junction with others, is seeking to per-
feet a oto-magnifying instrument
which will give in continuous film X
ray pictures of the living human brain
cells.
It may seem wildly extravagant, but
II isSthe hope of DR.. Baff that with
such an instrument completed so that
each of IFS parts will work in harmony
with the others there is a possibility
of observing the brain cells under diff
ferent conditions and arriving, a little
closer to definite knowledge of the
processes OF thought
Serious man that he is, DR.. Baff, rec
ognizing that the great unscientific
world which lives and moves and goes
about its own everyday affairs is in
terested in the brain common to us all
says in simple phrasing: s.Such an
apparatus will make it possible to tell
whether a man is sane or insane.
whether he is a criminal or an limo
cent man, whether he is contemplating
fraud or crime, and, in short, will re-
veal all the more or less hidden oper-
ations of the mind.
1T will aid us in solving some of the
thoughts that are forming in the minds
OF lovers. A young woman may then
be able to have her brain photograph
ed, and the pictures when thrown upon
a screen will enable her fond admirer,
with the aid of scientific chart, to
disclose the condition of her mind III
relation TO his love affairs
DIR. Smith Ely Jelliffe, widely recog
nized for his studies of the diseased
mind, recently told the Society of Jur-
isprudence at the Academy of Medi-
cine in New York that most of the
forms of insanity which until recently
were known generally as paranoia
could be classified with exactness as
independent mental diseases.
Thus while the biologists are working
on the brain after death and others are
studying the normal living brain, still