The Temperature of the Brain

Abstract

THE Croonian Lecture was delivered this year by Prof. Angelo Mosso, Professor of Physiology in the University of Turin. His subject was the temperature of the brain, especially in relation to psychical activity. Prof. Mosso's earlier investigations on the human brain only related to the blood circulation.1 He then found that the blood pressure rises during psychical work, and that during such more blood is sent from the peripheral parts of the body. Prof. Mosso also found that the blood circulation in the brain showed fluctuations which are not dependent on psychical activity. These and other variations in the brain circulation led him to suspect that Dr. Schiff's theory about brain temperature as introduced into physiology required revision. In a published work on fatigue,2 Prof. Mosso gave his views on the influence of psychical work on the organism, especially on the muscular force. We do not yet know what form of phenomena subserves the first condition of thought. Fatigue caused by psychical activity acts as a poison, which affects all organs, but especially the muscular system. This is clearly demonstrated by Prof. Mosso's investigations on men who have been subjected to great mental strain. The blood of dogs, fatigued by long racing, acts as a poison, and when injected into other dogs they exhibit all the symptoms of fatigue. The characteristic phenomena of fatigue depend more on nerve-cell products than on a deficiency of suitable material.