Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 - Sexual Selection In Man by Havelock Ellis
page 71 of 399 (17%)
page 71 of 399 (17%)
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in the _Carnivora_ and _Ungulata_) dwindling, which is equally
shared by the human brain, in common with those of the other _Simiidæ_, the _Cercopithecidæ_, and the _Cebidæ_. But all the parts of the rhinencephalon, which are so distinct in macrosmatic mammals, can also be recognized in the human brain. The small ellipsoidal olfactory bulb is moored, so to speak, on the cribriform plate of the ethmoid bone by the olfactory nerves; so that, as the place of attachment of the olfactory peduncle to the expanding cerebral hemisphere becomes removed (as a result of the forward extension of the hemisphere) progressively farther and farther backward, the peduncle becomes greatly stretched and elongated. And, as this stretching involves the gray matter without lessening the number of nerve-fibres in the olfactory tract, the peduncle becomes practically what it is usually called--i.e., the olfactory 'tract.' The tuberculum olfactorium becomes greatly reduced and at the same time flattened; so that it is not easy to draw a line of demarcation between it and the anterior perforated space. The anterior rhinal fissure, which is present in the early human foetus, vanishes (almost, if not altogether) in the adult. Part of the posterior rhinal fissure is always present in the 'incisura temporalis,' and sometimes, especially in some of the non-European races, the whole of the posterior rhinal fissure is retained in that typical form which we find in the anthropoid apes." (G. Elliot Smith, in _Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Physiological Series of Comparative Anatomy Contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England_, second edition, vol. ii.) A full statement of Elliot Smith's investigations, with diagrams, is given by Bullen, _Journal of Mental Science_, July, 1899. It may be added that the whole subject of the olfactory centres has |
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