Freiburger historische Bestände - digital

162

Cunningham Memoirs.

by an unscrupulous editor.* Through this accidental circumstance the
name of "Rolando" has become associated with the fissure.

German observers, with the single exception of Pansch, apply to the
sulcus the term. " Centralfurche" a name which was introduced by Huschkaf
If this term be applied to it with the view of indicating its nearly central
position with reference to the frontal and occipital poles of the hemisphere
it must be admitted that it is singularly appropriate. But it was not with
this signification that it was used by Huschka. Following the views which
had been advanced by Leuret, he imagined that the fissure of Rolando
passed through the midst of the arching convolutions of the carnivore
brain, and separated them into an anterior and a posterior set. The term
fissura centralis was founded upon this erroneous conception of its homology,
and it was owing to this that Pansch^ so strenuously and properly objected
to its use.

II. General Description.—The most complete and at the same time
the most accurate description of the fissure of Rolando in the adult with
which I am acquainted is that which has recently been given by Dr. Oscar
Eberstaller of Graz.§

It is customary to describe the upper end of the fissure of Rolando as
falling short of the upper margin of the cerebral hemisphere ; but, as Eberstaller
has pointed out, this is not correct. In fifty-two hemispheres, taken
from children and adults, I found the following:—

(a) In 60 per cent, the upper end of the fissure cut the upper border

of the hemisphere, and appeared on the inner surface.

(b) In 21 per cent, it just reached the upper border, but did not show

upon the inner surface.

(c) In 19 per cent, it fell short of the upper border.

* Published in 1805 by Moreau (of Sarthe).
| Schadel, Hirn und Seele, p. 134, Jena, 1854.

J Die Furchen und "Wulste am Grosshirn des Menschen, Berlin, 1879 : also, " Benierkungen
iiber die Faltungen des Grosshirns, &c.;" Archiv f. Psychiatrie, Band viii., p. 244, Berlin, 1878.
| Da'i Stirnhirn. Wien und Leipzig, 1890.