Author: Fernand Lagrange

Publisher: Theclassics.Us

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 9781230371139

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI. AUTOMATISM IN EXERCISE. Movements Performed without the Intervention of the BrainDecapitated Animals--A Curious Spectacle Invented by the Emperor Commodus--Organs which Perform their Functions Automatically--Unconscious Movements--Office of the Spinal Cord--Conditions of Automatism in Exercise--Influence of Rhythm; Movements with a Cadence--Dancing Tunes--Influence of Apprenticeship--Necessity for Absence of Effort in Automatic Movements--Regularity of Automatic Actions--A Personal Observation: Automatism in Rowing--Persistence of Automatic Actions--" Memory" of the Spinal Cord--How Different Paces are Created--Tenacity of Early Muscular Habits--Quickness in Fencing--Race Horses Trained too Slowly--Effects of Automatism in Exercise--Economy of Voluntary Nervous Energy--The Brain supplemented by the Spinal Cord--Repose of the Psychical Faculties--Superiority of Automatic Exercises in Cases of Cerebral Fatigue. We have tried to show in the preceding chapter how the brain and the psychical faculties can play an important part in bodily exercises. It remains for us to show here that muscular work may sometimes, on the contrary, be performed independently of the brain and without the intervention of the will. We must first recall the fact that the brain is not indispensable to the performance of certain movements. The spinal cord suffices in certain cases to throw the muscles into action, for it is a nerve-centre, and consequently a focus of independent motor activity. But the movements due to the unaided action of the spinal cord have a peculiar character: they are involuntary. The will in fact has a direct action only on the cells of the brain, and cannot influence the independent activity of the spinal cord. This latter is only...