Word: hind
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...scientist can look at a cat, but few have looked with the spectacular results described in Science last week by Drs. Sam Lillard Clark and James W. Ward of Vanderbilt University. Their look threw much needed light on the relations of the cat's hind brain to the rest of its body. The front part of the brain (cerebrum) governs intelligence and will power. The rear part (cerebellum) governs action. In that region of a cat's brain the experimenters drilled several small holes into which they screwed small steel tubes. This arrangement allowed them to touch...
...minute 50 seconds after the stimulus the cat turned its head to the right and the right forefoot began lifting and appeared hypersensitive. After a short while this foot was replaced and the cat remained inactive until four and a half minutes after the stimulus, when the left hind limb began lifting and was held up. ... At five minutes 15 seconds the right hind limb began lifting...
...cerebellum, the cat performed the same movements in the opposite direction starting with the right fore limb. Whenever they touch the midline of the cerebellum, "both fore limbs are involved at once and the cat may sit on its haunches with both fore limbs in the air; then both hind limbs become affected...
...significance of these experiments was that stimulation to any spot in a cat's hind brain radiates to other control spots in the hind brain, since in every cat which Drs. Clark & Ward trepanned, the single stimulus set off an unvarying sequence of all the cat's actions. This suggested what every notable physiologist has hoped to prove-that there is a particular spot in the hind brain for the control of every muscle in the body...
...next cat experiment of Drs. Clark & Ward was even more exciting; gave more specific support to this classic but never entirely proved theory. They removed half of their cat's hind brain thus preventing radiation of stimuli, and touched the sound half with an electric current. This time the cat slowly raised only the foreleg on the stimulated side, slowly put it down. Patient Drs. Clark & Ward are seeking other motor centres...