A NEW NATURALIST THEORY OF "MAN-MACHINE"

But Descartes' "animal spirits" are replaced by electricity and chemistry.

From our private correspondent

London, July 20. "Is man simply an electric machine driven by the chemicals within him?" »

This surprising question, which did not fail to astonish the delegates attending the international congress of the Society of Surgery, now sitting in London, was put to the learned assembly by Professor Crile, of Cleveland (Ohio).

Since the war, the name of this American surgeon with somewhat disconcerting theories has been famous in medical circles in both worlds. In several countries, his intervention method “without operative shock” has been generally adopted. Today, however, he has left surgery aside to talk about physiology.

He asked the audience captivated by the interest of the subject to consider the brain as the "positive pole" of the human electrical machine. He compared the nerves “to the conducting wires” and the liver to the “negative pole”.

Also according to Professor, the "driving force" of man depends on the difference in potential between the brain and the liver. If this decreases, the driving force is reduced in proportion.

Developing his theory, the professor then declared that the actions of the human machine can certainly be regulated at will, either by means of chemicals, anesthetics, soporifics, stimulants, or by "shocks": fear, insult, etc. These emotions and these drugs act as stimulants on the human machine ; they play the role played by levers in ordinary mechanics.