Beyond the Temples of Science - continued...

Neuroglia as a Piano Damper

Schleich claims in his memoirs, that his original theory of the brain came to him suddenly on one of those evenings "around the year 1890" when the "ingenious pianist" Przybyszewski was caressing the keys of his very own Steinway (Schleich 1922, p. 167). In the flash of a second the new theory about the cellular-physiological bases of psychic phenomena crystallized in Schleich's brain. He depicted the decisive moment of creative brain discharge as follows:

Suddenly I jumped up. Stanislaus! I shouted. My dear friend! The neuroglia is a damper pedal! An electric sordine, an apparatus for switching registers, an inhibition regulator! Eureka! Heavens! And a zillion F sharp Majors! Brother, say it again. He has gone crazy. But it is a revelation! (Schleich 1922, p. 167)

Schleich regarded his own brain as the site for Przybyszewski's successful piano experiment: here, the "synthetic blending of two methods of association, the scientific method, which adds one subject to the next, and the modern method, which associates matters according to their emotional values," had yielded fruit, while Przybyszewski was "playing Chopin so thrillingly." As Schleich points out, "subjectively unconscious intuition coupled with the clear perception of the naturalist had produced new truths whereby science and art became intermingled" (Schleich 1922, p. 140).

Thus, Schleich's musical salon was transformed into an experimental laboratory where the theory of the autonomy of the neuron and the theory of inhibition and excitation in the brain were combined in the formula of the "electric sordine." In the system of nerve strings, the neuroglia functioned as piano dampers which, if removed from the nerve strings, allow the strings to oscillate and conduct excitation; or, if lowered to the strings, dampen their oscillation so that excitation is inhibited.