ABSTRACT
Myrtle B. McGraw was one of the first who emphasized the value of the "natural experiment": observation of normal development in normal in fants and children, instead of experiments with specifically lesioned animals. Specific ablations in animals led to insight in various brain mechanisms, especially with regard to what were considered to be basic reflexes and reactions for postural activity. The apparent presence of such primitive reflexes and reactions labelled the newborn baby and the young infant as primitive or sick adults. A conception considers the infant as a primitive adult and development as a kind of recovery of disease. The infant avails of a nervous system, that is both morphologically and functionally age adequate. Asymmetric tonic neck reflexes stereotyped grasp reflexes, which resemble adult "forced grasping", or a stereotyped tonic dorsiflexion of the big toe with fanning of the other toes may occur.
