Go to 1997 ISHN/ECHN Meeting Program
M.J. Al-Aloucy
Hôpital Victor Hugo, Pierrefitte, France
In traditional sacred texts diseases are usually considered to originate from Evil or from the Devil; healing from the Good or from God. Miraculous cures illustrate the superior power of Good over Evil. Many neurological problems were addressed in some sacred texts such as paralysis, muscular weakness, sciatica, headache and epilepsy. The description of these diseases and their often complex symptoms is rich and varied and non-pharmacological treatments are sometimes proposed. The author studied the clinical picture and the therapeutic advice given for neurological diseases as presented in the Holy Books of three religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
In 1910 Emil Kraepelin gave the name "Alzheimer's disease" to the presenile dementia described for the first time by his friend Alzheimer, and gradually the term of Alzheimer's disease or dementia of Alzheimer-type, came to be used by the majority of authors to describe all forms of progressive dementia. From Periclès and Socrates, to Shakespeare and Baudelaire, various poets, philosophers, prophets, and doctors have all tried to understand progressive dementia. Senile atrophy of the brain was noted in 1st century BC and sclerotic plaques in the brain of demented elderly patients have been described many years before the description of Alzheimer. We study the clinical and the pathological portrait of dementia during the period preceding Alzheimer's description.
D.S. Antohe, P. Bordei, and H. Varlam
Iasi, Romania
In Romania, as well as in other European countries, sciences concerning the nervous system were not considered a distinct chapter, being practiced and taught by general medicine. Witnesses about the preoccupation on the nervous diseases were found in many writings of the Middle Age. The development of the anatomy and physiology in Europe reflects also at the courts of the Romanian princes where the first real medical schools developed. In a manuscript of 8 "books" from 1760 the pathology of the brain (headaches, epilepsy, loss of conscience) is considered at large. In the first textbook of anatomy and physiology in Romanian language (1830), the description of the nervous system and its functions is comparable with other European writings in the same field. In fact, editions from the Fabrica of Vesalius (1555, Basel and 1568, Venice) are also found in libraries of Romania. Medical teaching, including anatomy, physiology, and pathology of the nervous system, develops in the same time with the appearance of the first hospitals, around churches, in the beginning of the 18th century. After the formation of the Romanian Principates, in 1859, and the foundation of the first universities in Iåi and Bucharest, the modern era of the medical teaching in Romania begins. The scientific activity is confirmed by a lot of textbooks, articles, conferences of Romanian doctors and professors, such as Gh. Marinescu, C.I. Parhon, formed especially at the universities from France and Italy.
Geneviève Aubert and Christian Laterre
Department of Neurology, Université Catholique de Louvain, Bruxelles, Belgium
This paper will analyse the remarkable relationship between neurosciences and nascent photography and cinematography. This reflection was spurred by our work on Arthur Van Gehuchten (1861-1914), Belgian neuroanatomist and neurologist who was one of the pioneers of medical cinematography. He used cinematography and photography widely in order to illustrate his lectures, papers and his textbook of neurology. His nitrate films and photographic plates are at the present time being restored, catalogued and studied. In order to place his contribution in a broader scope, we have looked at what had been done before him. Neuroscientists have played a major role in the development of medical photography and cinematography and in the use of these techniques for clinical, research or didactic purposes. In 1862 Duchenne published Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine, the first book with physiological experiments illustrated by photographs. This work had a considerable impact on neurology, psychology and the study of fine arts. Charcot and his co-workers attached great importance to photography in their daily practice. In 1870 Bourneville co-edited the Revue photographique des hôpitaux de Paris, the first medical journal with photographs, followed by the Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière. La Salpêtrière was equipped with a clinical photographic laboratory and Albert Londe, a photographer, was attached to the neurological department. In 1893 he published the first book on medical photography. The study of animal and human movement by Muybridge and Marey in the eighties led to chronophotography and later cinematography. Clinicians like Dercum, Richer, Marinesco and Jendrassik took advantage of these new techniques to study pathological movement and gait in neurological diseases.
Harm Beukers
University of Leiden, The Netherlands
One of the brightest lights of Leiden University in the seventeenth century was Franciscus dele Boë, better known as Sylvius (1614 - 1672). Industrious as anatomist, experimentator and teacher (particularly bedside teaching in the Caecilia Hospital), he was fertile in original ideas. He put forward a doctrine that grew to the prominence of the iatrochemistry. Fundamental aspect was the effervescence, the chemical reaction between acid and alkali. In the neurological sciences Sylvius is still well known as anatomist who gave his name to different structures in the brain. For his contemporaries he was famous for the chemical interpretation of physiological processes. He considered for instance the animal spirit, essential for the activity of the nervous system, as the simplest and purest body fluid, comparable to wine spirit. Nervous diseases were, in his opinion, disorders of the animal spirit usually caused by acid, volatile spirits.
Cornelius Borck
Institute for Science and Technology Studies, University of Bielefeld, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany
Carl Westphal, the successor of Wilhelm Griesinger as head of the clinic for nervous diseases of the Charité and the first professor of psychiatry in Prussia at the Humboldt University Berlin, pioneered animal research on epileptology in Germany. He was one of the first describers of the knee-jerk in 1875, together with, but independently of the well known Wilhelm Erb. Other contributions to neuropsychiatry are for example his description of 'agoraphobia' or his work on syphilis. Nowadays, most of his work is nearly forgotten; last not least Westphal's early death in 1889 prevented him from more contributions. In retrospect, Westphal's animal research on epileptology is especially surprising. He devoted more than a decade of his academic life to epilepsy research, concentrating on guinea pigs and working within the framework of the reflex concept of epilepsy. Westphal followed Brown-Séquard's studies on the spinal origin of seizures, and there is some evidence that he initially wanted to disprove such a concept. He used triggering mechanisms instead of lesions (Brown-Séquard's method) to kindle seizures. He started with knocking on the animal's forehead with a little hammer, which resulted in fits immediately. A few weeks after the initial experiment, he could trigger similar convulsions just by touching a sensible zone of the skin of his 'trained' guinea pigs. With these experiments Westphal thought to prove the reflex concept of epilepsy. Anatomical studies of his animals showed him the medulla oblongata to be the affected center, confirming the idea of seizure generation in the medulla oblongata. The medulla oblongata as center for the most vital reflexes also controled seizures. It is this theoretical background where Westphal's work lines up with Schröder van der Kolk's, although it is not clear to what extend the latter influenced Westphal's studies in Berlin. However, these studies show how widely the reflex concept of epileptology had spread over Europe and how it could claim to be in line with experimental work.
Maurice Boucher
Lyons, France
At the end of the 16th century, following the controversy generated by Galen's theories, a new era was to begin in which Boerhaave's role was essential. Heir to the great names of the previous century (Heurnius), Boerhaave will be at the origin of important changes in medical teaching and practice: medical observation, clinical medicine and the creation of chairs of medicine. In this perspective, in France, JL Petit described crepitus, an of bone fracture expressed as a pain felt by the patient. Doctors, aware of this new manner of thinking based on anatomy, physiology and fundamental sciences, were to be the sculptors of this new method: listening, palpating, auscultating to examine the patient. Desault created in Paris one of the first chairs of clinical surgery, Dubois de Rochefort, a chair of clinical medicine. Pinel, Bichat, Cabanis, Corvisart were to follow, in particular, Dr Borden who published in Diderot's and D'Alembert's Encyclopedia, insisting on the role of clinical examination of the patient. He described the for which he showed its diagnostic value heralding the end of an illness and also its prognostic value; the number of crises indicating the evolution of an illness. Van Swieten (inventor of a treatment for syphilis) who worked in Austria had been a pupil of Boerhaave. He was very cultured and appreciated by Marie-Thérèse who entrusted him with the teaching and organisation of medical practice at the University of Vienna. It was Van Swieten who signed Mesmer's Medical Doctorate thesis (perhaps a little lightly) but he was also the excellent President of Franz Gall's thesis, one of the first discoverers of motor aphasia. Van Swieten's chair was occupied by De Haen, who was to be the first Professor of Medical practice in Holland and continued, in Vienna, the work of his predecessor. It was in this climate of clinical research that Auerbrugger applied the theory of percussion to the study of thoracic illness. Such were the disciples of Boerhaave. Such were the men who followed Boerhaave's example. Many other examples could be quoted but time is lacking. Such were the disciples of Boerhaave, a great man of the 17th century whose glory has persisted through the centuries.
A.O. Brundusino1, S. Cairoli2 and F. Federici1
1Hospital Direction Fiorenzuola d' Arda Hospital, Piacenza, and 2C. Mondino Foundation, Clinic of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
In the history of Medicine, the spiritualistic conceptions of madness dominated since the XVI century, showing no traces of either the influence of Hippocratic and Alexandrian Schools, or the charity spirit, flourished after the year 1,000 AD all over Europe, particularly in Italy. In the Middle Ages, Alexander of Tralles, Paul of Aegina, and Avicenna in vain referred to Hippocrates, to Aretaeus, to Aurelius, who had pointed out that the origins of mental diseases were similar to those of any other illness. Subsequently, psychiatric agnosticism continued even when Vasalva devoted himself to the observation and to the medical therapy of patients with mental diseases, instigating the study of cerebral alterations detectable at autopsy, and even when the anatomopathological trend promoted by Morgagni made medicine achieve great progress and incited physicians to consider madness as a disease with a cerebral seat. It was only in the middle of the 19th century that flourished again the directions which might free psychiatry of the yoke of metaphysic and spiritualistic psychology in order to lead it towards the general pathology and biology. In Italy, the most outstanding representatives of this awakening were Andrea Verga and Serafino Biffi. They began the renewal that was to lead to the essential accord between neurology and psychiatry, because mind and brain are not separated, but together. They tried to merge science and pity for a progressively true comprehension of social troubles.
J.J. Cobben
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Modern psychiatry as a medical profession starts with Pinel at the beginning of the 19th century. During that century attention arised for the works of Dr. Jan Wier. In the various discussions about mental diseases between theology and medicine he was considered as somebody subjected to the common errors of his time, as a free thinker and as the founder of psychiatry. Wier was an opponent to prosecution of witches in the 16th century. He considered them as victims of the devil. His concepts are based on the christian belief in the devil (conform medieval concept) as a fallen angel and adversary to God, who opposes mankind. By his nature the devil is allowed many actions. A common belief says, that the devil needs the help of witches to perform his deeds. Wier denies this. Some opponents of Wier are of opinion, that witches have to be punished, because of performing blasphemous acts, that in themselves are not effective. For the devil feigns this effect by starting or ending the torments at his own will. In Wier's conception the minds of witches (mostly elder woman) are spoiled by the devil. He poses false images in their minds, which they consider as being real. The victims are often sick and sometimes under influence of drugs. Wier believes in demonic possesions and opposes deceiving moncks and magicians, who use superstitious means to cure people. He opposes the use of clerical means as monotonous recited exorcisms, lustral water, paschal candle, stole, pilgrimages etc. and the use of magic conjurations, amulets, magic deeds and such. His therapy, showing protestant influence, is based on making a sick body healthy, instruction in the true christian belief, conscious prayer, charity, etc. In the 17th century he is less known. His adversaries are influential and found in the catholic and protestant world. Witchtrials florish. Via England and the Netherlands his ideas stay alive and have their influence later-on. In fact Wier claims a place for the doctor in legal and religious affairs to judge the imputability of an involved victim. In suspicion of demonic possession, or when somebody confesses impossible deeds in court a natural disease has to be excluded before a person is punished by law, or exorcised by a priest.
D.N.J. Donker
Utrecht, The Netherlands
After a short exposé of his youth, education and medical study the paper considers the scientific career of Storm van Leeuwen, which started in 1939 under the leadership of G. Rademaker (1887 -1957) who at that time was Professor of Physiology at the University of Leiden. Rademaker was interested in the registration of cerebral electrical phenomena. Storm van Leeuwen was instructed to study the electrical activity from the brain of a rabbit. A description will be given of the equipment with which the investigation had to be performed at that time and of the difficulties that Storm van Leeuwen encountered. From investigations performed in cats, in which he intended to record the electrical activity of the deep structures, especially of the red nucleus, he came to the conclusion that some relation existed between the activity of the red nucleus and the heartrhythm of the cat. This became the basis of his dissertation titled: Heartarrhythmia by experimental damaging of the metencephalon (1945). In 1947 Storm van Leeuwen went to England to learn more about electrophysiology of the the central nervous system in general. He worked in the physiological laboratory of Cambridge, headed by Lord Adrian (1889-1977), under direct supervision of B.H.C.Matthews. This led to his first paper in the leading international Journal of Physiology. At the same time he was introduced in electro-encephalography by Grey Walter who also made him acquainted with automatic frequency analysis of the electro-encephalogram(E.E.G.). Back in Leiden, Rademaker, who in the meantime had been appointed Professor of Neurology in this city and who had bought a four channel Offner EEG-apparatus, asked Storm van Leeuwen to start clinical electro-encephalography at the University hospital. By the end of 1948 Storm van Leeuwen was the first in the Netherlands to perform professional clinical EEG's. The recordings were made on the attic of the Department of Neurology of the Leiden University hospital. Very early he used an automatic frequency analysis. In 1957 Storm van Leeuwen was appointed reader in clinical electro-encephalography in the city of Leiden. Two years later he accepted an invitation to come to Utrecht,where he obtained the position of clinical neurophysiologist in the Neurological University clinic, as well as the leadership of the then starting department on brain research in the new-built research Institute of Medical Physics T.N.O. In collaboration with A. Kamp he developed techniques for the investigation of relationships between behaviour of dogs and electrical phenomena in their brains. The fact that Storm van Leeuwen at the same time occupied the above mentionened position at the Neurological University clinic, gave him the possibility to do research on the electrical activity of the human brain as well. The most important techniques and their applications will be discussed. That Storm van Leeuwen was not only a laboratory man, or less even, an armchair scholar, becomes apparent when taking in consideration the large number of functions he fullfilled in national and international organisations. In 1977 he was elected to the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of the Netherlands.
Paul Eling <eling@nici.kun.nl>
NICI/VFP, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Jacobus Schroeder van der Kolk demonstrated his interest in and aptitude for scientific work already during his medical studies at the University of Groningen. More than hundred contributions from him have been recorded; among these are presentations to scientific societies and articles in journals. Topics addressed are psychiatry (both the management of mentally ill in institutions and case reports), neurology, blood circulation, pulmonary disorders, embryology, tumours, zoology and finally a series of papers on the nature of the soul. His medical and scientific career is perhaps best characterised by two central features:
E.J. Fine and D. Fine*
Neurology Service, Dept. of Veterans' Affairs, Buffalo, and *Dept. of Neurology, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA
Objective. To demonstrate Jacobus Schroeder van der Kolk's (JSvK) influence on American concepts of pathophysiology of epilepsy.
Background. JSvK (1797-1862) performed autopsies and microscopic examination of brains of epileptics. JSvk summarized his theories in the Sydenham Lecture of 1859, On the minute structure and functions of the medulla oblongata and the proximate causes and rational treatment of epilepsy. Pioneer American neurologists, William Hammond (WH) cited JSvK in A treatise on the diseases of the nervous system (1871) and Manuel Gonzalez Escheverria (MGE) in On epilepsy (1870).
Method. Review American neurology textbooks from 1870-1880 for theories to pathology of epilepsy.
Results. JSvK found that veins draining cortex, medulla oblongata and spinal cord of epileptics were dilated and congested with blood. Microscopic examination of medulla oblongata showed "fatty degeneration with albuminous intracellular fluid". Blood vessels supplying hypoglossal nucleus were dilated in patients who bit their tongues in seizures. Those not biting their tongues had dilated vessels supplying the vagal nucleus. JSvK concluded "that the first cause of epilepsy ... is exalted sensibility and excitability of the medulla oblongata", renders it "liable to discharge upon itself" and these discharges caused spasms in blood vessels leading to hyperemia followed by "involuntary reflex movements...". Repeated seizures caused inflammation in cerebral cortex leading to "incurable dementia" due to "thickening and dilatation of blood vessels". WH lauded JSvK with "no one has been more thorough in the search for the essential cause of epilepsy than he". WH presented clinical cases affirming "seat of seizures ... was mainly in medulla oblongata". MGE described and illustrated autopsies of patients dieing after seizures. Despite finding cortical infarcts, hemorrhages and syphilitic gumma, MGE stated these lesions "excited medulla oblongata" which induced seizures. By reviewing David Ferrier's experiments mapping motor cortex of subhuman primates and Victor Horsley's observations from faradic stimulation of human cerebral cortex during surgery for ablating foci of motor seizures, we will explain why JSvK's theories were supplanted by current concepts of cortical origin of focal motor seizures.
Conclusions. During 1870-1880, the writings of JSvK influenced American concepts of epilepsy.
Stanley Finger <sfinger@artsci.wustl.edu>
and Mark B. Law
Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA
Following the publication of Galvani's Commentary in 1791, many scientists began to conduct experiments with electricity, believing it to be the mysterious force behind animal life. One such person was Karl August Weinhold, a German physician and scientist. In 1817, a year before the first edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein appeared, Weinhold published a book of experiments in which he described how an amalgam of metals (bimetallic electricity) could restore movement, sensation, and cardiac functions to cats with masses of spinal cord and even brain ablated. Whether Mary Shelley knew what Weinhold had written in 1817, or in 1831, when she revised Frankenstein and added more on electricity, is not known. It is clear, however, that she was intrigued by the powers of galvanism, a subject of more than passing interest to Percy Byshee Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Polidori, who travelled with Byron as his personal physician. In this presentation, the sources of Mary Shelley's science will be examined, and the scientific Zeitgeist created by physicians like Weinhold will be described.
Peter Frommelt
Dept. Neurological and Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, Klinik Bavaria, Schaufling, Germany
Introduction. Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965) had worked since 1904 at the Senckenberg Neurological Institute in Frankfurt/M. with Ludwig Edinger as his principal. The wide spectrum and unconventional scope of the research at the institute facilitated the development of a pioneering concept for the rehabilitation of head injured soldiers. In 1915 Goldstein founded the military hospital for head injured soldiers in Frankfurt. The hospital had three departments: clinical, vocational and a psychological laboratory. Adhémar Gelb joined him as head of the psychological institute.
Outline of Goldstein 's concept and practice at the Frankfurt hospital. Goldstein's basic concept was to integrate medical, psychological and occupational interventions to enable the soldiers to compensate for their impairments.1 After a meticulous psychological examination the program consisted of a deficit-specific training, e.g. for motor aphasia and a vocational rehabilitation in different workshops. Goldstein and Gelb conducted series of single case studies focussing on the interaction of cognitive systems.2 Goldstein argued that beside their specific deficits in cognitive architecture the patients displayed a general change in behavior (Allgemeinstörung).
Discussion. Goldstein's contribution to the organisation and practice of neurorehabilitation will be discussed. His later theory of an organismic connectivity in the nervous system and its reaction to trauma has been influenced by his observation of head injured soldiers. Some of Goldstein's models seem to be confirmed by actual research in neuroimaging and neuropsychology.
1Goldstein K. Die Behandlung, Fürsorge und Begutachtung der Hirnverletzten. Vogel, Leipzig: 1919.
2Gelb A, Goldstein K. (Eds.) Psychologische Analyse hirnpathologischer Fälle. Barth, Leipzig: 1920.
D. Gallo, C. Camarda, L.K.C. Camarda, R. Camarda, M. D'Amelio, G. Di Sano, M. Gangitano, R. Monastero and F. Passantino
Institute of Neuropsychiatry, University of Palermo, Italy
The 31st December 1996, Italian mental hospitals have been definitively closed by the Ministry for Health. In this occasion it appeared worth to remember the foundation, in 1825, of the mental hospital of Palermo. Since the middle ages, these patients were placed in close contact with leprous, tuberculous and dermatological patients in the hospital of San Giovanni dei Leprosi founded in the 12th century by King William I, the Norman. The early history of the foundation of the "royal house of mad" in Palermo at the beginning of the 19th century is surrounded by obscurity and uncertainty, and unknown are the possible forces which were operating at that time in Sicily in the direction of the reform for treatment of mental patients. We do not know the external influences which contributed to the need of building a hospital for mentally sick patients only. Certainly, they were not local enlightening forces but, instead social urges followed the Bourbon restoration and the creation of the Kingdom of the two Sicilies because an absolute condition was that the hospitalisation of each patient had to be approved by the Lieutenant General (ministry of the interior) of Sicily. It was in 1824 that Barone Pietro Pisani, a 64-years old nobleman and lawyer, was officially appointed by the Lieutenant General to the superintendency of the hospital for mental patients. Within one year, Pisani was able to rebuild an old palace, to create new units and splendid gardens and to organise the various services of the new hospital. Pisani was personally responsible for the "moral treatment" of the insanes which he considered "the only hopefuI treatment of mental patients". As reported by his biographers, Pisani was not a physician but a cultivated musicologist, a competent archaeologist and a faithful civil servant of the Bourbon dynasty. In one word, he was a selftrained man provided of polyhedral personality who expressed his philantropic urge by assisting and helping mental patients. He certainly was aware of the news of the treatment of mental illness already initiated in Florence by V. Chiarugi, in Paris by Pinel, in England by W. Tuke that could have been brought to Sicily by the numerous visitors of the island at that time. Pisani himself had travelled throughout Europe in his youth and could have been in touch with these problems. Many visitors to Sicily were attracted by Pisani's reputation, but more as a matter of curiosity than of scientific investigation. However, the rates of cure and improvement at the Palermo institution were considered as exceptionally high by all visitors including psychiatrist. The crowds were so numerous, that a special guide to the institution ideated and written by a former mental patient, had to be conceived and printed. Pisani died in 1837 during a cholera epidemic. The reputation of the institution slowly declined and Pisani's method of treatment remained peripheral to the great psychiatric revolution of the 19th century.
Samuel H. Greenblatt
Brown University, Pawtucket, RI, USA
One definition of "historiography" is: an historical framework for understanding the development of a field through analysis of the concepts that are central to the field's coherency, i.e., its conceptual foundations. Using this definition, we can ask three related questions: (1) Can we actually create a useful framework? (2) Is there anything unique about the methodological principles of neurohistoriography? and (3) Do we care if we have a unified framework? In answer to the first question, I will present an heuristic outline of the conceptual foundations of the clinical and experimental neurosciences in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It proposes that localization is the conceptual foundation of all of the neurosciences in that period. Whether this framework is sufficiently accurate to be useful will be up for discussion. The answer to the second question is: not exactly, but the constant intrusion of the mind/body problem does require that the neurosciences be analyzed with this cultural factor always in mind. Third, we do need to care about a unified framework for understanding the historical development of the neurosciences. I think that such is possible, but if further historical analysis shows that it is not, then we will have to try to understand the implications of that negative conclusion, i.e, we will have to question the coherency of our entire enterprise.
D. E. Haines
University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS, USA
The Journal of Comparative Neurology, arguably one of the most famous (and earliest) neuroscience journals in the world, was founded in 1891 by Clarence Luther Herrick based solely on his own initiative. He had no corporate or institutional support and the full editorial and financial responsibility fell on the Herrick family. The early period (1891-1893) was complicated by Herrick's mistreatment by W. R. Harper, the president of the University of Chicago regarding a job offer at that school, his coming down with pulmonary tuberculosis (Dec. 1893), and his subsequent move to New Mexico (spring, 1894) for health reasons. In addition, the new journal worked hard to attract adequate numbers of suitable papers. In spring of 1894 the editorial responsibility shifted to the younger brother, Charles Judson Herrick, then a student working on his M.S. degree at Denison University. Although C. L. Herrick was identified as the "Editor" from 1894-1903, the moving force behind the survival of the journal was C. J. Herrick. Acutely aware of the difficulties facing the journal C.J. Herrick continued to solicit good papers, function as the editor, manager and publisher, and if a deficit appeared at the end of the fiscal year (as it did every year) he made up the difference out of his own resources. In the period of 1894 - about 1898 C. J. Herrick periodically communicated with H. F. Osborn and O. S. Strong concerning the possibility of Columbia University assuming a formal financial and managerial role in the journal. Although Columbia made some small financial donations, a formal affiliation never materialized. Strong did become an Associate Editor of the journal in 1896. On firmer ground by 1898, the editorial board included such notables as H. H. Donaldson, L. Edinger, A. van Gehuchten and G. C. Huber. In 1904 these individuals were joined by R. M. Yerkes, G. E. Coghill, R. G. Harrison and C. S. Sherrington, along with a change in the journal's name to The Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology (returned to its original name in 1910). In the period of about 1898-1907 the journal published many papers from notable scientists world-wide, although the financial pressures remained. After many years of partially supporting the journal out of family resources, C. J. Herrick finally balanced the books for the year 1907. In January of 1908 he transferred ownership to the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology. This presentation focuses on the personalities and events surrounding the formative years of this great journal.
L.A.H. Hogenhuis1 and 2A.M. Luyendijk-Elshout
1Maastricht, and 2University of Leiden, The Netherlands
The anatomical relationships of the trigeminal nerve in man, especially in the medial and posterior cranial fossae, were extensively studied from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century by German, Austrian, Italian and Polish anatomists such as Paletta 1748-1832; Meckel 1724-1774; Hirsch 1765; Wrisberg 1777; Procháska 1749-1820; von Sömmerring (1755-1830) 1778, 1796, 1800; Hildebrand 1803; Niemeyer 1812. August Carl Bock (1782-1833), who published his Beschreibung der fünften Nervenpaares und seiner Verbindungen mit anderen Nerven, vorzüglich mit dem Gangliensysteme (Description of the fifth nerve pair and its connections with other nerves, with special reference to the ganglionic system) in Leipzig it 1817, was largely guided by previous neuroanatomical work by Johann Friedrich Meckel (1724-1774), summarized in his Tractus anatomicophysiologicus de quinto pare nervorum cerebri. Bock's little-known work is important for the early contribution it made to the conceptualization of the neural circuit --now generally accepted on the basis of neuroanatomical evidence. In particular, Bock demonstrated the connections between the sympathetic nerves and the autonomic ganglia related to the eye, differing on this point from Meckel who was at that time regarded as the authority on the neuroanatomy of the fifth cranial nerve. Of further interest are the originality of the technique used, the elegant presentation of the results and the original choice of the dissection model of the trigeminal block for the teaching of neuroanatomy in the early nineteenth century.
H. Isler
Dept. of Neurology, University Hospital, Zürich, Switzerland.
Placebo, the oldest, safest and most effective remedy, is also the most neglected subject of scientific studies where it is regularly only considered for comparison with specific or verum effects of drugs or other elements of treatment, and then discarded. Specific verum effects are the trees, as it were, for which we fail to see the forest. In ancient and medieval medicine the verum effects were few and far between. This should enable us to recognize the various placebo effects more easily than in contemporary forms of management. We scrutinised the chapters on headache of Alexander of Tralles, an early Byzantine surgeon and physician, for typical placebo approaches. Similar methods are being used in contemporary headache management. But when we are applying them we fail to recognize rationally what we are using. This deprives us of the chance to plan and control our procedures consciously in order to exploit the full power of combined placebo effects. Alexander's text provides access to a wealth of placebo procedures which may enable us to recognize similar procedures in our own practice.
Stephen Jacyna
Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London
For the purposes of this symposium, the historiography of the neurosciences seems to consist of two main elements: goals and frameworks. The former comprises the motivations that incite individuals to undertake work in the history of the neurosciences and the ends they hope to achieve by means of this work. The latter includes the questions that historians of neuroscience address, the conceptual resources they bring to their research, and what qualifies as a worthwhile answer. In this talk I will take up some of the issues raised by the other participants. I will ask why the history of the neurosciences should be of interest to scholars who are not also engaged in current scientific research within that field. The paper will explore the full implications of taking a concept like localization as the key to understanding the development of the neurosciences in a particular epoch. It will also consider whether particular research endeavours need to be conducted with an eye to some grand narrative of the progress of this field of knowledge. The paper ends with a discussion of whether the history of the neurosciences is best served by regarding it as an aspect of intellectual history or whether more emphasis should be placed upon the material culture of neuroscientific research.
C. Jagella
Medizinhistorisches Institut, Zürich, Switzerland
In the last third of the 19th century successful localisation of cerebral functions revived the ages-old discussion on the relationship of the soul and/or the mind with the body. Eduard Hitzig demonstrated the electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex in 1870, together with Gustav Theodor Fritsch, and he defined the limits of the motor cortex in animals in 1874. From 1875 to 1879 he was the third director of the Zürich psychiatric hospital Burghölzli. In 1886 he published a short tract entitled Von dem Materiellen der Seele (On the matter of the soul). The contents were less revolutionary than the concepts of his colleagues Forel, Monakow, Eugen Bleuler and Adolf Meyer in Zürich who defied the limits traditionally imposed on solutions for the mind-body problem. Hitzig accepted the famous saying of Emil DuBois-Reymond: "ignorabimus", we shall never know the details of this relationship. Comparing Hitzig's views with the concepts of the former authors shows that this whole cluster of highly theoretical and philosophical ideas was crucial and central for the Zürich "Brain psychiatry" which later developed into American psychiatry and psychobiology.
Russell A Johnson1,2 <rjohnson@library.ucla.edu> and Louise H. Marshall1
1Neuroscience History Archives, Brain Research Institute, and 2Cataloging Department, Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA
The mission of the Neuroscience History Archives (NHA) includes identifying, gathering, and preserving primary source material of 20th century American neuroscience, thus helping to form a documentary heritage that will represent the ideas, intents, decisions, actions, and accomplishments of the discipline's practitioners to future generations. Consistent with this mission, we will describe the nature and importance of a documentation strategy, i.e. a long-term plan with a coordinated and comprehensive approach to improving the identification, retention, treatment, and use of records of enduring value which are created in the course of neuroscience research, administration, business, and education. This strategy will draw on the experience of existing discipline centers such as those for the history of physics, chemistry, psychology, and computer science. Its components will include: (1) identifying significant neuroscientists as well as institutions where neuroscience flourished; 2) assembling an advisory group--with knowledge of the activities of 20th century neuroscientists, of the records being generated, and of their potential usefulness--to analyze the variety and quality of documentation that must be collected, to monitor appraisal decisions, and to assist in acquisition activities; (3) promoting the cooperative nature of the strategy by issuing appraisal guidelines and advice to archivists and educating neuroscientists in the importance of preserving their primary material; and (4) establishing, maintaining, and publicizing a registry or on-line catalog of the location and contents of existing neuroscience archival collections, with descriptions of their arrangement, completeness, and accessibility. In what we hope will be a freewheeling and wide-ranging discussion prior to the creation of an ad hoc committee to advise the NHA on the development and funding of a proposal, we will solicit the opinions of members of the neuroscience history community about the adequacy of archival documentation as well as recommendations for its improvement. As the project develops, we will enlist their involvement in the testing, refinement, application, and sustenance of a neuroscience documentation strategy.
Troels Kardel
Copenhagen, Denmark
The Danish anatomist, Niels Stensen, stayed in Holland 1660-63 during his first educational tour. Having discovered the excretory duct of the parotid gland in his first dissection on his own in Amsterdam in 1660, he soon moved to Leiden to study anatomy under Sylvius and van Horne. Stensen shared interests and became friends with Swammerdam and de Graaf and discussed with Spinoza. It is evident from Stensen's correspondence that much of his research in Leiden on glands and his later research on the brain were reactions to De homine by Descartes, first published posthumously by Florentius Schuyl in Leiden in 1662. This is illustrated from selected passages in the two authors' writings.
Axel Karenberg
Cologne University, Germany
The Swiss physician Johann Jakob Wepfer has been hailed as the author of the "classic" modern treatise on apoplexy (1658). His name is known because he demonstrated that apoplexy resulted from brain hemorrhage or occlusive diseases of the vessels. A re-examination of the original Latin text, however, reveals surprising evidence that essential parts of Wepfer's book have been neglected so far. These chapters demonstrate that Wepfer's medical thinking is deeply rooted in pre-modern concepts, e.g. Galenic theories of brain function and iatrochemical concepts of disease. A re-evaluaton of the nonmodern elements of Wepfer's treatise leads to a better understanding of the whole text.
P.J. Koehler and A. Keyser
De Wever Hospital, Heerlen and University Hospital Nijmegen, The Netherlands
In his monograph An essay on the shaking palsy (1817) James Parkinson mentioned tremor and propulsion as the most important signs of the disease he was describing. In the following we will discuss aspects of the history of one of the signs mentioned, i.e. tremor, and see how the meaning of this term has changed since its description by Galen. We will pay attention to some 17th century texts by Tulp, Van Beverwijck, Sylvius. Tulp discusses two patients, one probably suffering from epilepsy and the other from hysterical tremor. Van Beverwijck, who died exactly 350 years ago, describes the pathophysiology, causes and treatment of tremor, not making any distinction between action and rest tremor. James Parkinson was almost certainly influenced by Sylvius' ideas as he quotes Sylvius in his well-known monograph.
Howard I. Kushner
Simon Fraser University, Harbour Centre, Vancouver, Canada
Recent research, points to a role of molecular mimicry for a certain subset of patients diagnosed as afflicted with Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome and other childhood movement disorders. Ironically, the "discovery" in the 1960s of the action of the dopamine antagonist, haloperidol, in controlling motor and vocal tics, made it difficult for researchers to explore the possibility that these symptoms were a sequel to an infectious substrate. In 1956, Angelo Taranta and Gene H. Stollerman established the connection between the onset of Sydenham's chorea and prior infection by Group A beta hemolytic streptococcus (GABHS)--rheumatic streptococcus. By 1976 Gunnar Husby and his colleagues implicated the basic mechanisms of antigen antibody response. Why weren't these robust findings about the etiology of Sydenham's chorea, applied to disorders with similar symptoms, such as Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome and obsessive compulsive behaviors? The answer to this question, in part, is that ironically a pharmacological advance inadvertently served to retard research that only today has revealed a possible role of cross-reactive molecular mechanisms in these neurological disorders. The resistance to search for parallel mechanisms was as much a historical as a scientific issue. This paper argues that competition over the classification of movement disorders held back the possible connection between the work on Sydenham's chorea with those symptoms associated with Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorders. Thus, haloperidol not only served to control the symptoms of a number of movement disorders, but also it was used as a weapon against those who made other claims about the etiology of childhood compulsive and movement disorders.
J.P.W.F. Lakke
Groningen, The Netherlands
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) painted The anatomy lesson of Dr. Joan Deyman in 1656. The original canvas must have measured around 250 x 300 cm. and was meant to be a group portrait of Amsterdam surgeons watching a post-mortem examination. Damage due to fire in 1723 caused more than 80% loss of the painting. For this occasion we are fortunate that particular the head and body of Joris Fonteyn, a criminal hanged the previous day and now the object of dissection, was spared. The painting depicts a skull opening with the brain in situ. The curious element from a historical point of view, however, is the position of the head. At pictures left of 16th and 17th century autopsies such extreme flexures of the neck of cadavers to facilitate inspection of the skull contents were not observed. Reflections about this unique posture; practical fact or artistic fantasy?
Hannah Landecker1 and Rachael Rosner2
1Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and 2York University
This paper has as its central concern the society's mission to improve communication between all groups who do the history of the neurosciences. It will try to understand the dynamics that have helped to increase the interest among scientist-historians (as one constituency represented by ISHN) but that have not been as successful in attracting another constituency currently doing history of neuroscience work, academic historians. The paper argues that one of the problems has been the very different assumptions and methods that both groups bring to their research. These assumptions have remained until now implicit, rather than explicit, in the society's historical "conversation". The paper undertakes a critical historiography of the assumptions embedded within the scientist-historian practice of history as a fruitful first step toward understanding how different styles of history of neuroscience might productively coexist within ISHN. The paper discusses two roughly schematized groups that are conducting research in the history of the neurosciences: scientist-historians and academic-historians of science. Each group brings different types of questions, interests and agendas to their use of history. Scientist historians share a common interest in the material practice on the brain and nervous system; and their historical investigations are often delimited by the "forever posed" questions of the relation of matter to disease and normalcy, of the relation between them and the concept of mind, and of the ways in which scientists in the past have grappled with such problems. In this way their methodological imperative has several components: 1) to help illuminate, extend and enrich the scientific ideas that define their material practice and 2) to both celebrate and reflect on the contents of the disciplinary "collective memory". History, it could be argued, is another way of gaining access to the scientific questions with which the scientist-historians have been concerned in the laboratory and clinic. Academic historians, themselves part of the larger community of historians of science and medicine, are often interested in writing histories that extend beyond the laboratory. They strive to link scientific practice and thought with larger cultural and intellectual movements; they query the boundaries of current scientific categories. Academic historians of science, then, share a common interest in contextualizing science. Their methodological imperative has its own components: 1) to examine why contemporary (and historical) scientific models and practices gained particular currency within their historical context and 2) to provide an alternative theoretical dialogue about science, its practice, and its value. In addition to examining the historiographical assumptions embedded within the scientist-historian model, the paper also has a programmatic focus. It will begin the process of seeking ways to foster the development of a multi-disciplinary community of historians within ISHN.
Boleslav L. Lichterman
The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London, U.K.
Regular and purposeful neurosurgical interventions started in the end of the nineteenth century. Both surgical and neurological roots of the emerging speciality could be traced. The surgical roots of neurosurgery were the invention of anaesthesia, aseptics and antiseptics which made brain operations relatively safe and markedly reduced postoperative mortality. The neurological roots were the improvement of topical diagnosis in neurology and understanding the anatomy and physiology of nervous system. The first brain tumour was removed in Russia in 1896 in St. Petersburg and operating room at the neurology department of Russian Military Medical Academy was established in 1897 by the famous Russian neurologist and psychiatrist Vladimir Bekhterev (1857-1927). According to Bekhterev, neurology should become surgical speciality like gynaecology or ophthalmology and "neurologists will take knife in their hands and do what they should do". Bekhterev's pupil Ludwig Puusepp (1875-1942) became the first full-time Russian neurosurgeon ("surgical neurologist"). He headed the first neurosurgical department (not only in Russia but in the world) organised in 1908 in St. Petersburg until his emigration to Estonia in 1920. Due to the highly centralised pyramidal structure of Soviet healthcare most interesting and/or difficult cases all over former Soviet Union were concentrating in three Neurosurgical Research Institutes (Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad). Neurosurgery was developing here as complex speciality in connection with allied sciences (neuroradiology, neurootology, neuroophthalmology, neuropsychology etc.). The huge referral area made it possible to develop subspecialties like paediatric neurosurgery, vascular, skull base, functional neurosurgery by organising special departments within these Institutes. The set of provincial neurosurgical centres had also appeared in 1930-ies. In 1937 a special neurosurgical periodical called Voprosy neurochirurgii (Problems of Neurosurgery) was launched --seven years before Journal of Neurosurgery in the United States. According to the leading Soviet neurosurgeon N.N. Burdenko (1876-1946), neurosurgical interventions were viewed as experiments on humans in order to confirm the neurophysiological concepts of Pavlov and Bekhterev based on animal models. They had to follow three basic principles: anatomical availability, technical possibility and physiological permissibility. Increasing isolation from the West, lacking of proper training programs and resources resulted into gradual stagnation of this speciality.
Gert-Jan C. Lokhorst
Department of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Two mediæval texts on hemispheric specialization have thus far come to light: (1) a passage in a codex from about 1100 according to which the left cerebral hemisphere is the seat of the intellect (intellectus) whereas the right hemisphere is concerned with sense perception (sensus); and (2) a drawing from about 1410 which states that the right side of the brain is hoot ande dry whereas the left side is colde ande dry. I will argue that these views have a similar origin and are products of the same style of reasoning.
Literature: Gert-Jan C. Lokhorst, The first theory about hemispheric specialization: Fresh light on an old codex, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 51 (1996), 293-312.
J.B. Lyons
Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
Robert Bently Todd (1809-60) is regarded as the United Kingdom's greatest clinical neurologist prior to Hughlings Jackson. The latter recognised the significance of seizures commencing unilaterally commonly called 'Jacksonian epilepsy' and the phenomenon of post-ictal paralysis, which was observed by Todd, is spoken of as 'Todd's paralysis.' Before discussing this, and some of Todd's other contributions, including what Gowers referred to as his 'discovery' of tabes dorsalis, and his Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, I shall offer a biographical outline. His immediate ancestors had settled in the West of Ireland. His paternal grandfather was a surgeon and apothecary in Sligo, from which coastal town his father, Charles Hawkes Todd, moved to Dublin for apprenticeship in 1797, and having obtained the Letters Testimonial or licence of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) in 1803 he remained in the Irish capital and married Elizabeth Bently. By 20 May 1831, when R.B. Todd became a Licentiate of the RCSI, his address was 5 Charlotte Street, London, and soon he had embarked on a career that would be both distinguished and varied.
Ulf Norrsell1, Stanley Finger2 <sfinger@artsci.wustl.edu> and Clara Lajonchere2
1Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden, and 2Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Descriptions of the so called sensory spots of the skin still may be found in textbooks. By use of suitable methods, different spots on the skin surface can be shown to be selectively or particularly sensitive to one only of four sensory qualities. In order of density of appearance they are: pain, touch, cool, and warm. The presence of such spots was observed apparently simultaneously in 1882 by three different, independent investigators and their publications appeared soon afterwards. Two papers on punctate sensitivity of the skin were published in 1882 and 1883 by Magnus Blix of Uppsala University, Sweden; three papers by Alfred Goldscheider, assistant physician at Neisse in Germany, were published in 1884; and one by Henry Donaldson of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, was published in 1885. Donaldson's findings originated from a serendipitous observation, whereas Blix and Goldscheider considered their findings to be products of inquiries about the relevance of ]ohannes Muller's "laws of specific nerve energies." The three investigators' alleged confirmation of "Muller's laws" for the skin was spectacular although perhaps not exhaustive. Nevertheless, the essence of their findings was eventually substantiated by electrophysiological and neurosurgical observations. The demonstration of cutaneous sensory spots, despite having been made at the same time by three scientists from different countries, stands forth as a rare instance of significant, scientific discovery without a fight for priority.
Régis Olry1 and Kaoru Motomiya2
1University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières, Canada, and 2University of Tokyo, Japan
The importance of the Kaitai Shinsho in the history of anatomy in Japan is comparable to the one of Vesalius' treatise in Western medicine. The Dutch edition (1734) of Johann Adam Kulm's Anatomische Tabellen was translated with commentary in 1774 by Gempaku Sugita, and prefaced by Kougyu Yoshio. The frontispiece was taken from Valverde's Anatome corporis humani (1589) with minor modifications. The illustrations of the Kaitai Shinsho, drawn by Naotake Odano, were taken from some celebrated authors, and include many plates of the skull, the meninges, the brain, the spinal cord and the peripheral nervous system. For the translation of the text and the legends to the plates, Gempaku Sugita decided to use Chinese language, so that his book could have a more widespread influence. However, many new Japanese words were created for structures that had no name, neither in Chinese, nor in Japanese (for example the term "shinkei" meaning "nerve"). The publication of the Kaitai Shinsho therefore compelled Japanese neuroanatomy to take European tradition in morphological sciences into account. Though some previous Chinese books outlined neuroanatomical knowledge (the Butsuri shoushiki of 1648 for example), and some other Western medical books were translated into Japanese (Johannes Remmelin, Johan Palfyn), the Kaitai Shinsho has to be regarded as a landmark in the history of neuroanatomy in Japan. This study aims at analysing the influence of Western anatomy on Japanese neuroanatomy and its terminology.
Julius Rocca
Wellcome Research Fellow, Cambridge and Research Affiliate, Office for History of Science, University of Uppsala
Contrary to expectation, Galen held several theories regarding neural transmission, all admittedly making use of pneuma to some degree. Galen believed that his experiments showed that the body is deprived of sensation and motion when the ventricles of the brain are opened, and the pneuma escapes; this being so, pneuma is useful therefore for sensation and motion. From this, Galen adds no less than six possible theories of "neural transmission". This paper will seek to enumerate these theories, using as a paradigm Galen's treatment of the question of vision. Finally, some light will be cast on the history of subsequent neural transmission theories, noting that Galen's legacy is more complex than some later theorists assumed, for while Galen could almost be said to be sceptical in regard to which of his theories was correct, many of his interpreters held that Galen maintained a "doctrine" of animal or nervous spirits, interpreted either as pure pneuma or as some form of liquid within the alleged hollows of the nerves. This legacy of Galenism needlessly distorts some interesting theories Galen adumbrated concerning the nature of neural transmission.
Daniel L. Roe
Washington University, St. Louis, MO
Dopamine is among the most well-researched neurotransmitters at the present time. For the first half-century of neurotransmitter research, however, interest in dopamine was minimal, and only a few scattered groups of talented researchers studied it. It was their research that stimulated current interest, and provided the background for our present understanding of this important substance. By the late l950s it was clear to these individuals that dopamine served an important physiological role in mammalian brains, and that its role was most likely that of a central nervous system agonist. Soon after this, dopamine, or more specifically the depletion of dopamine, was clearly implicated in Parkinson's disease. This paper looks at the early history of the physiological roles of this intriguing compound.
C.U.M. Smith
Vision Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, UK
In a letter written from Leyden in November 1640 Descartes thanks an unknown correspondent for bringing to his notice the similarity of his Cogito ergo sum to passages in Augustine's Trinitate and goes on to say that he had been that day to the town library to check the reference. There is no doubt that the philosophy outlined in the Discourse and the Meditations has many Augustinian echoes. In this paper I discuss how far Descartes' neuropsychology also resembles its Augustinian predecessor. It is perhaps not surprising that the Cartesian neurophysiology based as it is on the movement of 'spirits' in 'pipes' shows interesting similarities to that which Augustine outlined in de Genesi ad litteram and elsewhere for both derive through Galen from the Alexandrian physiology of the third century BC. Descartes is known to have been influenced by Vopiscus Fortunatas Plempius (a Dutch Galenist physician, later professor of medicine and then Rector of the University of Louvain) when working on L'Homme. I review these similarities and show how Descartes' mechanistic project enabled him to radically alter the implication of the neurophysiology and thus sharpen the distinction between mind and brain.
David A. Steinberg
The Såa Institute, Fiddletown, CA, USA
Language is often considered a defining feature of humanity, in addition to being a neurological phenomenon of manifest importance. Traditionally, the origin of language is attributed to Homo sapiens neanderthalensis on the basis of modern anatomic characteristics of the hyoid bone. The implicit assumption underlying this identification is that human language requires the sound-generating capacity of the modern larynx. In other words, the force driving the evolution of the larynx was language. I will first examine the evidence for this orthodoxy, and will demonstrate that a non-rigorous statistical analysis of sound-making capacity suggests exactly the opposite conclusion, i.e., the modern larynx could not have developed for the purpose of verbal language. I will then propose a theory of mental evolution whose predictions are verified by the observed progression of artifacts of early man. By matching the stages of physical and mental evolution, the appearance of language is thereby assigned to the end of the Upper Paleolithic Age in c. 10,000 BCE. Though this result is heterodox it is based on an independently derived and verified theory providing a more rational choice for the archaeologic correlate of the appearance of language.
R. Stien
Laboratory of neuro-urology, Ullevál Hospital, Oslo, Norway
F. Nansen was the first man to cross Greenland on ski, he tried to drift over the North Pole with his ship, and he survived more than one year in the ice trying to reach the pole on ski. He became professor of zoology, a well-known politician and Norwegian ambassador in London. He helped to save millions of people from starvation as High Commissioner for refugees in the Soviet Union after the revolution. He was a spokesman for a free Armenia. In 1922 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In the 1880s he worked at the University of Bergen in cooperation with dr. Armauer Hansen, the discoverer of the lepra bacillus. Nansen was interested in the nervous system of non-vertebrates. He went to Italy to work with Camillo Golgi. With his staining method he showed that nerve cells were not connected as a structural network as the current "reticular theory" presumed. Nansen stated that nerve cells were structural units divided from other cells by membranes. He published his results in September 1886 shortly before Wilhelm His (Oct. 1886) and August Forel (Jan. 1887) independently did similar observations in Switzerland. In his thesis (1888) on the nervous system of a primitive fish, he even showed that afferents entering the spinal cord split into one cranially and one caudally running fiber. Nansen's basic works on nerve structure makes him one of the founders of Norwegian neuro-biology.
Akira Takahashi
Japan
In Japan, the term "Dutch Studies" signifies the study of Dutch or of Western sciences through the medium of the Dutch language, because Japan strictly closed the country to foreigners except for the Dutch and Chinese in the days of the Tokugawa regime for about 200 years (1639-1858). During this period, Japanese neurology made a start. At the beginning, neuro-anatomical terminology was one of the most important problems awaiting solution. As a preliminary step towards introduction of modern medicine from Europe, several commercial interpreters in Nagasaki devoted themselves to the translation of Dutch medical textbooks into Japanese. Chinzan Narabayashi (1648-1711), a Dutch-Japanese interpreter, learned surgery from several Dutch surgeons at Nagasaki. He translated a medical textbook of the Dutch translation of the work of Amboise Paré by Carolus Battus. In this translation, there was no satisfactory Japanese term equivalent for the Dutch word "zenuw" ("nerve" in English). In 1774, five Dutch scolars in Edo (Tokyo at present) (Gempaku Sugita, Ryotaku Maeno et al.) translated the Dutch version of a German textbook Anatomische Tabellen published under the title of Kaitai Shinsho (A New Textbook of Human Anatomy). In this book, the Dutch terminology "zenuw" was translated into Japanese as "shinkei":"shin-" means "spirit or activity", and "-kei" means "string", i.e. "spirit transmitted through a string". This rousing publication on the human anatomy exerted a fruitful influence on the remaining Japanese neurology.
Juergen Tesak
Akademie für Medizinische Rehabilitation Klinik Bavaria, Kreischa, Germany
Pierre Paul Broca (1824-1880) often is considered to be the founding father of aphasiology. Broca (1861) is considered to be a "turning point in the history of aphasia" (Googlass 1993: 18) and it is, according to Caplan (1987:43), the beginning of "the first scientific studies of patients with acquired disorders of language". This paper and another one, Broca (1865), contain the basic assumptions of the classic approach in aphasiology: spoken language disturbance is due to a lesion of the third frontal convolution of the left hemisphere. However, it has to be understood that Broca's importance lies in his ability to unify various approaches and pieces of knowledge, rather than in developing new hypotheses or discovering new clinical findings. In this poster, forerunners of Broca's opinions will be presented in relation to relevant topic: (i) correlation lesion and symptom: Franz-Joseph Gall (1758-1828), (ii) language localization: Franz-Joseph Gall, Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud (1796-1881), (iii) conceptualization of aphasia as leaving speech, memory, and intellectual abilities intact: Franz-Joseph Gall, (iv) role and form of convolutions: Friedrich Tiedeman (1781-1861), François Leurat (1797-1851), (v) role of the left hemisphere: Marc Dax (1770-1837).
References:
Broca, P. (1861a) Remarques sur le siège de la faculté du langage articulé, suivies d'une observation d'aphémie (perte de la parole). Bulletins de la Société Anatomique de Paris, XXXVI, 330-357.
Broca, P. (1861b) Nouvelle observation d'aphémie produite par une lésion de la moitié postérieure des deuxième et troisième circonvolutions frontales. Bulletins de la Société Anatomique de Paris, XXXVI, 398-407.
Broca, P. (1865) Du siège de la faculté du langage articulé dans l'hémisphère gauche du cerveau. Bulletins de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, VI, 377-396.
Goodglass, H. (l993) Understanding Aphasia. San Diego: Academic Press.
Caplan, D. (1987) Neurolinguistics and Linguistic Aphasiology. Cambridge: CUP.
J.J. van der Sande
Slotervaart Hospital, Amsterdam
Egyptian physicans had a great reputation for their skills. According to Herodotus, doctors in Egypt were specialists: doctors for diseases of the eyes, of the head, of teeth, etc. Although anatomical knowledge probably was modest, and magic certainly played a role, medical practice was performed in a systematic way. Several old Egyptian medical papyri show us how to handle problems concerning medical history, examination, establishing diagnosis determining prognosis, and treatment. The Edwin Smith papyrus (1600 B.C) mainly describes case-histories referring to injury, the Ebers papyrus (1500 B.C.) is a complete medical text with recipes for disorders covering the whole field of medicine, and the Hearst papyrus (1500 B.C) is a less systematically written compilation of prescriptions, probably a practising physician's formulary. More details will be presented, emphasising the neurological aspects.
H. Varlam, D.S. Antohe and P. Bordei
Romania
Among the personalities that remained in the history of neurosciences, Gr. T. Popa (1892-1948) is, maybe, the most complex. Prominent student of the University of Medicine of I%aring;i, Gr. T. Popa passed over all stages of a didactic career until professor of embryology and anatomy at the faculties of medicine of Ia°i and Bucharest. Many times foundationer Rockefeller, research fellow in universities of London and Cambridge, he distinguished as a remarkable researcher on a very large field of activity. Going over the list of his more than 50 works, most of them published in impressive journals (J. of Anatomy, J. of Physiology, Lancet, etc.) or communicated at international congresses, one can observe that he approached problems of embryology as well as aspects concerning the erythrocytes and meninges. However, most of his works concern the structure and functions of the nervous system. Gr. T. Popa is one of the founders of modern research in neurosciences. He will be remembered in the history of the neurosciences with studies concerning the structure and function of the nervous system, especially the autonomic, hypothalamus, hypophysis. He discovered, studied and described the hypothalamo-hypophysial portal system thus putting the basis of the neuro-endocrinology.
Vincent Wan
Committee on the Conceptual Foundations of Science, University of Chicago
Neuroscience is the integrated study of the anatomy, behavior, and physiology of the nervous system. By this definition it has been common for only a few decades, however, there were a few earlier research programs that resembled modern neuroscience - Lorente de Nó's is one. My talk reviews the development of his approach. In 1921, Lorente became Ramón y Cajal's student - Cajal's last student. Lorente's Golgi studies of the cortex and brainstem led him to question Cajal's belief that direct neural pathways cause most behavior. Lorente saw that indirect pathways are crucial. To show this he lesioned the cerebellum and showed that reflexes whose direct pathways include it, recovered. He attributed their recovery to the indirect pathways. Lorente next studied nystagmus eye movements. His first experiment showed that lesioning the indirect pathways eliminated the fast nystagmus reflex. In 1924, Lorente began post-doctoral work with Bárány. During this period, Lorente made detailed studies of the normal vestibular-ocular reflexes, the effects of lesions on them and the anatomy of neurons in the brainstem. In reaction to Sherrington's school, whose work he studied carefully, Lorente emphasized that reflexes are the result of integration by central neuroses. In 1927, while visiting the Vogt's institute, Lorente began studying the neurons and cytoarchitectonics of the limbic cortex. Around 1930, he began constructing circuit diagrams to explain the effects of lesions in terms of the underlying anatomy. After moving to America in 1931, Lorente begun discussing the general principles shown in his circuit diagrams. In his studies on the anatomy of the cochlear nuclei and limbic cortex, he applied his general principles to the interactions of individual neurons. In 1934, Lorente began electrophysiological experiments to record the synaptic delay, refractory period and affects of antidromic activation on ocular motorneurons. In studies of facilitation and inhibition he showed how interneuron circuits could explain his findings. With Graham, Lorente began studying the properties of nerves. In the late 1930s, after producing a series of reviews summarising his findings and principles, Lorente began to record field potentials in the ocular motor system with microelectrodes. To interpret his results he developed a mathematical treatment of volume conduction and extended his studies of nerve properties. Examining Lorente's work shows the extent to which neuroscience was possible in the 1920s and 1930s.
Vincent Wan
Committee on the Conceptual Foundations of Science, University of Chicago. USA
Models of neural circuitry came into use at the close of the 19th century (e.g., Cajal, Exner). By the 1920s and 1930s, diagrams of small groups of neurons were being used to bridge the gap between the properties of nerves and the central nervous system's behavior. In a 1917 posthumous work, Keith Lucas suggested axons be used as a model for the behavior of central neurons. This idea fueled much of the work on axons during first decades of the 20th century. In 1922, Alexander Forbes popularised the use of circuit diagrams to show how neurons, behaving like axons, could account for central phenomena (e.g., spinal reflexes). Before the 1950s there were two major classes of models of inhibition. (1) models proposing axons with direct inhibitory chemical or electrical affects, and (2) models proposing that excitatory axons have inhibitory effects by increasing the relative refractory periods of the postsynaptic cells (Wedensky inhibition). In the work reported here, I trace the development of the second class of neural network models of inhibition from Forbes to the 1939 American Physiological Society symposium on the synapse. In the 1930s several basic arrangement of neurons were recognised as functional units (e.g., delay paths, reverberent circuits, and conditional pathways). I have used computer simulations to examine the behavior of these elements and their use in the production of inhibition. Recognising these basic elements helps us see the connections and contrasts between the circuits proposed by different investigators.
Harry Whitaker1 < whitakeh@ere.umontreal.ca> and Claudio Luzzatti2
1University of Quebec at Montreal and 2University of Milan
The most durable model of brain function so far has been the Medieval Cell Doctrine. Derived originally from Herophilus (c.270 B.C.) and Erasistratus (c.260 B.C.), Galen (130-200) and Avicenna (980-1037). Finger (1994:333-334) noted contributions by the Church Fathers, Nemesius (c. 400), Posidonius (c. 370) and Saint Augustine (354-430). Medieval Cell Doctrine was sufficiently entrenched to have endured into the 17th century, for example in the mechanistic model of brain function advocated by Descartes (1596-1650). From the 11th century through the Renaissance one finds textual discussions and graphic representations of MCD, occasionally in the form of neuropsychological case reports. These studies usually accepted the standard model which placed memory in the third ventricle and then "fit" the lesion evidence from brain damaged subjects to that model. Guillame de Conches (1080-1150/4) reported that Solin had spoken of a man who suffered traumatic injury to the last cell of the brain and who fell into an amnesia so profound that he had forgot his own name. Other reports contradicted ventricular localization; Teodorico Bergognoni, a 13th century Italian surgeon, presented a case of a lesion that destroyed the 3rd ventricle without memory loss. Another report by Amatus Lusitanus, a 16th century Portuguese scientist, demonstrated that a lesion in the brain's white matter (medullary substance) accompanied a loss of memory. Many of these cases were compiled by Johannes Schenck, Observationes medicae de capite humano (Basel, 1584) and again by Johannes Wepfer, Observationes medico-practicae de affectibus capitis internis & externis, published posthumously in 1727. Others are discussed in Jules Soury Le Système Nerveux Central (1899). In this paper we discuss the late Middle Ages-to-Renaissance version of medieval cell doctrine, with a particular focus on the third cell or ventricle, the cell responsible for memory and motor function in most versions of MCD. We argue that some data could have been used to refute the "empty space" aspect of the model before Descartes. Other aspects of the model, for example, the concepts of localization, information flow, the link between memory, language and motor function, and the idea that memories are stored images, were not only never challenged but seem to have just become absorbed into post-Renaissance models of brain function.
George K. York and David A. Steinberg
The Såa Institute, Fiddletown, CA USA, and Kaiser Stockton Medical Center, Stockton CA USA
Postictal paralysis, in which focal tonic and myoclonic movements are followed by temporary paralysis in the same distribution, presents the conceptual problem of apparent sequential increased and decreased function in the same anatomic area. Any adequate theory of cerebral localisation must explain the anatomy and pathophysiology of postictal paralysis, and conversely the explanation of it reflects contemporaneous theories. Though descriptions of postictal paralysis can be found in medical writings since Babylonian times, when writers attributed it the hand of the fever demon, it was not until the nineteenth century that Todd's paralysis was shown to be the result of focal cortical disease. In 1854 Robert Bentley Todd proposed that a seizure is the result of the gradual accumulation of morbid material in the blood, When this material reaches a critical level it provokes a discharge of nervous power, and leaves the brain in an exhausted state, as if malnourished. If this process was confined to the cortex, only mental exhaustion occurs; if it extends to the striatum, temporary hemiplegla ensues. Postictal paralysis provoked a disagreement between John Hughlings Jackson and William Gowers. Hughlings Jackson, adapting Todd's hypothesis to his theory of the nervous system as an evolutionary hierarchy of discrete centers, claimed that postictal paralysis was due to exhaustion of the highest and middle motor centers. Since the corticospinal tract was his middle motor level, paralysis results from exhaustion of this level. Gowers observed that Todd's paralysis could occur after an exclusively sensory seizure, and inferred that postictal paralysis could also occur by active inhibition of motor centers by epileptic discharges located in sensory centers. In response, Hughlings Jackson allowed that such a thing could occur, but he had difficulty understanding how to fit it into his theory. The history of postictal paralysis demonstrates that scientific explanations are constrained by the assumptions under which observations are made. Todd's explanation was constrained by his assumption that the function of the cortex is exclusively mental, not motor. Hughlings Jackson was limited by his assumption that exhaustion of one level lead to dis-inhibition of the next lower level; he could not fit the idea of active inhibition into this scheme. Gowers's explanation was strengthened by his acceptance of two complementary mechanisms, Jacksonian exhaustion and active inhibition.
G. Zanchin, T. Plebani, R. De Caro, F. Maggioni and L. Premuda
Dept. of Neurological Sciences, University of Padova, Italy
With this holograph will, G.F. D'Acquapendente bequeathed a large collection of anatomical paintings on paper to the S. Mark's Library in Venice (1522). More than two hundred are preserved: they have been subjected to a conservative restoration that ended in January 1977. We will specifically deal with the 21 plates De anatomia capitis, cerebri, nervorum, considered before and after their restoration. The analysis of two of them regarding the cranial nerves allows some observations on the delicacy of any intervention on ancient iconography which adds a relevant scientific value to the aesthetical aspect. In more general terms, when compared with those of previous and subsequent anatomists such as Vesalius (1543), Eustachius (ca. 1552), Willis (1664), Ruysch (1699), and Santorini (1775), most of these plates show a superior realism. Although unfortunately they were without impact on the anatomical knowledge (they were never published and their discovery in the S. Mark's Library in Venice dates back only to the beginning of this century), they document the highest achievement in iconography of the human nervous system, attained by the naturalistic approach of the XVI century Paduan anatomical school.