Theodor Meynert
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Theodor Meynert. Photo by Ludwig Angerer. Before 1880. Via Wikimedia. Theodor Meynert (1833-1892) (Fig 1) was an eminent if eccentric neuropathologist and psychiatrist. His original work had an impact not just on medicine but on the philosophy of the mind and the “history of materialism.”1 Modern […]
Franz Joseph Gall and phrenology
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Franz Joseph Gall. By Zéphirin Félix Jean Marius Belliard. Via Wikimedia. For many reasons the work of Gall, when stripped of its excrescences, constituted an important landmark in the history of neurology. -Macdonald Critchley4 In the times of Galen, the location of the mind and spirit […]
Edward Lear
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Lear by Wilhelm Marstrand 1840 NPG 3055 [public domain] How pleasant to know Mr Lear! Who has written such volumes of stuff! Some think him ill-tempered and queer But a few think him pleasant enough. Edward Lear 1879 Hundreds of famous people from every branch of […]
A note on handedness
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Handedness (chirality) refers to the preferential use of one hand over the other. It is a matter of degree; it is seldom absolute. Population left and right preference existed in the Neanderthals (lived from 400,000 to about 40,000 years ago) onwards. Only homo sapiens amongst the great apes […]
Walter E. Dandy, one of the founders of neurosurgery
Philip R. Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States Johns Hopkins, where Dandy studied. Photo by Lizardraley99, 2012. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 Three pioneers established the discipline of neurosurgery. They were the British surgeon Victor Horsley and the Americans Harvey Cushing and Walter Dandy. Both Americans were surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Dandy (1886-1946) […]
The migraine aura and royal astronomers
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. George Airy’s visual hallucinations from London, Edinb., and Dubl. Phil. Mag., ser. 4, 80: 19-21, 1865. reproduced in Jarcho S.11 Spleen sighs for ever on her pensive bed, Pain at her side and megrim at her head. — “Rape of the Lock”, Alexander Pope (1688-1744) […]
Broca’s Brains: A lesson in the importance of saving the history of neuroscience
Richard Brown Halifax, NS, Canada Thalia Garvock-de Montbrun Montreal, QC, Canada Figure 1. Brain of patient (Lelong) with aphasia studied by Broca. Photo taken by Richard Brown May 2017. Recent fires at the National Museum of Brazil and at the University of Cape Town in South Africa1,2 have shown the fragility of rare books, […]
The intricate forest of the neuron
Silvia Maina Torino, Italia Santiago Ramón y Cajal. A Purkinje neuron from the human cerebellum. [Wikimedia, Public Domain] Entering the room, I was welcomed by some small and attractive ink drawings. In the first, like a genealogical tree or a medieval miniature, thin branches stretched to fill the frame. In the second, waves of […]
Eye-brain-extremity coordination and enduring sports achievement
Marshall Lichtman Rochester, New York, United States Rafael Nadal. Photo by Carine06. 2016. Via Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0 Neuroscientists have imaged the brain of athletes, looking for changes related to the sports they played, whether principally aerobic or anaerobic. These efforts have suggested expansion of the gray matter in certain anatomical areas of the […]
Encephalitis lethargica
Front page of Encephalitis lethargica. Its sequelae and treatment by Constantin Von Economo, 1931. Via Wikimedia. Encephalitis lethargica was a worldwide epidemic during the years 1918-1930 that resembled influenza. It was first described in Vienna in 1916 by Constantin von Economo in thirteen patients suffering from unusual neurological symptoms that he thought constituted a new […]