The electrical excitability of the brain: toward the emergence of an experiment

In 1870, Eduard Hitzig and Gustav Fritsch performed experiments on dogs by which they were able to produce movement through electrical stimulation of specific parts of the cerebral cortex. Contemporaries regarded the experiment as a milestone in the controversially discussed issue of cerebral localization of functions even though this experiment came as a surprise to the community of experimental physiologists who had rejected localization for several decades after the antiphrenological work of the physiologist Pierre Flourens. In this article, I will argue that the context in which this experiment emerged was not so much the French localization debate of the 1860s but rather practical demands in clinical medicine, notably in electrotherapy. At the time of the experiment, Hitzig worked as a medical practitioner in Berlin and was interested in an anatomical and physiological explanation of the specific symptoms of one of his patients. The unpredictable outcome of this interest was the discovery of the electrical excitability of the cortex. Whereas experimental physiologists dominated the discussion on cerebral localization in Germany before 1870, the situation shifted after the publication of Fritsch and Hitzig's paper. Concrete medical necessities forced the discussion about localization and it was mainly due to the authority of clinical physicians that the localization of mental qualities in the brain became a cornerstone of brain research.     

SCHOPENHAUER'S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

Contained mostly within one brief chapter of his The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer's philosophy of history has long been considered either hostile or irrelevant to nineteenth‐century philosophy of history. This article argues that, on the contrary, Schopenhauer maintained what would become a widely accepted criticism of the methodological identity of historiography and the natural sciences. His criticism of Hegel's teleological historiography was more philosophically rigorous than is commonly acknowledged. And his proposal of a “genuine” historiography along the model of art became a major influence on the historiography of Burckhardt, Emerson, and Nietzsche. This article accordingly aims to restore Schopenhauer to the conversation of nineteenth‐century philosophy of history.     

Karl Marx's theory of history: A defense

A wave of recent publication connected to Hugh Trevor-Roper offers cause to take stock of his life and legacy. He is an awkward subject because his output was so protean, but a compelling one because of his significance for the resurgence of the history of ideas in Britain after 1945. The article argues that the formative period in Trevor-Roper's life was 1945–57, a period curiously neglected hit her to. It was at this time that the pioneered a history of ideas conceived above all as the study of European liberal and humanist tradition. Analysis of the relative importance of contemporary and early modern history in his oeuvre finds that, while the experience of Hitler and the Cold War was formative, it was not decisive. Trevor-Roper was at heart an early modernist who did not abjure specialization. However, he insisted that specialized study must be accompanied by “philosophical” reflection on the working sofa constant human nature present throughout history, a type of reflection best pursued by reading classical historians such as Gibbon and Burckhardt. Yet this imperative in turn fostered purely historical research into the history of historical writing–another branch of the history of ideas.     

Hugh Trevor-Roper and the history of ideas

A wave of recent publication connected to Hugh Trevor-Roper offers cause to take stock of his life and legacy. He is an awkward subject because his output was so protean, but a compelling one because of his significance for the resurgence of the history of ideas in Britain after 1945. The article argues that the formative period in Trevor-Roper's life was 1945–57, a period curiously neglected hitherto. It was at this time that he pioneered a history of ideas conceived above all as the study of European liberal and humanist tradition. Analysis of the relative importance of contemporary and early modern history in his oeuvre finds that, while the experience of Hitler and the Cold War was formative, it was not decisive.Trevor-Roper was at heart an early modernist who did not abjure specialization.However, he insisted that specialized study must be accompanied by “philosophical” reflection on the workings of a constant human nature present throughout history, a type of reflection best pursued by reading classical historians such as Gibbon and Burckhardt.Yet this imperative in turn fostered purely historical research into the history of historical writing – another branch of the history of ideas.     

Mental hygiene for geniuses: psychiatry in the early Soviet years

In this paper, I deal with one episode from the early history of Soviet psychiatry, the project of the Institute of Genius. Though the project never materialized, the idea was characteristic of the very beginning of the Soviet era, when the wildest experiments in the human sciences seemed possible. The author of the project, the psychiatrist Grigorii Vladimirovich Segalin (1878-1960), followed in the steps of another prominent psychiatrist, the architect of the Soviet mental health care system, Lev Markovich Rozenshtein (1884-1934). Rozenshtein, a proponent of social medicine, introduced a new system of psychiatric help that, by contrast with the prerevolutionary one, was preventive and based on outpatient units - neuropsychiatric dispensaries. In a similar way, Segalin planned dispensaries for geniuses, where these otherwise "socially ill adapted" people would receive professional help and care. Having failed to establish such an institution, he founded a journal, the Clinical Archive of Genius and Talent (of Europathology), where he and his like-minded colleagues discussed the supposed pathological origins of talent and published pathographies of outstanding figures. The article traces Segalin's project till its end in the early 1930s.     

The search for a precise method of measurement in psychical experiments

Presents three brief case studies to show how cognition and psychic activity were explored as energetic and economic transactions in a variety of experimental settings. First, in the 1870's German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin began a search for an objective measurement of cognitive performance in which he engaged for several decades. His investigations resulted in a graphic representation of cognitive efficiency, the Arbeitscurve, delineating numbers of additions per time interval in close resemblance to representations of machine efficiency. Second, at the turn of the century American nutrition scientist and agronomist Wilbur Olin Atwater convinced himself in a series of precision measurements that the human motor was a perfectly closed input-output system and that any mental surplus in the form of cognitive energy transformation did not count as contradictions to the principle of the conservation of energy. Third, at the beginning of the 20th century and on the basis of Atwater's results, German psychiatrist Hans Berger stipulated a special form of psychic energy for mediating between the principle of the conservation of energy and mental causality. Berger attempted to quantify psychic energy as one factor of brain metabolism. In the three cases of precision investigations into psychic life presented here, the experimental space of psychophysiology turned mental activity into a form of machine-like behavior.     

The neglected research of Egas Moniz of internal carotid artery (ICA) occlusion

Egas Moniz is generally remembered for having discovered cerebral angiography in 1927, and having introduced lobotomy as a form of treatment for mental illness in 1935. Less well known is his pioneering research on occlusive cerebrovascular disease, namely internal carotid artery (ICA) occlusion, as documented by cerebral angiography. It is our contention that the medical community has, until recently, largely overlooked this research. His neglected observations on ICA occlusion and the important diagnostic role played by angiography are reviewed. We propose to show how our paper differs from previous publications regarding Moniz's ICA occlusion contributions. Whereas most previous reviews have focused on either the role played by cerebral angiography in the diagnosis of ICA occlusion, or on the importance of Moniz's internal carotid occlusion observations, our review attempts to integrate both topics. We will tie Moniz's ICA occlusion research to his documented use of angiography.     

The psychiatric works of Emil Kraepelin: a many-faceted story of modern medicine

A new English language edition of some of the major works of Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926), the famous German psychiatrist, appeared in 2002. This essay has been written to mark the occasion. Kraepelin is famous for his psychiatric nosology, specifically the demarcation of dementia praecox (schizophrenia) and manic-depressive insanity (bi-polar disorder). This essay deals not only with these topics but with many other aspects of Kraepelin's psychiatry: his talents as a writer and teacher; his unusual and intense concern with volition; his lack of psychological empathy with his patients, on the one hand, and on the other, his humane care for their physical well-being; his tangled involvement with psychoanalysis; his war on alcohol; his tradition-bound treatment of hysteria; his reflective attempt to understand paranoia; some criticisms of his work; the debate over the role played by his famous diagnostic cards (Z?hlkarten); his misuse of his psychiatric beliefs in the public arena. A conclusion addresses both his shortcomings and his assets.     

自我的觉醒:彼特拉克与现代性

自布克哈特在《意大利文艺复兴时期的文化》中首次提出彼特拉克是"第一个现代人"后,引发学术界关于彼特拉克是"现代人"抑或中世纪人的激烈争论。身处中世纪与文艺复兴新旧交替以及"现代人"与旧有传统矛盾的历史时期,作为文艺复兴之父的彼特拉克首当其冲地经历了这场巨变。在经历青年、中年和老年的三场觉醒后,彼特拉克意识到自己需要摆脱过去与未来之纠缠,在新旧的断裂带中寻找突破时间限制的夹缝,让自己的作品在时间的洪流中保持永恒的鲜活。     

Franz Joseph Gall on hemispheric symmetries

ABSTRACT

Franz Joseph Gall believed that the two cerebral hemispheres are anatomically and functionally similar, so much so that one could substitute for the other following unilateral injuries. He presented this belief during the 1790s in his early public lectures in Vienna, when traveling through Europe between 1805 and 1807, and in the two sets of books he published after settling in France. Gall seemed to derive his ideas about laterality independently of French anatomist Marie François Xavier Bichat (1771–1802), who formulated his “law of symmetry” at about the same time. He would, however, later cite Bichat, whose ideas about mental derangement were different from his own and who also attempted to explain handedness, a subject on which Gall remained silent. The concept of cerebral symmetry would be displaced by mounting clinical evidence for the hemispheres being functionally different, but neither Gall nor Bichat would live to witness the advent of the concept of cerebral dominance.     

Sergey S. Korsakov and the beginning of Russian psychiatry

Sergey Sergeievich Korsakov (1854-1900) was an outstanding Russian psychiatrist, founder of the Moscow psychiatric school, a talented clinician and teacher, and a supporter of the nosological approach in the understanding and systematization of psychiatric illnesses. He described alcoholic polyneuritis with distinctive mental symptoms, which later on was coined "Korsakov's disease." He was the first to give a clear account of paranoia. Korsakov was a leader in more humane patient management by applying no-restraint principles.     

《论衡》:一代鸿儒的自荐书

王充视著书为文之儒为儒生的最高层次,因而以《论衡》自荐。他欲标其“异”以示《论衡》之独特价值,又不得不趋于“同”以求统治者赏识。难以排解的愤懑使得他只能从命定论中寻求慰藉。王充这种复杂的心态导致了《论衡》的诸多矛盾之处。     

The military, psychiatry, and "unfit" soldiers, 1939-1942

This article examines the psychiatric screening of U.S. soldiers during the Second World War, established by psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949), as a key moment in the public application of clinical psychiatry, as well as a turning point in Sullivan's intellectual and professional career. After a brief look at the ideas and expectations Sullivan brought to the screening system, I discuss a major problem of the screening: the mismatch between the medical concept of disease prevention and the realities of the mass screening as a public policy. As a way to highlight this mismatch, I focus on Sullivan's failure to protect homosexual men from medical and social stigmatization by screening them out of the armed forces. Despite his liberal approach to the issue of homosexuality before the war, which he had created in his clinical practice, Sullivan was unable to persuade the military and the public of gay men's right to serve the nation. The examination of how his sympathetic view of homosexuality became circumscribed reveals not only the gap between clinical insights and public policy, but also how tentative views of homosexuality in public debate among liberal psychiatrists during the decade preceding the war contributed to the failure to make non-homophobic policy in the 1940s. This article shows that the relative conservatism in the politics of sexuality among liberal psychiatrists, as well as the intransigent conservatism as seen in homophobic tradition of the Army, contributed to the discriminatory screening criteria.     

The White Paper: Wilder Penfield,the Stream of Consciousness,and the Physiology of Mind

ABSTRACT

Wilder Penfield is justly famous for his contributions to our understanding of epilepsy and of the structure-function relationship of the brain. His theory on the relationship of the brain and mind is less well known. Based on the effects of the electrical stimulation of the cortex in conscious patients, Penfield believed that consciousness and mind are functions of what he referred to as the centrencephalic integrating system. This functional system comprised bidirectional pathways between the upper brainstem, the thalami, and the cerebral cortex of both hemispheres, and was the physical substrate from which memory, perception, initiative, will, and judgment arose. It was the source of the stream of consciousness and the physical basis of mind. This paper reviews how Penfield arrived at this conception of the mind-brain relationship. Although Penfield ultimately felt that he had failed in his attempt to unify brain and mind, his work shed new light on the relationship of memory to the mesial temporal structures and to the temporal cortex; and his association of consciousness and the brainstem preceded the conceptualization of the reticular activating system by a generation. In these, as in so many aspects of neurobiology, Penfield was prescient.     

William A. Hammond, the dynamograph, and bogus neurologic testimony in old New York

April 25, 1870, court of General Sessions, New York City, Doctor William A. Hammond, neurologist and former Surgeon General of the United States Army, testified at the trial of his patient Daniel McFarland. McFarland had fatally wounded famous journalist Albert Richardson in November of 1869. Dr. Hammond said McFarland suffered from temporary insanity due to cerebral congestion from over use of the brain. Hammond told the jury he had, "devoted the last five years of his professional life exclusively to the study of the mind", and opined that the evidence of cerebral congestion was profound: McFarland's head was hot, and his carotid throbbed. The proof came from the test with the dynamograph machine: McFarland could not keep a pencil still to trace a straight line in the center of a moving piece of paper. The dynamograph, Dr. Hammond assured the jury, measured the power of a man over his will and thus provided "full and decided evidence" there can be no doubt that McFarland "could not control his will". What were the motivations behind the testimony of this famous expert witness? Did bogus neurologic testimony exist in old New York over a century before our time?     

Brown-Séquard's theory of recovery

Charles Edouard Brown-Séquard used observation of recovered patients and experimental animals to support his theory of cerebral localization. Recovery theories assume that the nervous system is composed of one organ or many, and that each organ has one function or many. From his own studies as well as others, Brown-Séquard concluded that the brain contained at least nine separate organs, each with a single distinct function, and that each organ is organized, not as a geographically isolated cluster of neurons, but as a widely disseminated network. According to his view, function is not uniformly distributed in an organ. Focal necrosis of part of an organ temporarily inhibits the action of distant, undamaged parts; resolution of this inhibition results in recovery. Using this theory of cerebral localization and recovery, Brown-Séquard practiced an early form of scientific neurology.     

The origin of the term plasticity in the neurosciences: Ernesto Lugaro and chemical synaptic transmission

The Italian psychiatrist Ernesto Lugaro can be regarded as responsible for introducing the term plasticity into the neurosciences as early as 1906. By this term he meant that throughout life the anatomo-functional relations between neurons can change in an adaptive fashion to enable psychic maturation, learning, and even functional recovery after brain damage. Lugaro's concept of plasticity was strongly inspired by a neural hypothesis of learning and memory put forward in 1893 by his teacher Eugenio Tanzi. Tanzi postulated that practice and experience promote neuronal growth and shorten the minute spatial gaps between functionally associated neurons, thus facilitating their interactions. In addition to discovering the cerebellar cells known by his name and advancing profound speculations about the functions of the glia, Lugaro lucidly foresaw the chemical nature of synaptic transmission in the central nervous system, and was the first to propose the usage of the terms "nervous conduction" and "nervous transmission" in their currently accepted meaning.     

The Origin of the Term Plasticity in the Neurosciences: Ernesto Lugaro and Chemical Synaptic Transmission

The Italian psychiatrist Ernesto Lugaro can be regarded as responsible for introducing the term plasticity into the neurosciences as early as 1906. By this term he meant that throughout life the anatomo-functional relations between neurons can change in an adaptive fashion to enable psychic maturation, learning, and even functional recovery after brain damage. Lugaro’s concept of plasticity was strongly inspired by a neural hypothesis of learning and memory put forward in 1893 by his teacher Eugenio Tanzi. Tanzi postulated that practice and experience promote neuronal growth and shorten the minute spatial gaps between functionally associated neurons, thus facilitating their interactions. In addition to discovering the cerebellar cells known by his name and advancing profound speculations about the functions of the glia, Lugaro lucidly foresaw the chemical nature of Synaptic transmission in the central nervous system, and was the first to propose the usage of the terms “nervous conduction” and “nervous transmission” in their currently accepted meaning.     

Eugenics ideals,racial hygiene,and the emigration process of German-American neurogeneticist Franz Josef Kallmann (1897–1965)

ABSTRACT

Biological psychiatry in the early twentieth century was based on interrelated disciplines, such as neurology and experimental biology. Neuropsychiatrist Franz Josef Kallmann (1897–1965) was a product of this interdisciplinary background who showed an ability to adapt to different scientific contexts, first in the field of neuromorphology in Berlin, and later in New York. Nonetheless, having innovative ideas, as Kallmann did, could be an ambiguous advantage, since they could lead to incommensurable scientific views and marginalization in existing research programs. Kallmann followed his Dr. Med. degree (1919) with training periods at the Charité Medical School in Berlin under psychiatrist Karl Bonhoeffer (1868–1948). Subsequently, he collaborated with Ernst Ruedin (1874–1952), investigating sibling inheritance of schizophrenia and becoming a protagonist of genetic research on psychiatric conditions. In 1936, Kallmann was forced to immigrate to the USA where he published The Genetics of Schizophrenia (1938), based on data he had gathered from the district pathological institutes of Berlin’s public health department. Kallmann resumed his role as an international player in biological psychiatry and genetics, becoming president (1952) of the American Society of Human Genetics and Director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute in 1955. While his work was well received by geneticists, the idea of genetic differences barely took hold in American psychiatry, largely because of émigré psychoanalysts who dominated American clinical psychiatry until the 1960s and established a philosophical direction in which genetics played no significant role, being regarded as dangerous in light of Nazi medical atrocities. After all, medical scientists in Nazi Germany had been among the social protagonists of racial hygiene which, under the aegis of Nazi philosophies, replaced medical genetics as the basis for the ideals and application of eugenics.