Three Twentieth-Century Multiauthored Neurological Handbooks – A Historical Analysis and Bibliometric Comparison

The emergence of neurology as a separate specialty from internal medicine and psychiatry took several decades, starting at the end of the nineteenth century. This can be adequately reconstructed by focusing on the establishment of specialized journals, societies, university chairs, the invention and application of specific instruments, medical practices, and certainly also the publication of pivotal textbooks in the field. Particularly around 1900, the German-speaking countries played an integral role in this process. In this article, one aspect is extensively explored, notably the publication (in the twentieth century) of three comprehensive and influential multivolume and multiauthor handbooks entirely devoted to neurology. All available volumes of Max Lewandowsky's Handbuch der Neurologie (1910–1914) and the Handbuch der Neurologie (1935–1937) of Oswald Bumke and Otfrid Foerster were analyzed. The handbooks were then compared with Pierre Vinken's and George Bruyn's Handbook of Clinical Neurology (1968–2002).

Over the span of nearly a century these publications became ever more comprehensive and developed into a global, encompassing project as is reflected in the increasing number of foreign authors. Whereas the first two handbooks were published mainly in German, “Vinken & Bruyn” was eventually published entirely in English, indicating the general changes in the scientific language of neurology after World War II. Distinctions include the uniformity of the series, manner of editorial involvement, thematic comprehensiveness, inclusion of volume editors in “Vinken & Bruyn,” and the provision of index volumes. The increasing use of authorities in various neurological subspecialties is an important factor by which these handbooks contrast with many compact neurological textbooks that were available at the time.

For historiographical purposes, the three neurological handbooks considered here were important sources for the general study of the history of medicine and science and the history of neurology in particular. Moreover, they served as important catalyzers of the emergence of neurology as a new clinical specialty during the first decades of the twentieth century.     

Georg Friedrich Handel's strokes*

Abstract

Although there is no definite proof, it seems most likely that Georg Friedrich Handel suffered from cere‐brovascular disease, which caused two or three minor strokes and weakness of his eyesight in his last years. His etiologically important risk factors and the symptoms of Handel's strokes are presented and evaluated by primary sources; various diagnoses are discussed. In Handel's musical work, no direct impact from his illness can be found, but there are some indirect outflows of Handel's pathography on his compositions, especially the Messiah.     

The Emergence of Multiple Sclerosis as a Nosological Category in France, 1838–1868

Neurologists have retold a story about the discovery of multiple sclerosis (MS) in essentially the same form from the 1870s to the present. Upon close analysis this narrative was found to be problematic. Once the nosological category of MS came into existence in 1868, physicians reread the scientific past through this new category and created a linear story. Following generations received this story uncritically, rereading the past through the conceptual lens of their own times. Writers selected the earlier cases, illustrations, and medical writings in the literature for inclusion in the discovery narrative and did not analyze them in their original historical contexts. The author offers an alternative account of the discovery of MS. The creation of the disease category of MS by Charcot in France was the result of several converging factors including a new histopathological technology, a unique relationship between patient and physicians in the clinic, a unique relationship between the clinic and the autopsy room, and a neurological culture emphasizing disease specificity.     

The Sherrington–Cushing connection: A bench to bedside collaboration at the dawn of the twentieth century

ABSTRACT

British physiologist Charles Sherrington (1857–1952) and American neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing (1869–1939) were seminal figures in the history of neuroscience. The two came from different worlds, one laboratory-based and the other largely clinical. Their scientific intersection, beginning in July 1901, provides a glimpse into a nascent form of “bench to bedside” collaboration, which carried with it the potential to extend the arm of neurophysiological experimentation from Sherrington’s laboratory to Cushing’s operatory. I reviewed extensive primary source materials archived at Yale University School of Medicine Library. Sherrington viewed Cushing’s bedside work as an opportunity, in humans, to extend his bench-side physiological observations on higher primates, at times almost directing Cushing in the clinic. Cushing would indeed take Sherrington’s observations on apes and extend them to his patients, and the work would eventually overturn the prevailing notion that the motor and sensory cortex were intermixed across the Rolandic fissure.     

Did Herbert Spencer Have Reading Epilepsy?

Herbert Spencer, the nineteenth-century philosopher, has frequently been dismissed as a “fantastical hypochondriac” (as his most recent biographer, Mark Francis, terms him). Yet he left a record in his Autobiography of symptoms that suggest a very different diagnosis. Abruptly at age 35, he found that the activity of reading, previously indulged in without difficulty, triggered paroxysmal episodes of disturbing “head-sensations” including “giddiness” (so Spencer described them); these severely curtailed his ability to carry out his philosophical studies. Of all possible explanations for such episodes, none seems as likely as reading epilepsy. Enduring preconceptions about Spencer's presumed neurosesmay have kept modern historians from appreciating that Spencer suffered from a legitimate, if esoteric, neurological malady.     

Making Distinctions: The Contribution of Hector Landouzy to Differential Diagnosis in Relation to Hysteria and Epilepsy

Hector Landouzy (1818-1864) is known for his Traité Complet de l'Hystérie (1846), which was crowned by the Académie de Médecine, but this work is not given much importance in historical accounts. It deserves more attention because it was more than an orthodox statement about the nature of hysteria. In the context of the diagnostic confusion between epilepsy and hysteria, it introduced a method of presenting criteria to facilitate diagnosis. An examination of French authors on epilepsy and hysteria in the second half of the nineteenth century suggests that this method probably set the example which was to be followed by later clinicians, including Charcot at the Salpêtrière.     

Next Emperor,Please! No End to Retrospective Diagnostics

Abstract

The beginning of the seventeenth century marked the start of a scientific revolution, which had consequences for medicine. Vesalius in anatomy, and Harvey in physiology, were important figures who gave the Hippocratic and Galenic traditions new impulses. In this period of change in medical thought, Nicolaas Tulp (1593–1674) wrote his ‘Observationes Medicae’ (Tulp, 1641). A controversy existed in The Netherlands, concerning the circulation, with many doctors still adhering to the Galenic tradition. The following analysis discusses some of the neurologic cases from Tulp's book, seen in the light of modern medical thought.     

Hallucinations and Pathological Visual Perceptions in Maupassant's Fantastical Short Stories- A Neurological Approach

Maupassant excelled as a realist writer of the nineteenth century, with fantastical short stories being an outstanding example of his literary genius. We have analysed four of his fantastical stories from a neurological point of view. In “Le Horla,” his masterpiece, we have found nightmares, sleep paralysis, a hemianopic pattern of loss and recovery of vision, and palinopsia. In “Qui sait” and in “La main” there is also an illusory movement of the objects in the visual field, although in a dreamlike complex pattern. In “Lui,” autoscopy and hypnagogic hallucinations emerge as fantastical key elements.

The writer suffered from severe migraine and neurosyphilis involving the optic nerve, which led to his death by general paralysis of the insane (GPI). Visual loss and visual hallucinations affected the author in his last years, before a delirant state confined him to a nursing home. Our original hypothesis, which stated that he could have translated his sensorial experiences coming from this source to his works, had to be revised by analyzing some of his earliest works, notably “Le Docteur Héraclius Gloss” and “La main d’écorché” (1875). We found hallucinatory symptoms, adopting the form of autoscopy and other elaborated visual misperceptions, in stories written at age 25, when Maupassant was allegedly healthy. Therefore, we hypothesize that they may be related to his hypersensitive disposition, assuming that no pathology is necessary to experience such vivid experiences. In addition, Maupassant's abuse of drugs, as illustrated in “Rêves,” could have provided an additional element to outline his painstaking visual depictions. All these factors, in addition to his up-to-date neurological knowledge and attendance at Charcot's lectures at “La Salpêtrière,” armed the author for repetitive and enriched hallucinatory experiences, which were transferred relentlessly into his works from the beginning of his career.     

古史辨派的史学遗产与中国上古史体系的建设

以顾颉刚为首的古史辨派是我国20世纪20-40年代古史研究的主要派别,对我国史学尤其是上古史研究影响深远。疑古精神、对进步史观的积极追求与接纳的态度、对古史资料考信而后用之的原则、注重历史与考古研究结合的治史方法,以及建设新古史体系的设想,是古史辨派留给我们的史学遗产。新古史体系的建设道路并不平坦,搞好新古史体系建设较为根本的对策就是在总结和继承古史辨派优秀史学遗产的基础上,坚持理论创新,切实加强考古学家与历史学家的沟通与合作。     

从英国史研究到世界现代化进程研究--访钱乘旦教授

钱乘旦教授在蒋孟引先生的引导下从事英国史研究,首先探讨了改革在英国历史发展中的作用。以英国史研究为切入点,进一步比较了英国、法国、德国等国家近代历史发展的异同,从而深入到发达国家现代化的研究领域。他又从英国现代化的研究扩展到整个英联邦国家的现代化研究,进而探讨了世界上不同国家的现代化的历史进程,并且反思了这一进程中出现的诸多问题。     

论西方环境史的政治特点

国内外环境史学者基本认为,环境史是人与自然相互关系的历史,因此他们对环境史中人与人的关系普遍重视不够。但通过对环境史发展过程及环境史理论的分析,尤其对环保运动与反环保势力的政治特点的概述,人们会意识到生态危机的实质是不同的利益冲突,是社会危机、人与人关系的危机。因此,在肯定环境史独特的生态视角的同时,也应充分认识到它与一般史学分支尤其是政治史内容的密切关系。     

评蒋大椿和吴英、庞卓恒围绕唯物史观的理论争鸣

蒋、庞二位先生都以人类实践为中心看待唯物史观,但是庞先生强调物质生产实践的基础性,蒋先生更注重以系统的方式把握人类实践的总体性。合理的态度应当是结合这两种眼光,兼顾抽象与具体,开展历史观和历史学的对话以及跨学科的理论吸收,建构中介层次的社会有机体理论,作为唯物史观新的生长点。