Alcmaeon of Croton's Observations on Health, Brain, Mind, and Soul

Alcmaeon of Croton (sixth-fifth century BC), a pre-Socratic physician-philosopher, introduced the concept that mind and soul are located in the brain. Alcmaeon made observations about seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling and distinguished perception from understanding. Alcmaeon contributed two major ideas to natural sciences: (1) the brain is the seat of human intelligence, and (2) physicians should draw conclusions from empirical observations, an idea that implicitly rejects the alternative notion that science should depend on "divine revelation." Two thousand and five-hundred years later, these two insights remain true and guarantee Alcmaeon a place in the history of neuroscience.     

Highland Lodge,Kilkelly, County Mayo: An Autobiographical Sketch

Fragments of neurology can be found in the oldest medical writings in antiquity. Recognizable cerebral localization is seen in Egyptian medical papyri. Most notably, the Edwin Smith papyrus describes hemiplegia after a head injury. Similar echoes can be seen in Homer, the Bible, and the pre-Hippocratic writer Alcmaeon of Croton. While Biblical writers thought that the heart was the seat of the soul, Hippocratic writers located it in the head. Alexandrian anatomists described the nerves, and Galen developed the ventricular theory of cognition whereby mental functions are classified and localized in one of the cerebral ventricles. Medieval scholars, including the early Church Fathers, modified Galenic ventricular theory so as to make it a dynamic model of cognition. Physicians in antiquity subdivided the brain into separate areas and attributed to them different functions, a phenomenon that connects them with modern neurologists.     

A Physiologist’s War: Captain T. Graham Brown RAMC (1915–1919)

During the five years before the outbreak of the First World War, Thomas Graham Brown (1882–1965) conducted research into the control of locomotion that gained him a deserved and long-lasting reputation as a neuroscientist and, in 1927, was recognized by election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. In 1915, with the First World War raging, he agonized about continuing his research or joining the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). Told by his father to seek a commission, he served two and half years in Macedonia with the British Salonika Force. Whilst in Greece, he kept a daily diary. The entries from June 1916 to May 1917 are extant. They are unpublished and provide the background to the narrative to follow. Casualties with traumatic injury to the brain and spinal cord afforded him the opportunity to carry out careful observations, particularly concerning sensory localization, which resulted in novel findings and his observations on shell shock led to him being called as an expert witness to the national inquiry into the nature and treatment of the condition. In 1920, Graham Brown was appointed to the Chair of Physiology in Cardiff, which he held until 1947.     

Gravity-wave motions in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere observed at Mawson,Antarctica

We present the results of MF radar observations of mean winds and waves in the height range 78–108 km at Mawson (67°S, 63°E), Antarctica. The measurements were made in the period from 1984 to 1990. Climatologies of the prevailing zonal and meridional circulations made with a 12-day time resolution show that the mean circulation remained relatively stable over the 6 yr of observation. Climatologies of gravity-wave motions in the 1–24 h period range were also generated. These reveal that the r.m.s. amplitudes of horizontal wave motions near the mesopause (~90 km) are about 30 m s⁻¹, and that there is some anisotropy in the motions, especially at heights below 90 km. Meridional amplitudes are larger than zonal amplitudes, which suggests a preference for wave propagation in the north-south direction. Comparisons with MST radar wind observations made near the summer solstice at Poker Flat, Alaska (65°N) and at Andøya, Norway (69°N) show similarities with the Mawson observations, but the wave amplitudes and mean motions are larger in magnitude at the northern sites. This suggests hemispheric differences in wave activity that require further study.     

Ludwig Heinrich Bojanus (1776–1827) on Gall’s craniognomic system,zoology, and comparative anatomy

ABSTRACT

Most of what was known about Franz Joseph Gall’s (1758–1828) organology or Schädellehre prior to the 1820s came from secondary sources, including letters from correspondents, promotional materials, brief newspaper articles about his lecture-demonstrations, and editions and translations of some lengthier works of varying quality in German. Physician Ludwig Heinrich Bojanus (1776–1827) practiced in Vienna’s General Hospital in 1797–1798; attended some of Gall’s public lectures; and, in 1801–1802, became one of the first physicians to provide detailed reports on Gall’s emerging organology in French and English, respectively. Although Bojanus considered the human mind to be indivisible and did not entirely agree with Gall’s assumption that the brain consists of a number of independent organs responsible for various faculties, he provided valuable information and thoughtful commentary on Gall’s views. Furthermore, he defended Gall against the charge that his sort of thinking would lead to materialism and cautiously predicted that the new system would be fruitful for developing and stimulating important new research about the brain and mind. Bojanus became a professor of zoology in 1806 and a professor of comparative anatomy in 1814 at Vilnius University, where, among other accomplishments, he established himself as a founder of modern veterinary medicine and a pioneer of pre-Darwinian and pre-Lamarckian evolutionism.     

A comparison of PMSE and other ground-based observations during the NLC-91 campaign

During the period July–August 1991, observations were made of Polar Mesospheric Summer Echoes (PMSE) at 46.9 MHz and 224 MHz by the CUPRI and EISCAT radars, respectively, at two sites in northern Scandinavia. Those observations are compared here with observations of noctilucent clouds, energetic particle precipitation and magnetic disturbances. The appearance and morphology of PMSE are found to be closely correlated at the two frequencies and the two sites, 200 km apart. No correlation is found between PMSE and noctilucent clouds or magnetic disturbance. No correlation is found between energetic particle precipitation and the appearance of PMSE at 46.9 MHz for the whole time period. At 224 MHz, there is no evidence for a correlation before the beginning of August and only one event suggesting a possible correlation after the beginning of August. A minimum in occurrence frequency for PMSE is found between 16 and 21 UT (17–22 LST) which may be related to an expected minimum in background wind strength in that time interval.     

Ancient Mining and Smelting Activities in the Wadi Abu Gerida Area,Central Eastern Desert,Egypt: Preliminary Results

Old mining and smelting features in the Abu Gerida area have been studied using field observations, microscopy and SEM–EDS to detect the ores that were exploited in antiquity. There are two groups of shafts in the area. The first group encloses secondary copper minerals and is associated with glassy slags containing copper prills. The other group is associated with hematite that was extracted and transferred to a smelting station to the west of the mining site, where iron slags and charcoal fragments are found. These slags are composed mainly of wüstite, fayalite–kirschsteinite and traces of metallic iron. Pottery fragments from this area were dated to the Ptolemaic Period, which may be the age of iron exploitation. Copper might have been exploited earlier.     

Pivotal Politics,Presidential Capital,and Supreme Court Nominations

We analyze the Supreme Court nomination process in order to provide a general explanation of presidents' propensity to win confirmation battles even in the face of an ideologically hostile Senate. The analysis serves two purposes. First, we argue that employing the conventional measure of the Senate's power to constrain the president's choice of nominees–the median senator–provides an inaccurate picture of this process. In its stead we argue that the filibuster pivot (or the sixtieth most liberal or conservative senator) more accurately captures the Senate's power over the president (Krehbiel 1998). Second, we argue that even under this more stringent spatial constraint, presidents still have the ability to win most confirmation battles with the Senate. Indeed, our results indicate that presidents often overcome situations where the Senate should reject their nominees, or where it should force them to make a less desirable choice, by invoking political capital.     

New Insights into the Provenance of the Obsidian Fragments of the Island of Ustica (Palermo,Sicily)

In this study we applied a multidisciplinary approach, coupling geophysical and geochemical measurements, to unveil the provenance of 170 obsidian flakes, collected on the volcanic island of Ustica (Sicily). On this island there are some prehistoric settlements dated from the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age. Despite not having geological outcrops of obsidian rocks, the countryside of Ustica is rich in fragments of this volcanic glass, imported from other source areas. The study of obsidian findings was carried out first through visual observations and density measurements. At least two different obsidian families have been distinguished, probably imported from Lipari and Pantelleria islands. Analysing the magnetic properties of the samples, these two main sources were confirmed, but the possibility of other provenances was inferred. Finally, we characterized the geochemical signature of the Ustica obsidians by performing microchemical analyses through electron microprobe (EMPA) and laser ablation (LA–ICP–MS). The results were compared with literature data, confirming the presence of the Lipari and Pantelleria sources (Sicily) and indicating for the first time in this part of Italy a third provenance from Palmarola island (Latium). Our results shed new light on the commercial exchanges in the peri‐Tyrrhenian area during the prehistoric age.     

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.     

Fine structure of the high-latitude ionosphere in the cleft and cusp

The results of studies of the fine structure and dynamic processes in the high-latitude ionosphere in the cleft and cusp region by the data of complex radiophysical observations on high-latitudinal paths are presented. They are based on experimental material obtained on board the research vessel ‘Professor Vize’ during July-September 1990 when the vessel was at the Greenwich meridian and the latitudes 75–78°N. The distinctive feature of the radiophysical observations on the vessel was the simultaneous observations by the Doppler method at two fixed frequencies in the decameter range and by the method of oblique sounding of the ionosphere at a frequency sweeping the range from 3.5 to 27.5 MHz. From the observations, the typical feature of the cleft and the cusp has been found to be the presence of wave processes of various periods from 30–40 s to 3–8 min. It is suggested that the emergence of typical negative tracks on the dynamic spectra of HF signals is related to the ionospheric manifestations of flux transfer events.     

Divine wrath and the conceptual coherence of the book of Nahum

Abstract:

In the recent scholarly discussion on the Book of Nahum two views stand juxtaposed: (1) The Book is a unity, written by a seventh century BCE prophet; (2) the Book as it stands is the outcome of a complex process of redaction implying a Persian period date for the final form. Starting from the final form of the book, it is concluded that, from the point of view of structural‐literary analysis, the book can be seen as unity. The redaction historical approach to the Book of Nahum assumes a distinction between lofty theological language in the hymn (Nah. 1,2–8) and the more realistic language expressing nationalistic feelings in the rest of the book. This distinction is the starting point for a literary‐critical division. However, an analysis of the theme “divine wrath” leads to the conviction that both parts of the book share a common ideology. “Wrath” in the Book of Nahum should be interpreted within the framework of covenant‐theology and as a provoked reaction. The Assyrians are depicted as the “enemies of God”. The doom that is predicted for them can be seen as God's response to their conduct. In this connection it should be observed that several allusions to ancient Near Eastern treaty clauses can be found in Nah. 2,4–3,19. This observation leads to the assumption that the relation between YHWH and the Assyrians is seen as some form of vassaldom. All these observations make a literary‐critical division less plausible. Finally, a seventh century BCE date for the composition of Nahum is proposed.     

Neuronomy,education, and outreach in neuroscience: A historical case study of Burt Green Wilder

Burt Green Wilder (1841–1925) was a pioneering naturalist and anatomist who is historically known for his brain collection and for his contributions to neuroanatomical nomenclature. During his 42-year career, Wilder also used brain measurements for education and outreach, especially in regard to issues of race and gender. Additionally, Wilder influenced neuroscience education and acted as a scientific liaison to the public. For example, he designed early implementations of the sheep brain dissections that are still being conducted today, as well as likely conducted the first “Brain Day.” This article reviews each of these topics, as well as others, with the aim of accurately placing Wilder in the history of neuroscience as a naturalist and anatomist who, among other achievements, pioneered the use of brain measurements for education and outreach.     

Procedures and complications in late-nineteenth-century experimental neuroanatomical research exemplified by articles of Henry Herbert Donaldson (1857–1938)

Henry Herbert Donaldson (1857–1938) was a leader in neurological research in the United States for several decades, beginning about 1890. A detailed account of three of his earliest publications shows the neuroanatomical procedures involved in the study of the relation of brain and intelligence during the late-nineteenth-century in America. Two of the articles, published in September 1890 and December 1891, were titled, “Anatomical Observations on the Brain and Several Sense-Organs of the Blind Deaf-Mute, Laura Dewy Bridgman (1829–1889)”; the third, published in August 1892, used the information from the first two to delimit the extent of the visual processing area of the human cortex. Donaldson’s procedures included brain cuttings and measures of macroscopic brain structures, histology of cellular structures, attempts to relate macroscopic brain structures with brain functions, data corrections, estimations, comparisons, and statistics. These procedures provide a view of the relative thoroughness, accuracy, and comparability of the various neuroanatomical techniques in use at that time and of Donaldson’s implementation of the techniques. Donaldson’s brain cutting techniques were much more comparable than his measurement techniques. The latter could be quite precise, but they were fraught with lack of standardized procedures that made corrections and estimations necessary when making data comparisons across studies. Donaldson emphasized these incompatibilities, implying a need for standardization. Statistical procedures were the least thorough and effective. His, and the field’s, total complement of statistical techniques consisted of mean and range, which severely limited his ability to make complicated assessments. This limitation was not necessarily supplemented by stringent control group comparisons.     

The Chosen Few: The Order Pour le mérite and the Order of Merit

Abstract

Brain disease or injury is a terrible thing, but the fact that the same kinds of brain diseases occur the world over offers researchers the opportunity to address the question posed by the title to this review. In the research described here, we assessed the reading skills of adult neurological patients (who had been normal speakers and readers prior to the onset of their brain damage) in both England and Japan. We chose patients in the two countries with the same causes and neuroanatomical locations of brain damage. The writing systems of English and Japanese differ fundamentally in the manner in which written words represent the sounds and meanings of the words in their respective languages. If the organisation of language in a person's brain is determined by the characteristics of the language he or she has learned, it follows that there should be little or no commonality in the patterns of reading deficit across these two languages. On the other hand, if the same principles of brain organisation apply across different cultures and languages, then we should be able to predict the nature of the reading impairments from one language to another when the same part of the brain is malfunctioning. The results discussed strongly suggest that the brain's organisation of language is in fact the same no matter which language you speak.     

Two decades of Bosnian place-making in St. Louis,Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri received approximately 11,000 refugees from the Bosnian War (1992–1995) between 1993 and 2001. These newcomers were resettled in a predominantly white, working-class neighborhood on the city's south side known a century earlier for its German population. They were joined by family reunification immigrants, secondary migrants from other US cities, and a newborn generation of Bosnian Americans. With a current population of about 70,000, they constitute the largest population of Bosnians in the USA. They are credited with revitalizing the St. Louis neighborhood of Bevo Mill and stabilizing the city's declining population. Bosnians have created a distinctive ethnic enclave that is visible on the commercial, religious, and residential landscapes, and they have found a place in the wider receiving community. Drawing upon field observations, the local media, and the work of fellow scholars, this article investigates two decades of Bosnian place-making in south St. Louis. Through this case study, the author also seeks to fill a gap in the scholarly literature of this relatively recent diaspora by documenting the Bosnian imprint on the cultural landscape.     

Boiled versus unboiled: a study on Neolithic and contemporary human bones

Bones treated at low temperature do not present major modifications although, macroscopically, boiled bones may be distinguished from unboiled ones as they are smoother, lighter and more transparent. Such observations should correspond to textural modifications at a nanometric level and should depend on boiling time. In this study, contemporary human bones, boiled during various time intervals, were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and nitrogen adsorption (BET). The results were used to estimate the boiling time in four archaeological samples (Neolithic bones from Malalmuerzo cave, Spain). It is concluded, comparing Neolithic bones to contemporary ones and from the textural characterization at a nanometrical level, that two of the archaeological bones were boiled and that they were boiled for less than 6 hours.     

Hydrologic response of a small forested swamp complex,Seymour Valley,British Columbia

Wetlands are common in Coastal Western Hemlock forests yet the hydrologic processes that generate runoff from small swamps are not completely understood. Direct field observations, hydrologic, and electrical conductivity data were collected from a gently sloping forested swamp complex from July to November 2009. Swamps occupied depressions between raised mounds (0.1 to 3 m high) and were connected by an ephemeral creek. Runoff was controlled by antecedent moisture conditions and influenced by basin microtopography. Two hydrologic regimes occurred during the study period and different runoff processes dominated each regime. Runoff was generated by subsurface flow during dry antecedent conditions as swamps remained hydrologically disconnected from each other. Runoff was generated by surface outflow from hydrologically connected swamps during wet antecedent conditions as ponded water spilled out of the depressions. The forested swamp complex produced a faster but limited hydrologic response during dry antecedent conditions compared to a slower but greater hydrologic response during wet antecedent conditions. Stormwater runoff and runoff ratios were up to two orders of magnitude higher in wet conditions than during similarly sized events in dry conditions. These factors should be considered when designing monitoring programs or runoff models in forested swamps with significant microtopography. Field surveys and estimates of hydrologic inputs and outputs may be useful in predicting the potential hydrologic connectivity of isolated forested swamps.     

Inertio-gravity waves and subtropical multiple tropopauses: Vertical wavenumber spectra of wind and temperature observed by the MU radar,radiosondes and operational rawinsonde network

We have carried out continuous observations of the tropopause region over Japan for three weeks during the Baiu (early summer rain “in Japan”) season in 1991, by using a VHF Doppler radar (the MU radar), radiosondes launched at the radar site and operational rawinsondes at five meteorological stations. Based on these observations, we try to examine the hypothesis that the multiple tropopauses and the dominant inertio-gravity waves are one and the same feature, and obtain some interesting results that are not inconsistent with this hypothesis. First, vertical wavenumber spectra and hodographs analyzed from the radar wind data in the tropopause region suggest that inertio-gravity waves with vertical wavelengths of ∼ 2 km are quasi-monochromatically dominant (with 2–3 day scale variabilities of 10–20%), and are in accordance with activities of the subtropical jet stream and mesoscale cyclone-front system activities observed by the operational network. Second, striking (potential) temperature fluctuations are detected simultaneously by the radiosondes and rawinsondes, which appear as multiple tropopauses in meridional cross-section analysis. Third, vertical wavenumber spectra analyzed from the radiosonde temperature data are consistent with the radar wind spectrum, if we assume that both wind and temperature fluctuations are mainly induced by the dominant inertio-gravity waves. Finally, we confirm that the dominant interio-gravity waves can be barely detected also from routine rawinsonde (1.5-km running-mean) wind data if the amplitude is larger than 1.5 m/s. However, the monochromatic wave structures are generally quite localized in space and time.     

Late pre‐Islamic burials at Mleiha,Emirate of Sharjah (UAE)

The history of two monumental grave buildings (nos. 4 and 5), excavated in area P of the late pre‐Islamic city of Mleiha, has been studied in detail. Like all other tombs excavated up to the present day in Mleiha, their chambers had been emptied in ancient times. They were found devoid of human remains and grave‐goods. In the upper parts of the grave fills, however, skeletal remains were encountered. One of the skeletons was radiocarbon dated to AD 623–656, the time of the Islamisation of south‐east Arabia. A radiocarbon date of 384–233 BC for a wooden beam from the same tomb showed that it was built during the late pre‐Islamic period (PIR‐A). These dates and stratigraphic observations made clear that the interments were intrusive. The surrounding sediments were deposited by flooding. Directly underneath the skull of the dated skeleton, a layer of sandy loam was encountered, showing mud cracks. To understand the relationship between the burial and these deposits, micromorphological analyses of the surrounding sediments were conducted. The microstructural organisation of the sedimentary components implied that the skull was interred as part of a burial, and not deposited by natural processes.