Journal of the History of the Neurosciences最新文献

Wilder Penfield is known for his contributions to the structure-function relationship of the brain and for the surgical treatment of focal epilepsy. Less well known are his contributions to the study of glial cells and his investigation of their role in human neuropathology. Penfield learned the gold and silver methods for staining neurons, glial cells, and their projections from Charles Sherrington and Pío del Río-Hortega. He and his colleague William Cone established a laboratory for the study of glial cells and human neuropathology using metallic stains, initially at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York City in 1925, and then at the Montreal Neurological Institute in 1928. Penfield, Cone, and their research fellows, building on the findings of Río-Hortega, confirmed the existence of oligodendrocytes and their relationship with myelin, and investigated the putative mesodermal origin of microglia. They discovered the reaction of oligodendrocytes to pathological stressors, and the phagocytic activity of microglia in human gliomas. In this article, we argue that Penfield's studies of astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and microglia, and their responses to craniocerebral trauma, epilepsy, malignant brain tumors, and other pathologies of the central nervous system inaugurated a new era in clinical neurocytology and neuropathology.

The hundredth anniversary of the death of French histologist Louis Ranvier (1835‒1922) is an opportunity to reexamine his elaboration of the first concept of the Schwann cell. A loyal supporter of Theodor Schwann and his discoveries, and an attentive reader of the work of Albert von Kölliker, Ranvier studied the anatomic details of the myelinated nerve fiber with picrocarminate staining. The diffusion of the dye into the nerve fiber at the cut ends and at the sites of the annular constrictions (Ranvier's nodes) set him on the path to defining a new cellular entity surrounding the axon, the "interannular segment," comprising a Schwann nucleus, myelin, and cytoplasm. Ramón y Cajal recognized in 1913 that this concept of the Schwann cell according to Ranvier and his pupil William Vignal had been a brilliant intuition, but it was widely rejected until it was rediscovered using electron microscopy in the 1950s. The article reconstructs the steps of Ranvier and Vignal in building this Schwann cell concept, as well as establishing bridges with the discoveries of the 1950s.

In the neurosciences, concepts play an important role in the conception and direction of research. Among the theoretical notions and direction of research, plasticity stands out because of the multiple ways in which scientists use it to describe and interpret how the nervous system changes and adapts to different requirements. The occurrence of different conceptualizations of plasticity in the scientific literature during the second half of the twentieth century and up to the present was investigated using bibliometric methods. Throughout the period analyzed, synaptic plasticity has remained the dominant conceptualization of plasticity. However, scientists have continued to introduce novel plasticity concepts reflecting the scientific advances they have made in understanding the dynamic nature of the nervous system. The conceptual evolution of plasticity documents that the view of the adult nervous system as immutable has been replaced by an understanding of the nervous system as capable of lifelong change and adaptation.

In November 1881, the eminent physiologist and physician David Ferrier was prosecuted under the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876. The prosecution was raised by the Victoria Street Society, formerly known as the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection, through its activist founder, Frances Power Cobbe. This article examines the legislative context prior to Ferrier's trial, the personalities involved in the prosecution, and its course and outcome. The resultant impact, both personal, on Cobbe and Ferrier, and professional, on experimental neurophysiology, is discussed, in particular the foundation of the Association for the Advancement of Medicine by Research (AAMR) and the provision of legal support for medical practitioners subject to litigation.

In the course of researching and writing the first-ever book length biography of Edward Graeme Robertson's (1903-1975) eventful life and career in Australasian neurology, a rare 1933 cinema film recording of National Hospital staff at Queen Square has recently been rediscovered. Graeme completed his residency in neurology at Queen Square in the early 1930s and maintained close connections with his colleagues in London, thoughtfully recording them at different times using early movie cameras. Two versions of Graeme's 1933 film have been preserved, and there are also other color clips of his colleagues from later in life in the UCL Neurology archives and Robertson family collection. These remarkable films contain images of several historically significant neurologists, including Gordon Morgan Holmes (1876-1965), Samuel Alexander Kinnier Wilson (1878-1937), Derek Denny-Brown (1901-1981), Macdonald Critchley (1900-1997), and several others. We provide a contextual summary of the many clips recorded alongside an in-depth inventory of all the personalities represented in the 1933 film. Selected photographs are used to indicate the contents of these remarkable films.

Thomas Hun (1808-1896)-along with his sons Edward (1842-1880) and Henry (1854-1924)-were prime movers in establishing the clinical practice and academic discipline of neurology in the Hudson River Valley of New York in the ninteenth and early-twentieth centuries. This article outlines the life of the family's semi-aristocratic patriarch, beginning with Thomas's unusual educational background and his six-year post-graduate hiatus in Paris of the 1830s, where he came under the influence of P. C. A. Louis (1787-1872). It lays out his subsequent career as professor of the Institutes of Medicine and ultimately as dean of an American medical school that was not situated in a major metropolis. It also will demonstrate how Thomas Hun's career as a medical practitioner, academician, neurophilosopher, and "proto-neurologist" recapitulates the evolution of clinical and academic neurology in nineteenth-century America.

In the era after World War II, Francis (Frank) Forster (1912-2006) became a preeminent American neurologist and epileptologist, with international prominence in the study of reflex epilepsy. Forster's interest in reflex epilepsy began with a chance observation of the condition, in 1946, in a four-year-old girl. When medical measures failed to control her somatosensory-evoked seizures, Forster recommended surgery, and then facilitated transfer to Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield (1891-1976) at the Montreal Neurological Institute. Forster traveled to Montreal for the child's surgery. The surgery on February 27, 1948, proved to be curative for the child, and Forster's interactions with Penfield and epileptologist Herbert Jasper (1906-1999) made a lasting impression. This study reviews the medical and surgical history of this case, which strongly influenced Forster's career.

In 1908-1909, Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944), best remembered for The Scream (1893), spent eight months under Daniel Jacobson's care in a private nerve clinic in Copenhagen. Munch was suffering from alcohol abuse, and his signs and symptoms included auditory hallucinations, persecutory delusions, paresthesias, paralyses, violent mood swings, depression, loss of control, fatigue, and the loss of his basic ability to take care of himself. He was treated with rest, a fortifying diet, massages, baths, fresh air, limited exercise, and nonconvulsive electrotherapy. After he had settled in, Jacobson allowed Munch to draw, paint, and engage in photography. Munch responded with a portrait of Jacobson and a small but intriguing sketch of himself at one of his electrotherapy sessions. In this article, we examine the circumstances that brought Munch to Jacobson's clinic and his therapies, with particular attention to electrotherapies. In so doing, we hope to provide a more complete picture of Munch's crisis in 1908, his nerve doctor, the rationales for medical electricity and other treatments he endured, and Scandinavian psychiatry at this moment in time.