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Action propre and action commune: The localization of cerebral function

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References

  1. Gall defined the physiology of the brain as “la connaissance des facultés et des qualités primitives, et du siége de leurs conditions matérielles.”-Franz Joseph Gall, Anatomie et physiologie du systeme nerveux en general et du cerveau en particulier, avec des observations sur la possibilité de reconnaitre plusiers dispositions intellectuelles et morales de l'homme et des animaux par la configuration de leurs têtes, 4 vols. (Paris, 1810–19), III, 4.

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  10. Flourens suggested that Gall saw an analogy between the senses' functions and the soul's faculties because he “saw that sensory functions are distinct and wanted the soul's faculties to be equally distinct”-De la phrenologie, (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1863), p. 63.

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  18. Franz Joseph Gall, Anatomie et physiologie du systeme nerveux en general et du cerveau en particulier, avec des observations sur la possibilité de reconnaitre plusiers dispositions intellectuelles et morales de l'homme et des animaux par la configuration de leurs têtes, 4 vols. (Paris, 1810–19), I, 66, 68.

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  19. Franz Joseph Gall, Anatomie et physiologie du systeme nerveux en general et du cerveau en particulier, avec des observations sur la possibilité de reconnaitre plusiers dispositions intellectuelles et morales de l'homme et des animaux par la configuration de leurs têtes, 4 vols. (Paris, 1810–19), I, p. 200: trans. O. Temkin, in “Remarks on the Neurophysiology of Gall and Spurzheim.”

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  20. Gall and Spurzheim, Recherches, p. 66: trans. O. Temkin, “Remarks on the Neurophysiology of Gall and Spurzheim,” in Science, Medicine, and History ed. E. A. Underwood. (London: Oxford University Press, 1953).

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  21. “Remarks on the Neurophysiology of Gall and Spurzheim,” p. 287.

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  23. Gall, Anatomie, p. 201f.

  24. By “diverging” and “re-entering” fibers Gall meant, roughly, what are now called projection fibers and commissural and association fibers. To present neuroanatomists the most confusing element in Gall's discussion is his lack of differentiation between descending and ascending projection fibers. Since Gall held that the brain originates from the medulla, all his “projection” fibers are anatomically descending but functionally both ascending and descending (Temkin, “Remarks on the Neurophysiology of Gall and spurzheim,” p. 288).

  25. Gall, Anatomie, pp. 201, 459.

  26. Flourens, De la phrenologie, p. 62.

  27. Anatomie, I, XXV.

  28. Flourens, De la phrenologie, p. 62.

  29. “Remarks on the Neurophysiology of Gall and Spurzheim,” p. 289.

  30. Anatomie, IV, 341.

  31. Ibid., II, 3; III, 81.

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  35. Flourens, De la phrenologie, pp. 30, 44. While scientists largely rejected phrenology, it had a deep and lasting popular appeal. The doctrine, spread throughout Europe and America by such men as Spurzheim, George Combe, and the Fowler brothers, flourished for a century among a broad range of lay groups.

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  39. Legallois, too, was led to the principle of functional localization by his researches: “Every time that a certain portion of the brain or cord is destroyed a function ceases abryptly ... It was by this method that I discovered the location of the respiratory center, and it will be by this method, that, up to a certain point, we will discover the uses of certain parts of the brain.”-Expériences, sur le principle de la vie (Paris: D'Hautel, 1812), pp. 142–43.

  40. P. Flourens, Études vraies sur le cerveau (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1863), p. 132. As a protegé of Cuvier, Flourens' major researches on the brain were presented by Cuvier to the Academie des Sciences in 1822 and 1823. Portions of the memoires were first published in the Arch. Gén. de Med. 2:321 (1823), and, in their entirety, were published in book form as Recherches expérimentales in 1824 (2nd ed., 1842).

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  44. Translated by Olmsted in “Pierre Flourens,” p. 293.

  45. From Flourens' Recherches, translated by W. Dennis in Readings in the History of Psychology (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1948). Dennis literally translated the French “sensation,” although, with respect to the cerebrum, Flourens refers to the modern term “perception.”

  46. E. Schäfer, Textbook of Physiology (Edinburgh: Y. J. Pentland, 1900), II, 909. In his 1823 memoir Flourens elaborated his idea that cerebellar ablation produces effects similar to those of alcohol. Comparing a decerebellate sparrow to one given drops of alcohol, he found that, after both had lost coordination, the drunken bird went on to lose its “higher mental” functions. He concluded that, after a certain amount is consumed, alcohol's action extends from the cerebellum to other parts of the brain.

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  49. Flourens, Études vraies sur le cerveau (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1863), p. 133. Between 1851 and 1858, Flourens succeeded in locating the vital knot more precisely, showing that it occupies an area of not more than 5 mm in the V-shaped apex of the fourth ventricle or beak of the calamus scriptorius. (“Note sur le point vital de la moelle allongée,” Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci., 33:438 [1851]; “Nouveaux détails sur le noeud vital,” ibid., 47: 803 [1858]).

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  50. P. Flourens, “Note touchant les effets de l'inhalation éthérée sur la moelle épinière,” Compt. Rend., 24:161 (1847). In connection with the much-publicized Bell-Magendie priority dispute, it is of interest that in this paper Flourens gave Bell credit for discovering the spinal nerve roots' functions and immediately became embroiled with a resentful compatriot, François Magendie.

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  51. “Pierre Flourens,” p. 300.

  52. P. Flourens, “Note touchant les effets de l'inhalation éthérée sur la moelle allongee,” and “Note touchant l'action de l'éther sur les centrès nerveux,” Compt. Rend., 24:253, 340 (1847).

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  53. Études vraies, pp. 134, 191, 286.

  54. De la phrenologie, p. 25.

  55. Études vraies, pp. 186–189.

  56. De la phrenologie, p. 33.

  57. J. Muller, Physiology of the Senses, Voices, and Muscular Motion, with the Mental Faculties, trans. W. Baly (London, 1848), p. 1334.

  58. “Note sur la curabilité des blessures du cerveau,” Compt. Rend. 55:69 (1862).

  59. For a good summary of studies by supporters and opponents of Flourens up to Broca's discovery, including Magendie, Desmoulins, Serres, and the École de la Salpetrière workers, see Soury, Dictionnaire de physiologie, pp. 617–647.

  60. P. Broca, “Remarques sur la siege de la faculté du language articule suivies d'une observation d'Aphemie,” Bull. Soc. Anatom., 6 (1861), 338. Broca's work, too, was the subject of priority disputes. The claimants, J. B. Bouillaud and G. Dax, maintained that in 1825 and 1836, respectively, they had located the center for articulate speech in the anterior portion of the hemispheres on the basis of clinical study of aphasia.

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  61. Quoted in J. Soury, “Cerveau,” in Dictionnaire de physiologie, ed. C. Richet (Paris: G. Balliere et Co., 1897), II, p. 650.

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  62. Quoted in David Ferrier, The Croonian Lectures on Cerebral Localization (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1890), p. 18.

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  63. See D. Ferrier, The Functions of the Brain (New York: G. Putnam, 1876).

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  64. With respects to Ferrier's priority, Fulton cites the forgotten clinical and experimental studies of Panizza which, in 1855, led him to conclude that the parieto-occipital area is the part of the cortex essential for vision (Physiology of the Nervous System, p. 347); D. Ferrier, “Experiments on the Brain of Monkeys,” Phil. Trans., 165 (1875), 433. Ferrier's original paper on the visual center was in the West Riding Lunatic Asylum Reports, 3, 1873.

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    Judith P. Swazey

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Swazey, J.P. Action propre and action commune: The localization of cerebral function. J Hist Biol 3, 213–234 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00137352

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