Charcot's erroneous double-semidecussation scheme for the retinocortical visual pathways.

Jean-Martin Charcot, often lauded for his seminal contributions, is seldom critiqued for his blunders. One such blunder was his double-semidecussation scheme for the retinocortical visual pathways, proposed in 1875 to explain, on neuroanatomic grounds, cases of hysteria that manifest hysterical amblyopia accompanied with ipsilateral hemianaesthesia. Charcot's scheme was inconsistent with the older, broadly correct scheme of Prussian ophthalmologist Albrecht von Gräfe.

The conflicts of Ray Adams and Joe Foley with Abe Baker: The neurology and neuropathology of liver failure (1949-1963) and the founding of the American Academy of Neurology (1948).

This article examines disagreements among three giants of twentieth-century American neurology: Raymond Adams, Joseph Foley, and Abraham Baker. The disagreements Adams and Foley had with Baker concerned two issues: (1) the neurologic and neuropathological manifestations of liver failure with hepatic encephalopathy as expounded from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, and (2) the founding of the American Academy of Neurology in 1948 as an inclusive medical society under the principal leadership of Baker. The conflicts are examined from transcribed meeting debates (1949-1963), salient original publications (1949-1963), public addresses of protagonists touching on these issues (1971, 1984), and oral histories and less formal interviews of the protagonists and their associates (1979-2014).

The collaboration of Francis Forster and Wilder Penfield in the management of a girl with 'reflex epilepsy'.

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.

Eugène-Louis Doyen and his (1911): Sensationalism and gruesome theater.

French surgeon and anatomist Eugène-Louis Doyen (1859-1916) was a focus of controversy and scandal throughout his career, an innovative surgeon of great technical skill whose unsurpassed abilities were offset by narcissistic and frequently unethical behavior. Doyen produced the most controversial atlas of human anatomy of the early-twentieth century, his . He used a chemical process to fix whole cadavers, then used a motorized band saw with a sliding table to precisely cut sequential slices in all three anatomic planes.

Neuropathological images in the great pathology atlases.

In the period between Morgagni's (1761) and Cruveilhier's (1829-1842), six pathology atlases were published, in which neuropathological subjects were discussed and depicted. It was a period of transition in medical, technical, and publishing areas. The first three (by Matthew Baillie, Robert Hooper, and Richard Bright) were mainly atlases derived from pathological museum specimens.

Cross-sectional representations of the central nervous system in Pirogov's ".

Russian surgeon Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov (Pirogoff; 1810-1881) introduced the teaching of applied topographical anatomy in Russia. Pirogov's monumental four-part atlas, (), colloquially known as the "," was published in Latin in the 1850s. Pirogov sought to investigate "the normal and pathological positions of different organs and body parts using sections made in the three principal directions [anatomical planes] … throughout all regions.

Evolution of the myth of the human traced through text and illustrations in printed books: The case of Vesalius and his plagiarists.

Andreas Vesalius initially accepted Galen's ideas concerning the in humans. In 1538, Vesalius drew a diagram of the human as a plexiform termination of the carotid arteries, where the vital spirit is transformed into the animal spirit, before being distributed from the brain along the nerves to the body. In 1540, Vesalius demonstrated the at a public anatomy, using a sheep's head (due to his nascent realization that he could not demonstrate this adequately in a human cadaver, potentially eliciting ridicule).

Summarizing the medieval anatomy of the head and brain in a single image: Magnus Hundt (1501) and Johann Dryander (1537) as transitional pre-Vesalian anatomists.

Of the early-sixteenth century pre-Vesalian anatomists, Magnus Hundt in 1501 and Johannes Eichmann (known as Johann Dryander) in 1537 both attempted to summarize the anatomy of the head and brain in a single complex figure. Dryander clearly based his illustration on the earlier one from Hundt, but he made several improvements, based in part on Dryander's own dissections. Whereas Hundt's entire monograph was medieval in character, Dryander's monograph was a mixture of medieval and early-modern frameworks; nevertheless, the corresponding illustrations of the anatomy of the head and brain in Hundt (1501) and Dryander (Dryandrum 1537) were both essentially medieval.

Representations of the olfactory bulb and tracts in images of the medieval cell doctrine.

This article presents a collection of previously overlooked, stereotyped, abstract, anatomical representations of the olfactory bulbs and tracts that were printed as part of schematic woodcuts of the medieval cell doctrine, generally in the early-sixteenth century but extending into the seventeenth century and, in at least one case, to the mid-nineteenth century. A representation of the olfactory bulbs is incorporated into many of these woodcuts, beginning with an illustration by German physician, philosopher, and theologian Magnus Hundt in 1501 in his , which showed central projections of the two olfactory bulbs joining in the meshwork of the . German physician and anatomist Johann Eichmann, known as Johannes Dryander, modified Hundt's figure for his own monograph in 1537 but retained the representation of the olfactory bulbs.

The medieval cell doctrine: Foundations, development, evolution, and graphic representations in printed books from 1490 to 1630.

The medieval cell doctrine was a series of related psychological models based on ancient Greco-Roman ideas in which cognitive faculties were assigned to "cells," typically corresponding to the cerebral ventricles. During Late Antiquity and continuing during the Early Middle Ages, Christian philosophers attempted to reinterpret Aristotle's , along with later modifications by Herophilos and Galen, in a manner consistent with religious doctrine. The resulting medieval cell doctrine was formulated by the fathers of the early Christian Church in the fourth and fifth centuries.

On old Olympus? Oliver Wendell Holmes and the origin and evolution of a mnemonic couplet for the cranial nerves.

A mnemonic couplet to help students learn the names of the cranial nerves has been in use in the United States since the mid-nineteenthth century. The original in iambic tetrameter is attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Using a systematic search, more than 40 variants have been identified and, where possible, ordered in time.

Clarence J. Gibbs Effect and the "Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease" Eponym.

In 2014, American neurologist and Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner reported that microbiologist Clarence Joseph Gibbs at the US NIH had intentionally, systematically, and mischievously used the eponym Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, rather than Jakob-Creutzfeldt disease, because of the correspondence with Gibbs' own initials, to imply "Clarence Joseph disease." The present study examines temporal trends in the use of "Creutzfeldt-Jakob" and "Jakob-Creutzfeldt" in scientific articles and monographs from 1946 to 2019 to assess whether there was a "Clarence J. Gibbs effect" that influenced the general use of a specific eponym by the scientific community.

Cruveilhier's Unrecognized Case (c1831) of Dyke-Davidoff-Masson Syndrome.

In his serially published atlas of pathology, Anatomie Pathologique du Corps Humain (1829-1842), French anatomist and pathologist Jean Cruveilhier (1791-1874) provided an early clinical-pathologic description of Dyke-Davidoff-Masson syndrome. Cruveilhier's case was initially published around 1830, more than a century before the clinical and radiologic report of Dyke and colleagues in 1933 based on a series of patients studied with pneumoencephalography. Although Dyke and colleagues were apparently unaware of Cruveilhier's prior description, Cruveilhier's case manifested all of the key osseous and neuropathological features of Dyke-Davidoff-Masson syndrome as later elaborated by Dyke and colleagues: (1) cerebral hemiatrophy with ex vacuo dilation of the lateral ventricle, (2) ipsilateral thickening of the diploe of the skull, and (3) ipsilateral hyper-pneumatization of the frontal sinuses.

Raymond D. Adams and Joseph M. Foley: Elaborating the neurologic manifestations of hepatic encephalopathy (1949-1953).

This article compares and contrasts different versions of the pioneering work Raymond Adams and Joseph Foley concerning the neurological and neurophysiological manifestations of liver disease. These versions were presented by the protagonists in publications from 1949 to 1953, and later in various oral histories conducted separately from 1988 to 2014. The general framework of the various versions is fairly consistent, but numerous differences in the details emerged over time, some reflecting the vagaries of memory over periods as long as six decades (e.

Western European influence on the development of Russian neurology and psychiatry, part 1: Western European tours of early Russian neurologists and psychiatrists.

Beginning in the 1860s, two major centers of neurology and psychiatry arose in Russia: Imperial Moscow University (IMU) and Imperial Medical and Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg (IMSA). Both centers were strongly influenced by Leading Western European schools and specialists, through the clinical and research training regimes of both Russian universities, strongly influenced these centers of learning.

Antecedents, development, adoption, and application of Duchenne's trocar for histopathologic studies of neuromuscular disorders in the nineteenth century.

Duchenne de Boulogne was one of the founders of clinical neurology. His name has been eponymically linked to the most common form of muscular dystrophy, originally described by him as pseudo-hypertrophic muscular paralysis or myo-sclerotic paralysis. Obtaining muscle biopsy specimens was essential to gain insight about the etiopathogenensis of the disease.

The development and evolution of "cerebral thermometry": The physiology underlying a nineteenth-century approach to cerebral localization and neurological diagnosis.

Surface thermometers were developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century. From the 1850s through the 1880s, collaborations between physicians, research scientists, and instrument makers produced clear improvements in the technology to measure cranial surface temperatures, with development of self-registering mercury surface thermometers resistant to pressure and little influenced by ambient temperature, apparatus for recording cranial surface temperatures from multiple stations simultaneously, and development of thermoelectric apparatus. Physiologic studies of cranial surface thermometry were conducted over a quarter century from 1861 to 1886.

The development and evolution of "cerebral thermometry": Clinical applications of a nineteenth-century approach to cerebral localization and neurological diagnosis.

Surface thermometers were developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In 1877, Broca, already famous for his contributions to the cerebral localization of nonfluent aphasia, presented his first clinical observations on cranial surface temperatures: In two cases, cranial surface temperatures were over a middle cerebral artery infarction, and in surrounding areas, which Broca attributed to "compensatory hyperaemia." As Broca made apparent in a later report in 1879, he had used a "thermometric crown," an apparatus consisting of six to eight large-reservoir mercury thermometers strapped against the head.

The assessment of Perkins' patent metallic "tractors": Abandonment of an 18th-century therapeutic fad following trials using sham instruments.

From 1799 to 1801, with the instigation of John Haygarth, physicians in England evaluated the claims of Elisha and Benjamin Perkins that their patented "metallic tractors" could cure a wide variety of disorders. Previous therapies were typically judged based on experience and authority, whereas Perkinism was evaluated using a series of clinical trials of varying methodological sophistication, most employing sham instruments (all but those involving infants or horses), with a variety of trial designs, inconsistent use of contemporary controls, and different approaches to blinding subjects to the treatment administered. Haygarth and his colleagues collectively demonstrated that tractors and sham instruments produced equivalent effects in adults, and, by inference, that the tractors had no special therapeutic properties.

Perkins's patent metallic "Tractors": Development, adoption, and early dissemination of an eighteenth-century therapeutic fad.

The metallick Tractors were patented by Elisha Perkins, a Connecticut physician, in 1796, for the treatment of various ailments, particularly those associated with pain. They were subsequently rapidly and widely disseminated on the basis of testimonials and aggressive marketing tactics. Dissemination was facilitated by endorsements from prominent physicians, politicians, and clergy, by quasi-theoretical explanations of efficacy based on then-current experiments of Galvani and others, and by the apparent simplicity and safety of the procedure.