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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.

In 1908, Norwegian artist Edvard Munch-already famous for The Scream and other paintings showing sickness, despair, and suffering-put himself under the care of Dr. Daniel Jacobson, a nerve doctor in Copenhagen. Jacobson had previously attended some of Jean-Martin Charcot's lectures in Paris, as had Knud Pontoppidan, his mentor. Munch, in turn, had long been showing signs and symptoms of an anxiety disorder and what might have been viewed as neurasthenia or hysteria. Now, he also seemed to be suffering from acute alcoholic toxicity. In this article, we explore Scandinavian psychiatry at the turn of the century; Jacobson and Pontoppidan's connections to Paris; and how some of Munch's treatments, most notably his electrotherapy sessions, related to therapeutics at La Salpêtrière. Additionally, various ways in which Munch learned about French medicine are examined. This material reveals how well-known and influential Charcot and his ideas about disorders of the brain and mind had become at the turn of the century, affecting not just the French physicians but also a world-famous artist and his nerve doctor in Scandinavia.

Whereas some of Gall's critics were quick to assail his organology as materialistic and fatalistic, others questioned his methods and scientific assumptions, especially his craniological tenets. The idea that the skull does not faithfully reflect the features of small, underlying brain areas was repeatedly brought up in the scientific debates. Critics pointed to the frontal sinuses above the eye orbits as evidence for the interior and exterior plates of the cranium not being in parallel-hence, for several or many phrenological organs being unknowable. This article traces the origins of the frontal sinus arguments and how Gall, Spurzheim, and later phrenologists responded to it. It reveals how the two sides fought and remained divided about the significance of the sinuses throughout the nineteenth century-that is, on whether the frontal sinus "problem" was an insurmountable obstacle or one that was merely an inconvenience.

Phrenology is based on correlating character traits with visible or palpable cranial bumps (or depressions) thought to reflect underlying brain areas differing in size and levels of activity. Franz Joseph Gall, who introduced the doctrine during the 1790s, relied heavily on seeing and feeling skulls when he formulated his theory, as did Johann Spurzheim, who served as his assistant until 1813 and then set forth on his own. But Peter Mark Roget, a British critic of the doctrine, first assailed these methods as too subjective in 1818, and never changed his mind. George Combe, a Scotsman who admired Spurzheim, introduced calipers and other measuring instruments during the 1820s, hoping to make phrenology more like the admired physical sciences. In the United States, the Fowlers also called for more numbers, including measuring distances between the cortical sites above the organs of mind. Nonetheless, phrenologists realized they faced formidable barriers when it came to measuring the physical organs of mind, as opposed to basic skull dimensions. This essay examines the subjectivity that left phrenology open to criticism and shows how some phrenologists tried to overcome it. It also shows how vision and touch remained features of phrenological examinations throughout the numbers-obsessed 19th century. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Franz Joseph Gall's (1758-1828) doctrine of many faculties of mind with corresponding cortical organs led him to be accused of materialism, fatalism, and even atheism. Yet little has been written about the specific charges he felt forced to respond to in Vienna, while visiting the German States, or in Paris, where he published his books. This article examines these accusations and Gall's responses. It also looks at what Gall wrote about a cortical faculty for God and religion and seeing intelligent design in the functional organization of the brain. Additionally, it presents what can be gleaned about his private thoughts on God and organized religion. We conclude that Gall was sincere in his admiration for and belief in God the Creator, but that as an enlightened scientist was recognizing the need to separate metaphysics from the laws of nature when presenting his new science of man., (© 2021 The Authors. Journal of The History of the Behavioral Sciences published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Franz Joseph Gall used a broad variety of phenomena in support of his organology. Well known are his observations on anatomical features of the brain, species-specific behavioral patterns, the observation that some individuals may excel in one faculty while being mediocre in others, changes in the organs with development and aging, and how the organs associated with the faculties might be affected by diseases and acute brain lesions. We here present a widely overlooked source: his observations on individuals then classified as "deaf and dumb." We discuss how these observations were presented by Gall in support of his organology and in his disputes with empiricists and sensationalists about the nature of mind.

Stephanus Bisius (1724-1790) was a physician of Italian descent and a graduate of the University of Pavia. He was invited to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the early 1760s and became head of the Faculty of Medicine at Vilnius University in 1781. In 1772, Bisius had authored the first original study on nervous and mental diseases in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In his 35-page booklet, written in Latin and Polish, Bisius characterized mania and melancholy as diseases of the brain, explaining that the organs that feed the human soul are affected, not the soul itself. He introduced the principles of humoralism and solidism to readers, and recognized that autopsies had failed to reveal reliable findings concerning mania or melancholy. Bisius also described the origins of the challenging disorder called plica polonica , a strange condition associated with tufts of matted hair. As a physician during the medical Enlightenment, Bisius criticized metaphysical speculations in medicine and stated that plica was only a result of superstitions. Even though he proposed antiphlogistic treatments for patients with mania and melancholy, he maintained that time and faith in God might help some patients overcome their infirmities.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) was a Boston physician, a professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, and a writer of prose and poetry for general audiences. He was also one of the most famous American wits of the nineteenth century and a celebrity not bashful about exposing costly, absurd, and potentially harmful medical fads. One of his targets was phrenology, and the current article examines how he learned about phrenology during the 1830s as a medical student in Boston and Paris, and his head-reading with Lorenzo Fowler in 1858. It then turns to what he told readers of the Atlantic Monthly (in 1859) and Harvard medical students (in 1861) about phrenology being a pseudoscience and how phrenologists were duping clients. By looking at what Holmes was stating about cranioscopy and practitioners of phrenology in both humorous and more serious ways, historians can more fully appreciate the "bumpy" trajectory of one of the most significant medical and scientific fads of the nineteenth century.

Franz Joseph Gall believed that the two cerebral hemispheres are anatomically and functionally similar, so much so that one could substitute for the other following unilateral injuries. He presented this belief during the 1790s in his early public lectures in Vienna, when traveling through Europe between 1805 and 1807, and in the two sets of books he published after settling in France. Gall seemed to derive his ideas about laterality independently of French anatomist Marie François Xavier Bichat (1771-1802), who formulated his "law of symmetry" at about the same time. He would, however, later cite Bichat, whose ideas about mental derangement were different from his own and who also attempted to explain handedness, a subject on which Gall remained silent. The concept of cerebral symmetry would be displaced by mounting clinical evidence for the hemispheres being functionally different, but neither Gall nor Bichat would live to witness the advent of the concept of cerebral dominance.

Just a few weeks before his death in 1828, Franz Joseph Gall, the father of what others would later call phrenology, wrote a letter to an unknown person, presumably a fellow physician. The manuscript describes the case of girl, 19 months of age. The girl's skull showed marked deformations consistent with what would be called craniosynostosis or Crouzon('s) syndrome by physicians today. Gall related some clinical features of her case and suggested some treatment options. This case report is particularly interesting because it is almost 200 years old, predates Crouzon's description of the syndrome by 84 years, and shows that Gall was still involved with treating patients, even in his final year.

Franz Joseph Gall's (1758-1828) proposal for a new theory about how to represent the mental faculties is well known. He replaced the traditional perception-judgement-memory triad of abstract faculties with a set of 27 highly specific faculties, many of which humans share with animals. In addition, he argued that these faculties are dependent on specific cortical areas, these being his organs of mind. After several years of presenting his new views in Vienna, he was banned from lecturing for what he considered absurd reasons. The edict enticed him to make a scientific journey through the German states, both to present his ideas to targeted audiences and to collect more cases. This trip, started in 1805, was extended to include stops in Denmark, Holland, and Switzerland before finally ending in Paris in 1807. For the most part, Gall was received with great enthusiasm in what is now Germany, but there were some individuals who strongly opposed his anatomical discoveries and skull-based doctrine. In this article, we examine the concerns and arguments raised by Johann Gotlieb Walter in Berlin, Henrik Steffens in Halle, Jakob Fidelis Ackermann in Heidelberg, and Samuel Thomas Soemmerring in Munich, as well as how Gall responded to them.

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.

Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) is remembered for his claims that behavior results from a large number of independent mental faculties, and that these faculties are associated with cortical organs. Apart from the 26 faculties he localized in the cerebrum, he also recognized one faculty (reproductive drive) in the cerebellum. This picture, however, is based on Gall's presentations in his well-known later works, his four volume Anatomie et Physiologie. These books reflect the outcomes of Gall's thinking. They were steered by the observations and feedback he received in Vienna and while presenting his theories in the German states and neighboring countries between 1805 and 1807. Examining his lists before what he published in Paris shows how his faculties were changing. Notably, and as shown here, he had previously included several faculties associated with brainstem structures, in addition to the cerebellum, which he would continue to associate with some reproductive behaviors., (© 2019 The Authors. Journal of The History of the Behavioral Sciences published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), the American humorist and author better known as Mark Twain, was skeptical about clairvoyance, supernatural entities, palm reading, and certain medical fads, including phrenology. During the early 1870s, he set forth to test phrenology-and, more specifically, its reliance on craniology-by undergoing two head examinations with Lorenzo Fowler, an American phrenologist with an institute in London. Twain hid his identity during his first visit, but not when he returned as a new customer three months later, only to receive a very different report about his humor, courage, and so on. He described his experiences in a short letter written in 1906 to a correspondent in London, in humorous detail in a chapter that appeared in a posthumous edition of his autobiography, and in The Secret History of Eddypus, the World Empire , a work of fiction involving time travel, which he began to write around 1901 but never completed. All three versions of Twain's phrenological ploy are presented here with commentary to put his descriptions in perspective.

Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) is best remembered for his belief that bumps on the skull reflect the growth of small, underlying brain areas, though among some historians, more positively for introducing the concept of cortical localization of function. All but one of Gall's 27 settled-upon cortical faculties involved the cerebral cortex, the exception being his most primitive faculty, reproductive instinct, which he associated with the cerebellar cortex. This article examines Gall's earlier subcortical organs, with an emphasis on why he associated the cerebellum with this drive. It draws from accounts by several physicians, who attended his Vienna lectures or heard him speak in Germany and the Netherlands in 1805-1806 [i.e., before he published his finalized list in his Anatomie et Physiologie (1810-1819)]. These early accounts show that early on he localized at least four faculties in brainstem structures, including a reproductive drive in the cerebellar cortex. He based his structure-function association primarily on cranial differences between men and women, and what he found in males and females of other species, although cranioscopy was not his sole method. It is also shown that, in opposition to his cerebellar-reproductive drive association, Marie Jean Pierre Flourens linked coordinated skeletal movements to the cerebellum after conducting lesion experiments, mainly on birds. Flourens did not design his experiments to challenge Gall's ideas on localization of function, but they did just that. Gall responded that ablation methods lack precision and lead to misguided conclusions. How Gall continued to associate the reproductive instinct with the cerebellar cortex, even after deleting his other brainstem-based associations from his faculties of mind, tells us much about him and the faith he had in his methods and doctrine.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain; 1835-1910), American humorist and writer, followed scientific and medical developments, and relished exposing questionable practices and ideas. In his youth, he pondered how phrenologists were assessing character, and in 1855 he copied sections of a phrenology book and a skull diagram into a notebook. Later, in London, he had two phrenological examinations by Lorenzo Fowler-one without and the other after identifying himself. Following his "test," which produced contrasting results, he began to ridicule phrenologists and phrenology in Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and other works. He underwent at least two more head readings in the United States, and in Eddypus, an unfinished work from 1901 to 1902, he maintained that phrenologists base their insights primarily on how people dress and answer questions. Although now lampooning the craniological tenets of phrenology, Twain never seemed to reject the idea of distinct faculties of mind associated with specialized brain organs., (© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Much has been written about the development and reception of Franz Joseph Gall's (1758-1828) ideas in Western Europe. There has been little coverage, however, of how his Schädellehre or organology was received in Eastern Europe. With this in mind, we examined the transmission and acceptance/rejection of Gall's doctrine in Vilnius (now Lithuania). We shall focus on what two prominent professors at Vilnius University felt about organology. The first of these men was Andrew Sniadecki (1768-1838), who published an article on Gall's system in the journal Dziennik Wileński in 1805. The second is his contemporary, Joseph Frank (1771-1842), who wrote about the doctrine in his memoirs and published an article on phrenology in the journal Bibliotheca Italiana in 1839. Both Frank and Sniadecki had previously worked in Vienna's hospitals, where they became acquainted with Gall and his system, but they formed different opinions. Sniadecki explained the doctrine not only to students and doctors but also to the general public in Vilnius, believing the new science had merit. Frank, in contrast, attempted to prove the futility of cranioscopy. Briefer mention will be made of the assessments of Johann Peter Frank (1745-1821) and Ludwig Heinrich Bojanus (1776-1827), two other physicians who overlapped Gall in Vienna and went to Vilnius afterward. Additionally, we shall bring up how a rich collection of human skulls was used for teaching purposes at Vilnius University, and how students were encouraged to mark the organs on crania using Gall's system. Though organology in Vilnius, as in many other places, was always controversial, it was taught at the university, accepted by many medical professionals, and discussed by an inquisitive public.

Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) introduced a new theory of mind and brain at the end of the eighteenth century, which he referred to as organology, dealing with mental functions and their cortical localizations. Gall wrote that observations regarding the verbal learning capacities of his schoolmates brought about his new way of thinking. This widely accepted view, however, requires qualification. Although Gall's experiences and observations as a schoolboy were relevant, especially for his craniology, these childhood memories might have been recalled and reinterpreted after he had started to think about the faculties of mind-specifically after he had met Bianchi, a 5-year-old girl with a special talent for music., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Romantic operas provide a useful tool for historians to understand the perception of some medical disorders that existed during the nineteenth century. Somnambulism was still a mysterious condition during this time, since its pathogenesis was unknown. Hence, it comes as no surprise that somnambulism features in a number of operas, the best known of which are Verdi's 'Macbeth' and Bellini's 'La Sonnambula', both the subject of recent scholarship. Here we examine a more obscure opera in which sleepwalking is depicted. Dating from 1824, 'Il Sonnambulo' by the Italian composer Michele Carafa is based on a libretto by Felice Romani. Although it shares some features with the Verdi and Bellini operas, it also presents original elements. Our analysis of this forgotten opera supports the contention that studying operas can shed light on medical theories and practices, and on how ideas about mind and body disorders were transmitted to the laity in times past., (© 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

Although Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) is well known for his organology, i.e., his theory of cortical localization of function largely derived from skull features, little has been written about his ideas pertaining to specific faculties other than speech, and even less attention has been drawn to how the individual faculties might work together in specific situations. Our focus shall be on how Franz Joseph Gall viewed the fine arts, with special emphasis on what one must possess to be outstanding in this field, which he associated with perceiving and understanding relationships, and several higher faculties of mind, including color, "constructiveness," locality, and recognizing people. How these faculties are utilized, he tells us, will vary with whether an artist does portraits, landscapes, historical scenes, still life compositions, etc., as well as with the selected medium (e.g., oil paints, sketching on paper, stones to be carved). To put Gall's thoughts about the fine arts in context, brief mention will be made of his scientific career, his guiding philosophy, the questions he most wanted to answer, what he construed as "evidence," how he eliminated the soul or "controller" from his system, and how he presented his work to the public. Some comparisons will be made to what he wrote about having a talent for music., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The arts can provide unique ways for determining how people not directly involved in medicine were viewing and informing others about physical and mental disorders. With operas, one need only think about how various perturbations of madness have been portrayed. Somnambulism has long been a particularly perplexing disorder, both to physicians and the laity, and it features in a number of operas. Two mid-nineteenth-century masterpieces are examined in detail in this contribution: Verdi's Macbeth and Bellini's La Sonnambula. In the former, the sleepwalking scene is faithful to what Shakespeare's had written early in the seventeenth century, a time of witchcraft, superstition, and the belief that nocturnal wanderings might be caused by guilt. In Bellini's opera, in contrast, the victim is an innocent girl who suffers from a quirk of nature, hence eliciting sympathy and compassion. By examining the early literature on somnambulism and comparing this disorder in these operas, we can see how thinking about this condition has changed and, more generally, how music was helping to generate new ways of thinking about specific diseases and medicine., (© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The traditional story maintains that Franz Joseph Gall's (1758-1828) scientific program began with his observations of schoolmates with bulging eyes and good verbal memories. But his search to understand human nature, in particular individual differences in capacities, passions, and tendencies, can also be traced to other important observations, one being of a young girl with an exceptional talent for music. Rejecting contemporary notions of cognition, Gall concluded that behavior results from the interaction of a limited set of basic faculties, each with its own processes for perception and memory, each with its own territory in both cerebral or cerebellar cortices. Gall identified 27 faculties, one being the sense of tone relations or music. The description of the latter is identical in both his Anatomie et Physiologie and Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau et sur Celles de Chacune de ses Parties, where he provided positive and negative evidences and discussed findings from humans and lower animals, for the faculty. The localization of the cortical faculty for talented musicians, he explained, is demonstrated by a "bump" on each side of the skull just above the angle of the eye; hence, the lower forehead of musicians is broader or squarer than in other individuals. Additionally, differences between singing and nonsinging birds also correlate with cranial features. Gall even brought age, racial, and national differences into the picture. What he wrote about music reveals much about his science and creative thinking., (© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In 1762, Benjamin Franklin, then in London, wrote a letter to a colleague in Italy describing his latest invention, a musical instrument he called the "armonica," which was based on how rubbing a wet finger on the rims of wine glasses could produce musical tones. In contrast to earlier sets of wine glasses that could be tapped or rubbed, Franklin put a set of glass bowls differing in size on a horizontal rod turned by a food treadle, thus freeing both hands for touching the rotating glasses and allowing musicians to play more than two glasses at a time, as well as eliminating the nuisance of water tuning. Franklin played his instrument for pleasure, to manipulate the "passions" (emotions) and to treat melancholia. Nevertheless, late in his lifetime some individuals began to view glass armonica music differently, alleging it could cause nerve damage and mental problems. Here, we look at how Franklin used his glass armonica to manipulate the passions and examine what he must have thought about it supposedly causing health problems. We present Franklin as an empiricist, whose focus was more on results than theories; as an astute student of human behavior understanding the power of charms and other "nonsense"; and as a man of medicine living in an era when much was being attributed to the nerves, even though next to nothing was really known about the underlying nerve force., (© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869) is best known for his Thesaurus, a project completed late in his long life. He trained as a physician, practiced medicine, and was interested in many branches of science. Much of his life was dedicated to the systematization of knowledge and identifying relationships. Although not an experimentalist in the modern sense of the word, he contributed to "neuroscience" in journal and encyclopaedia articles, as well as in books and lectures. He wrote extensively on comparative physiology, sensory systems, phrenology, optics, and various disorders affecting the nervous system. He viewed his two-volume Bridgewater Treatise of 1834 as his most significant achievement, turning to physiology and comparative anatomy to argue that God's existence can be seen in how living forms and their components are designed. Roget was active in many scholarly organizations, most notably the Royal Society of London, where he served for more than two decades as its secretary before "retiring" to pursue his Thesaurus., (© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

After extensive experimentation during the 1790s, Alexander von Humboldt remained skeptical about "animal electricity" (and metallic electricity), writing instead about an ill-defined galvanic force. With his worldview and wishing to learn more, he studied electric eels in South America just as the new century began, again using his body as a scientific instrument in many of his experiments. As had been the case in the past and for many of the same reasons, some of his findings with the electric eel (and soon after, Italian torpedoes) seemed to argue against biological electricity. But he no longer used galvanic terminology when describing his electric fish experiments. The fact that he now wrote about animal electricity rather than a different "galvanic" force owed much to Alessandro Volta, who had come forth with his "pile" (battery) for multipling the physical and perceptable effects of otherwise weak electricity in 1800, while Humboldt was deep in South America. Humboldt probably read about and saw voltaic batteries in the United States in 1804, but the time he spent with Volta in 1805 was probably more significant in his conversion from a galvanic to an electrical framework for understanding nerve and muscle physiology. Although he did not continue his animal electricity research program after this time, Humboldt retained his worldview of a unified nature and continued to believe in intrinsic animal electricity. He also served as a patron to some of the most important figures in the new field of electrophysiology (e.g., Hermann Helmholtz and Emil du Bois-Reymond), helping to take the research that he had participated in to the next level.

John William Polidori (1795-1821) was the Edinburgh-trained physician hired by Lord Byron to accompany him to Switzerland, where he participated in the story-telling event proposed by Byron that led, with Polidori's help, to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Although those interested in English literature might also remember Polidori as the author of The Vampyre, one of the first extended works of fiction about vampires, his earlier interest in somnambulism and trance states is only beginning to be appreciated. Even more than students of Romantic literature, historians of science and medicine seem little aware of what Polidori had written about oneirodynia, a synonym for somnambulism, and how his thoughts from 1815 about such activities reflected the changing medical zeitgeist at this time. This chapter examines Polidori's medical thesis in a neuroscience context and compares what he wrote to the writings of several other physicians who were fascinated by nocturnal wanderings, their causes, their manifestations, and their possible treatments., (© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The early history of neurophysiology has two important roots. The earlier of the two involves various ideas about invisible animal spirits traversing the nerves. The other, which emerged during the eighteenth century, is based on the idea that the elusive spirits are electrical-that animal electricity really does exist. The latter idea stemmed in part from what was being discovered about three types of electric fishes and their shocks prior to Galvani's broader claim in 1791 for animal electricity. This contribution focuses on how the shocks of each of these fishes had been described by three writers outside the fields of physiology and medicine: Plato, the well-known Greek philosopher, who actually provided the first good description of the powers of torpedo rays; Aphra Behn, a leading English Restoration playwright and novelist, who introduced many English speakers to the creature that would become best known as the "electric eel"; and Michel Adanson, a French botanist, who seemed to be the first to compare albeit the electric catfish's shocks to those from a known source of electricity, a Leyden jar. All three authors were famous in their day, and all played important roles in the history of biological electricity by making others aware of one of Nature's wonders, fishes that could "torpify," even without direct contact., (© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

During the 1790s, Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), who showed an early interest in many facets of natural philosophy and natural history, delved into the controversial subject of galvanism and animal electricity, hoping to shed light on the basic nature of the nerve force. He was motivated by his broad worldview, the experiments of Luigi Galvani, who favored animal electricity in more than a few specialized fishes, and the thinking of Alessandro Volta, who accepted specialized fish electricity but was not willing to generalize to other animals, thinking Galvani's frog experiments flawed by his use of metals. Differing from many German Naturphilosophen, who shunned "violent" experiments, the newest instruments, and detailed measurement, Humboldt conducted thousands of galvanic experiments on animals and animal parts, as well as many on his own body, some of which caused him great pain. He interpreted his results as supporting some but not all of the claims made by both Galvani and Volta. Notably, because of certain negative findings and phenomenological differences, he remained skeptical about the intrinsic animal force being qualitatively identical to true electricity. Hence, he referred to a "galvanic force," not animal electricity, in his letters and publications, a theoretical position he would abandon with Volta's help early in the new century.

Aphra Behn (1640-1689) has been called the first professional British female writer. Behn probably visited Surinam in the 1660s, but it was not until 1688 that she wrote Oroonoko: or, The Royal Slave, the novel for which she is best remembered. Although overlooked by historians of science, Oroonoko provided a description of the "numb eel," effectively introducing many Europeans to the exotic and frightening creature that would become known as the "electric eel" during the second half of the 1700s, when it would play a central role in showing the reality of animal electricity, effectively putting neuromuscular physiology on its more modern course. This article examines Behn's early life, including why she might have gone to Surinam, the sources that might have helped her write her colorful description of the eel, and how what she had written circulated widely and continued to contribute to the changing scientific landscape after her death.

Somnambulism, or sleepwalking, has always been of interest to theologians, writers, philosophers, physicians, and others fascinated by unusual behaviors. This parasomnia, which was defined less precisely in the past than it is today, has long been featured in medical dissertations and books of medicine. Further, Shakespeare, Bellini, and Brown, among others, incorporated it into their plays, operas, and novels. Because some somnambulists turned violent and committed other acts detrimental to society, sleepwalking also demanded attention from legal systems, and guidelines were set for whether somnambulists could be held responsible for their actions. This historical review focuses on these developments pertaining to somnambulism through the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

The electric catfishes of African rivers and lakes, once depicted on Egyptian tomb art, have been largely overlooked in histories and reviews of electric fish biology and animal electricity. This article examines how Westerners, especially Dominican and Jesuit missionaries, discovered them in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa at the beginning of the seventeenth century. What transpired took place against the backdrop of tales involving the Bible, Prester John's mythical empire, and imaginary animals with fabulous powers. In effect, how they were found is related to attempts to convert Ethiopian Christians to true Catholicism, hopes of discovering great riches, and opportunities to trade, and not with the efforts of skilled natural philosophers to document and conduct experiments on the wildlife of this continent. Nevertheless, the early descriptions by Europeans circulated, and during the next century these catfishes began to be used in experiments that helped to make animal electricity a reality.

Interest in sensations from removed body parts other than limbs has increased with modern surgical techniques. This applies particularly to operations (e.g., gender-changing surgeries) that have resulted in phantom genitalia. The impression given in modern accounts, especially those dealing with phantoms associated with penis amputation, is that this is a recently discovered phenomenon. Yet the historical record reveals several cases of phantom penises dating from the late-eighteenth century and the early-nineteenth century. These cases, recorded by some of the leading medical and surgical figures of the era, are of considerable historical and theoretical significance. This is partly because these phantoms were associated with pleasurable sensations, in contrast to the loss of a limb, which for centuries had been associated with painful phantoms. We here present several early reports on phantom penile sensations, with the intent of showing what had been described and why more than 200 years ago.

Alexander Garden (1730-1791) was born in Scotland, where he trained in medicine before settling in South Carolina in 1752. With a passion for collecting and a love of nature, he sent specimens to Linnaeus and his associates in Europe. In 1774, Garden observed and conducted electrical experiments on some "eels" that had survived the trip from Surinam to Charleston. His detailed observations and reasons for believing they emit electricity were read before the Royal Society of London and subsequently published. He also advised the sea captain who owned the eels on how to preserve them and where to deliver their bodies if they died en route to London. Although they did die en route, John Hunter of the Royal Society was able to provide excellent descriptions of their electric organs because they were so well preserved. The sequence of events that followed led to other live eels surviving the voyage to London, where they were observed to spark in darkness in 1776. This was a critical piece of evidence in favor of fish electricity and eventually for the more revolutionary idea that even human nerves and muscles might function electrically.

Redundancy and vicariation theories were employed by 19th-century practitioners and animal researchers to account for what seemed to be sparing and recovery of function after brain damage. Those individuals believing in redundancy maintained that there are duplicate or back-up areas that can mediate a function after brain damage, such as the homologous region on the opposite side of the brain. In contrast, vicariation theorists argued that brain areas with different functions could sometimes assume or "take over" the functions of injured areas. This chapter looks at the history and early evidence for these two different views, and how theorizing changed as more was learned about cortical localization of function. It reveals that there were subtle variations on these basic themes and that certain factors, such as age at the time of brain injury, were often brought into the equation. With limited knowledge and inadequate methodologies, the debates about recovery of function that flared up during the late-19th century would not be quickly or easily rectified.

The specialty of surgical neurology developed out of general surgery in the second half of the 19th century. It was aided by the development of general anesthetics, the advent of aseptic methods, and the emerging theory of cortical localization of function. This chapter examines the history of "modern" brain surgery, the leaders in this pursuit, and the landmarks that changed when and how these surgeries were conducted. It is stressed that the surgeries conducted by Broca, Macewen, Godlee, Horsley and others not only saved lives and ultimately created a new field, but also contributed to the basic sciences, fostering an improved understanding of the functional organization of the brain.

The theory of cortical localization of function holds that different cerebral cortical territories serve different functions, such as vision and language. This theory began to be entertained in the mid-1700s, but it had no impact until Gall made it central to his thinking in the early 1800s. Gall's organology, with its emphasis on cranial bumps, soon fell into disrepute, but in the decades that followed Bouillaud, Aubertin, and Broca advanced the concept by turning to clinical cases of speech loss, and in 1870 Fritsch and Hitzig demonstrated its validity, studying motor functions with animals. The theory of cortical localization of function served as a guiding factor in changing the practice of neurology, and clinicians encountered new material supportive of the doctrine. Surgical neurology, anatomy, and physiology also supported the new way of thinking, contributing to a better understanding of the functional organization of the cerebral cortex and to clinical neurology.

Cranial trepanations began to be performed more than 5000 years ago in Europe and as early as the 5th century BC in the New World. It was only in the mid-19th century, however, that men of medicine began to realize that the openings in some of the unearthed ancient skulls were made by individuals skilled in surgery, and that the practice was routinely performed on the living. Some of the first reports on these unusual skulls and their significance came from pioneer neurologists and neurosurgeons, including Paul Broca and Victor Horsley. However, from the start, Broca and Horsley did not agree on why the operations were performed, and the logic behind these early cranial surgeries has continued to generate debate. In Peru, where more trepanned crania have been found than anywhere else, numerous skulls have been associated with head injuries from battles, a finding of special significance for neurologists, neurosurgeons, and neurohistorians.

Edward Bancroft was a medical apprentice in Connecticut before running off to Guiana in 1763. While in South America, he practiced medicine and collected material for a lengthy book on the region, which he published after he settled in London. Bancroft's Essay (1769) contains a description of the "torporific eels" found in the warm rivers of Guiana, along with a series of experiments suggesting that the eel's powers are electrical. It also calls for studies to determine whether saltwater torpedo rays might demonstrate the same properties, which Bancroft expected would be the case. Today, Bancroft is best remembered for serving Benjamin Franklin and the American delegation in France during the War of Independence, and for being a double agent. But what this colorful man wrote about the South American eels helped to make an early case for animal electricity and stimulated Franklin to encourage John Walsh to conduct his landmark electrical experiments on torpedoes and electric eels in the 1770s. These efforts led to new way of thinking about the physiology of the nervous and muscular systems, even in nonspecialized fish.

Although torpedoes and Malopterurus, a Nile catfish, had been described and even used medically in antiquity, their discharges were poorly understood before the second half of the eighteenth century. It was then that their actions, along with those of certain South American "eels," became firmly associated with electricity. The realization that an animal could produce electricity marked a turning point in the history of neurophysiology, which had long described nerve actions with recourse to animal spirits. By examining The Gentleman's Magazine during the period when electric fish were becoming electrical, one can begin to appreciate how new discoveries about these unusual creatures captured the imagination of scientists and were filtered down to the literate public.

Benjamin Franklin's medical history shows that he suffered from repeated attacks of gout and a large bladder stone. These conditions caused him considerable pain, markedly decreased his mobility, and likely contributed in indirect ways to his decline and eventual death from a pulmonary disorder. This article examines Franklin's risk factors for gout and stones, both as Franklin understood them and as we know them today. Significantly, both of these disorders are associated with high blood levels of uric acid, a metabolic by-product. Franklin's risk factors included his gender, genetics, diet, drinking, advanced age, psoriasis, and exposure to lead. Although it is impossible to assign a weight to each of these factors, it can be shown that a number of factors, each capable of raising uric acid levels, converged and conspired against him.