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Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893) showed little interest in mental disorders, the domain of nineteenth-century alienists. But hallucinations are not confined to the field of psychiatry, and Charcot, who had once tested the hallucinogenic effects of hashish in his youth, went on to describe hallucinations in the course of various neurological conditions as just another semiological element. Most of his or his disciples' writings on hallucinations can be found in his work on hysteria. Hallucinations and delusions were part of "grand hysteria" and occurred at the end of the attack (third or fourth phase). Hypnosis or chemical agents could also induce hallucinations. Charcot and his disciples did not go so far as to emphasize the importance of hallucinations when they evoked past trauma, especially sexual trauma. Charcot's materialistic orientation led him and his disciples-especially D. M. Bourneville (1840-1909), G. Gilles de la Tourette (1857-1904), and the neurologist and artist P. Richer (1849-1833)-to seek hysteria in artistic representations of "possessed women" and in the visions of nuns and mystics. Finally, Charcot recognized the importance of hallucinations in neurological semiology, by means of precise and relevant observations scattered throughout his work. Preoccupied with linking hysteria to neurology, Charcot only scratched the surface of the possible significance of hallucinations in this context, paving the way for the work of his students Pierre Janet (1859-1947) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).

The history of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)-also known as Charcot's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, and motor neuron disease (MND)-freezes the texts of the scientist and physician Jean-Martin Charcot in a hagiographic narrative describing a brilliant discovery, based on the anatomo-clinical method. This narrative is often used by biologists and physicians as a reference point. This article shows that the use of the hagiographic register faces limitations. In particular, it obscures points of interest from Charcot's texts on ALS, such as the epistemological and ontological implications of scientific plurality in medicine. Although Charcot recognized the importance of scientific plurality in medicine, he prioritized the approaches and conferred the most important epistemic authority on clinical and pathological observations. In his view, animal modeling remains secondary to the understanding of disease. The concept of ALS and its diagnostic operability are the result of symptoms and lesions. By studying the past, we can highlight the specific features of the present. Today, although the ALS concept retains its diagnostic and clinical relevance, it is increasingly called into question in etiological and mechanistic research. Despite these differences, Charcot's reflections are a reminder of the importance of theoretical thinking on scientific plurality, all the more so today in the context of ALS research, in which combining different approaches is increasingly valued to understand the phenotypic and genetic heterogeneity of ALS.

Most historical articles have named Johann Jacob Wepfer as the first author to describe a case of chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH). However, the question arises whether these cases truly describe CSDH. Two other names that appear in literature as the first authors to describe a case of CSDH are Thomas Willis and Giovanni Battista Morgagni. In our attempt to find the first description of a CSDH, we studied the original cases described by Willis, Wepfer, and Morgagni. The cases described by Willis and Wepfer cannot be interpreted as cases of CSDH. Willis's university scholar is more likely to have experienced venous infarction with an underlying septic thrombosis than a CSDH. Wepfer's cases seem to represent an intraparenchymal hemorrhage from the rupture of a branch or branches of the internal carotid artery, a subarachnoid hemorrhage complicated with hydrocephalus, and a hydrocephalus in tuberculous meningitis. Morgagni's case described in Letter III, Article 20 in the Sedibus in 1761 seems to be the first accurate historical description of a CSDH, and we believe it should be cited as such. With these early cases of alleged CSDH, we emphasize the importance of misquotation and blind copying of references, which are important citation errors.

The collective efforts of Australasian neuroscientists over the past 50 years to forge a binational presence are reviewed in this article. The events in the 1970s leading to the formation of an informal Australian Neurosciences Society are discussed in the context of the international emergence of neuroscience as an interdisciplinary science. Thereafter, the establishment in 1980 of the Australian Neuroscience Society, subsequently renamed as the Australasian Neuroscience Society (ANS), is described. The achievements of ANS-including its active role in developing national, regional, and global cooperation to promote neuroscience-are chronicled over successive decades, followed by a discussion of the future challenges facing the society and its associated neuroscience institutions.

The year 2020 marks the centenary of the death of the great otologist Adam Politzer (1835-1920). From his descriptions of the cochlear nucleus between 1878 and 1908, we can gain insight into how contemporary otologists were beginning to embrace contributions from the neurosciences into their specialty. It is clear that this amalgamation was gaining momentum in the last part of the nineteenth century. The impressive clarity of Politzer's textbook (which went into several editions) secured Politzer's place in the history of otology as one of the founding fathers of his specialty.

Lathyrism is a central motor system disorder recognized since antiquity resulting from prolonged dietary dependence on the grasspea ( Lathyrus sativus ). The neuropathology underlying the characteristic spastic paraparesis of lathyrism is sketchy. Described here is a landmark but little-known Spanish-language neuropathological study of two patients with lathyrism of recent onset. Due to erroneous interpretations of Filimonov's influential work in 1926, it was assumed that spastic paraparesis of lathyrism was explained by destruction of Betz's pyramidal cells in the motor cortex. Contrary to present understanding, Betz cells and anterior horn cells were preserved, and pathological findings dominated by myelin loss were largely limited to pyramidal tracts in the lumbar cord. Thickening of the adventitia of capillaries and arterioles, together with proliferation of perivascular astrocytes, was found along the length of the spinal cord. Oliveras de la Riva proposed that the segmental spinal pathology arose because distal regions of elongate pyramidal tract axons are distant from their trophic center in the motor cortex, a view not far from the current distal axonopathy concept of lathyrism. In addition, we review the historical circumstances of Filimonov's work in Russia, a summary of the epidemic of lathyrism in Spain following its Civil War (1936-1939), and some historical aspects of the Cajal Institute in Madrid, where Oliveras de la Riva's work was carried out under the supervision of Fernando de Castro, one of Cajal's favorite students.

Vincenc Alexandr Bohdálek (Vincenz Alexander Bochdalek) was a well-known anatomist and pathologist in the nineteenth century. Today, however, his name is all but forgotten. Bohdálek described a number of anatomical structures; some of them became eponyms. Unfortunately, his findings concerning the innervation of the eye, upper jaw, hard palate, auditory system, and meninges are little known today. This current overview is based on available archival sources and provides an insight into his results in the field of nervous system research, which account for almost half his work. Bohdálek can clearly be considered a pioneer in the field we now call functional anatomy, as he tried to find a physiological explanation for the anatomical and pathological findings he observed. The work and results of this truly outstanding neuroscientist of his time are thus again available to current and future generations of neuroscientists and neuroanatomists.

The previous works of Purkyně, Valentin, and Remak showed that the central and peripheral nervous systems contained not only nerve fibers but also cellular elements. The use of microscopes and new fixation techniques enabled them to accurately obtain data on the structure of nerve tissue and consequently in many European universities microscopes started to become widely used in histological and morphological studies. The present review summarizes important discoveries concerning the structure of neural tissue, mostly from vertebrates, during the period from 1838 to 1865. This review describes the discoveries of famous as well as less well-known scholars of the time, who contributed significantly to current understandings about the structure of neural tissue. The period is characterized by the first descriptions of different types of nerve cells and the first attempts of a cytoarchitectonic description of the spinal cord and brain. During the same time, the concept of a neuroglial tissue was introduced, first as a tissue for "gluing" nerve fibers, cells, and blood capillaries into one unit, but later some glial cells were described for the first time. Questions arose as to whether or not cells in ganglia and the central nervous system had the same morphological and functional properties, and whether nerve fibers and cell bodies were interconnected. Microscopic techniques started to be used for the examination of physiological as well as pathological nerve tissues. The overall state of knowledge was just a step away from the emergence of the concept of neurons and glial cells.

The invention of the microscope at the beginning of the seventeenth century was a pivotal event for subsequent studies of the microscopic structure of nerve tissue. The present article, using translations of the original texts, presents a recollection of the discoveries made during the second half of the seventeenth century up to the beginning of the nineteenth century by prominent scholars as well as those nearly forgotten today. The findings in the field of neuroanatomy are collected together into a coherent form and in chronological order, showing the progress of the discoveries from a historical perspective. The early scientists discovered, and then repeatedly confirmed, that nerve tissue was remarkably similar over a wide range of animal forms. While they offered little detail, and much of what was described was flawed because of various technical restraints of the time, what they did report was very similar from animal to animal. Their studies, however, in parallel with the improvement of microscopic techniques as well as the processing and fixation of animal tissues, helped to create fertile ground for a number of important neurohistological discoveries in the first half of the nineteenth century.

During the 1830s, the use of improved microscopic techniques together with new histological methods, including tissue fixation, allowed more precise data to be obtained concerning the structure of nerve tissue of animals as well as humans. The present article, based on the translations of original texts never before published, brings together for the first time the discoveries of famous scholars Gustav Valentin, Robert Remak, and Jan Evangelista Purkyně, who made their significant discoveries in the field of neuroscience almost simultaneously and shows how their findings affected each other. In addition, this article also contains digitally remastered and reconstructed figures published in the original works of Valentin, Remak, and Purkyně and they are displayed for the first time in high quality. Although the fundamental discoveries of these famous scholars did not imply the discovery of nerve cells as we know them today, they were certainly a very important basis for further research of many other eminent scholars during the second half of the nineteenth century.