MINDS BEHIND THE BRAIN:
A History of the Pioneers and Their Discoveries
By Stanley Finger
Oxford University Press, 416 pages, $24.50
While it is tempting to point to the last 30 years as a golden era in brain research, it is equally true that modern researchers have inherited a great deal of knowledge of this mysterious organ from scientists in our distant past.
In his encyclopedic and readable history of this research, Stanley Finger, a professor of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, introduces readers to 19 scientists and thinkers — spanning nearly 5,000 years–who changed the world’s perspective on the small, 3-pound ball that is the source of our humanity.
Finger begins his chronicle with a brief profile of the ancient Egyptian vizier Imhotep, who was probably the author of the ancient medical manual known as the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus and who studied brain injuries among workers on the pyramids. Finger quickly moves on to Hippocrates, who believed the brain was primarily responsible for controlling the body, a view markedly different from earlier ones that saw the heart as the base of all functions. Hippocrates’ theory was later confirmed by Galen, a 2nd Century Roman physician who traced the nerves from various sense organs to the brain and who, through his relentless devotion to experimentation, noted some of the changes in the brain that accompany old age.
In the 17th and 18th Centuries, the specific functions of the brain came under greater scrutiny. The chapter on Thomas Willis, an English physician born in 1621, is typical of Finger’s ability to combine the clinical and personal lives of each subject into a seamless tale. Not only did Willis begin to differentiate between cerebral functions, but he also gave the world its first good descriptions of a variety of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, mental disorders were treated by clergy while diseases of the body were handled by physicians. Through his research, Willis called this division into question and opened the way for the study of mental illness by physicians. In fact, Willis’ contributions to medical language endure to this day. The word “neurology” appeared in one of his works in 1681, and he is also generally credited with coining “lobe,” “hemisphere,” “corpus striatum” and “reflex.”
Also enlightening is the chapter on Jean-Martin Charcot, the 19th Century French physician who stands out because of his emphasis on patient care. Charcot became senior physician at the massive asylum Salpetriere in Paris. Described by Finger as a “city within a city,” the hospital at its peak comprised more than 100 buildings and housed some 8,000 elderly, disabled, psychotic and chronically ill women. “The situation,” Finger writes, “was so poor that Charcot described what he saw as a badly organized museum of living pathology.”
With the help of a colleague, Charcot began to inventory the asylum’s chronically ill population and quickly discovered that many of the women had been wrongly classified. “In particlular,” he writes, “the label `epilepsy’ appeared almost indiscriminately.” He decided that autopsies would be performed when women died, and through these Charcot began the daunting task of classifying pathological disorders. He extensively researched such neurological ailments as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease and Tourette’s syndrome.
Finger, after concluding his profiles with one of split-brain researcher Roger Sperry, spends a few pages examining traits that all these scientists shared. Few, if any, went into their professions with the idea of gaining wealth. Love of discovery, instead, appears to be the shared goal of nearly all the men and women about whom Finger writes. Another common trait was an unwillingness to accept established dogma. Nearly all of his subjects broke from tradition in one way or another, even at the risk of personal hardship.
Finger also asks how much sheer chance has to do with great discoveries. The answer, not surprisingly, is: more than most researchers would care to admit. “The problem for historians,” Finger says, “is that the role played by good fortune is not often discussed in the older literature. Even today, it is fairly unusual to find the role of serendipity mentioned in a public forum, except perhaps by an occasional retiring researcher who is asked to look back and comment on a successful career.”
“Minds Behind the Brain” is a handy guide to understanding how much we’ve learned about ourselves and how much is left to know.
