The October issue of the Journal of the History of Neurosciences (JHN) has just been released online. The issue features four original articles, as well as a piece of neuroscience history trivia. Among the topics covered in this issue of JHN are the public dissemination of knowledge of the electric eel and the relation of such knowledge to understanding of “nerve action”, the interactions – or lack thereof – of contemporary Frenchmen Louis Pasteur and Jean-Martin Charcot, and debates over localization of cerebral function in early electrical stimulation studies. Titles, authors, and abstracts from this issue of the JHN are given below.
“The Role of The Gentleman’s Magazine in the Dissemination of Knowledge About Electric Fish in the Eighteenth Century” by Stanley Finger and Ian Ferguson, both of the Department of Psychology, at Washington University in St. Louis Missouri. The abstract reads:
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, Continue reading New Issue: JHN