The Functions of the Brain.

groundbreaking neurology

First edition of the work that established the localisation of brain function on a scientific basis. From the library of Swedenborg scholar Alfred H. Stroh, with his bookplate.

Physician Sir David Ferrier (1843-1928) trained at the University of Edinburgh and then began a long career at King's College, London, where the chair of neuropathology was created especially for him. 'It was early in 1873... that Ferrier began his memorable researches on electrical excitation of the brain (Report of the West Riding Asylum, 1873). This work, continued at King's College, he proceeded with steadily by his method of faradic stimulation until the brain had been explored systematically in a series of vertebrate types up to and inclusive of the monkey. Ferrier's observations gave to the hitherto disputed existence of localization of cerebral functions a solid basis of proved experimental fact. This research formed the subject of his Croonian lectures at the Royal Society in 1874 and 1875, as also of his treatise The Functions of the Brain (1876), which was translated into several languages' (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).

First edition; engravings throughout, 4-page publisher's ads at rear, bookplate of Alfred H. Stroh, near contemporary pencilled notes to first 50 pages, contents faintly toned; original green cloth blocked in black, titles to spine gilt, green coated endpapers, spine rolled, corners bumped, light wear at the extremities, very good condition; 323pp.

Hook & Norman, The Norman Library of Science and Medicine 791.