Brainwaves In the history of brain research, the prospect of visualizing brain processes has continually awakened great expectations. In this study, Cornelius Borck focuses on a recording technique developed by the German physiologist Hans Berger to register electric brain currents; a technique that was expected to allow the brain to write in its own language, and which would reveal the way the brain worked. Borck traces the numerous contradictory interpretations of electroencephalography, from Berger’s experiments and his publication of the first human EEG in 1929, to its international proliferation and consolidation as a clinical diagnostic method in the mid-twentieth century. Borck’s thesis is that the language of the brain takes on specific contours depending on the local investigative cultures, from whose conflicting views emerged a new scientific object: the electric brain. Cornelius Borck is Professor of History, Theory and Ethics of Medicine and Science and Director of the Institute of History of Medicine and Science Studies at the University of Lübeck, Germany. Science, Technology and Culture, 1700–1945 Series Editors Robert M. Brain The University of British Columbia, Canada and Ernst Hamm York University, Canada Science, Technology and Culture, 1700–1945 focuses on the social, cultural, industrial and economic contexts of science and technology from the ‘scientific revolution’ up to the Second World War. Publishing lively, original, innovative research across a broad spectrum of subjects and genres by an international list of authors, the series has a global compass that concerns the development of modern science in all regions of the world. Subjects may range from close studies of particular sciences and problems to cultural and social histories of science, technology and biomedicine; accounts of scientific travel and exploration; transnational histories of scientific and technological change; monographs examining instruments, their makers and users; the material and visual cultures of science; contextual studies of institutions and of individual scientists, engineers and popularizers of science; and well-edited volumes of essays on themes in the field. Also in the series Science Policies and Twentieth-Century Dictatorships Amparo Gómez, Antonio Fco. Canales and Brian Balmer Entrepreneurial Ventures in Chemistry: The Muspratts of Liverpool, 1793–1934 Peter Reed Barcelona: An Urban History of Science and Modernity, 1888–1929 Oliver Hochadel and Agustí Nieto-Galan Pursuing the Unity of Science: Ideology and Scientific Practice from the Great War to the Cold War Harmke Kamminga and Geert Somsen The Enlightenment of Thomas Beddoes: Science, Medicine and Reform Trevor Levere, Larry Stewart, and Hugh Torrens, with Joseph Wachelder Brainwaves: A Cultural History of Electroencephalography Cornelius Borck, translated by Ann M. Hentschel Brainwaves A Cultural History of Electroencephalography Cornelius Borck Originally published as Hirnströme: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Elektroenzephalographie (Wallstein Verlag 2005) Translated by Ann M. Hentschel First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Cornelius Borck, English language translation by Ann M. Hentschel The right of Cornelius Borck to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Original title: Hirnströme: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Elektroenzephalographie, © Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2005 Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Borck, Cornelius, author. | Hentschel, Ann, translator. Title: Brainwaves : a cultural history of electroencephalography / Cornelius Borck ; translated by Ann M. Hentschel. Other titles: Hirnströme. English | Science, technology and culture, 1700-1945.Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. | Series: Science, technology and culture, 1700-1945 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017038464| ISBN 9781472469441 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315569840 (ebook) Subjects: | MESH: Electroencephalography—history Classification: LCC RC386.6.E43 | NLM WL 11.1 | DDC 616.8/047547—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017038464 ISBN: 978-1-472-46944-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-56984-0 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Keystroke, Neville Lodge, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton Contents List of figures vii Acknowledgments to the German version xi Introduction to the English translation: brainwaves then and now 1 EEG research as part of scientific culture 2 Writing and translating a cultural history of electroencephalography 5 The ongoing dynamics of brain research 7 1 Electrifying brain images 12 2 Hans Berger’s long path to the EEG 25 Current in the head 25 Research strategies of a conservative psychiatrist 29 The measure of psychic energy 35 The course to current 41 Amplified oscillations 52 Artifacts and noise 60 Invitation to Stockholm 67 3 Electrotechniques of the live mind 76 Cultural currents 1918–1933 76 The bioengineer and psychodiagnostics 80 Nerve apparatus and psychic circuits 89 Thought rays and radio-telepathy 98 Configurations of electrotherapy in the radio age 103 Poetics of new objectivity in brain script 111 The experimentalization of daily life 118 vi Contents 4 Terra nova: contexts of electroencephalographic explorations 122 Epistemic resonances and material cultures 122 Berger’s further voyage through brainwaves 124 Local appointment in Buch near Berlin 140 Acknowledgment with British understatement 153 The leap over the pond 163 The matrix of the waves 180 5 Set to and survey much! 182 On the cultural practice of a new technology 182 Dynamics of standardization 184 A diagnostic panopticon 196 Under the shock spell 207 The electrical brain at Auschwitz 218 6 Designing, tinkering, thinking 223 What is hidden inside the EEG? 223 Rapid vibrations of thought 226 The concert of cerebral currents 233 A German physiologist’s lofty flights 239 The brain as a cybernetic machine 245 Brain theories out of the model building-block box 254 7 Conclusion: plea for an open epistemology 264 References 274 Figure sources 316 Index 319 Figures 1 Season’s greetings in brain script from Herbert H. Jasper to Hans Berger; card from 1938 13 2 Hans Berger at his desk, 1927 30 3 Plethysmographic curves 34 4 Title-page autograph sketch by Hans Berger for his last publication Psyche 36 5 Berger’s sketch for an engraving of the psychic energy formula 47 6 Cerebral current recording from 19 October 1925 generated by the string galvanometer 59 7 Cerebral current recording dated 27 September 1927 generated by the moving-coil galvanometer 59 8 Trial analysis of different variants of EEG registration from 5 October 1930 61 9 Trial analysis dated 28 September 1928 65 10 Berger holding a lecture at the Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik in Jena 72 11 The techno-medial practice of the future physician, according to Fritz Kahn 82 12 Objectivizing emotive diagnostics for the selection of suitable theatrical actors 83 13 Electrical research on the mind by diagnoscopy according to Zacher Bissky 86 14 Fritz Kahn, modern life as stimulator of the organ of equilibrium 95 15 Fritz Kahn, big-city life and radio apparatus to illustrate the function of nerves 96 16 Ferdinando Cazzamalli with radio-wave detector in front of his testing chamber 100 17 The Roman daily paper Il Messaggero depicted Berger’s EEG as a fusion between Cazzamalli’s brainwaves and Schlemmer’s “Triadic Ballet” 101 18 Therapy of a female patient with the multiple wave oscillator by Georges Lakhovsky 106 viii Figures 19 Brain washing by electrotherapy—the German radio listener as imagined by electrical engineer Fiala in 1925 109 20 Electrosuggestive therapy according to Fiala 110 21 A typical example of the echo in the press in summer 1930 about Berger’s publication of the EEG 113 22 Blockage of alpha waves by opening the eyes in a specific test by Berger 1929 130 23 Sketch by Berger to evaluate the participation of alpha waves and beta waves in brain function, and their interference 132 24 Berger’s about-face in interpreting the roles of alpha waves and beta waves in the functioning brain 135 25 Berger’s laboratory with the Siemens oscillograph, in operation as of 1931 136 26 The EEG of Ilse Berger while reckoning in her head 138 27 The new building of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research at Buch 142 28 The first version of the neurograph, from 1932 148 29 Alois Kornmüller experimenting in 1935 in Buch near Berlin 151 30 Alois Kornmüller’s cartography of a field’s intrinsic currents (Feldeigenströme) according to the cytoarchitectonic partitioning of a rabbit’s cerebral hemispheres 152 31 Letter from Douglas Adrian to Hans Berger dated 28 January 1935, in which he established the basic