Two Minds the Vogts Sought to Tie ‘Psychic’ Functions to Specific Regions of the Brain

book reviews Two minds The Vogts sought to tie ‘psychic’ functions to specific regions of the brain. Cécile and Oskar Vogt: The Visionaries of Modern Neuroscience by Igor Klatzo (with Gabriele Zu Rhein) Springer Verlag: 2002. 130 pp. E76 Edward G. Jones They met in 1897. Cécile Mugnier was a tall, broad savoyarde, slow-speaking but witty nonetheless. Against the wishes of her family she had come to Paris to study medicine. At the age of 23, while assistant to the neurol- ogist Pierre Marie, she met Oskar Vogt, a short, dapper north German with a strong streak of contentiousness. He had learned neuroanatomy under Paul Flechsig at Leipzig, psychiatry with Otto Binswanger at Jena and hypnotism with August Forel at Zürich. He was already an accomplished exponent of the use of hypnosis in the treatment of neurosis and anxiety, and had come to Paris to study human brain anatomy under Jules Dejerine. Cécile and Oskar married in Berlin in 1899, and there commenced a 60-year scientific partnership known to posterity simply as ‘the Vogts’. Inseparable: Cécile (right) and Oskar Vogt were married in 1899 and worked together for 60 years. On moving to Berlin, accompanied by 30 human brains donated by Marie, they lation, physiology, genetics, clinical research, With the help of the Krupps, a new institute established a private neurobiological centre, psychology and chemistry, each headed by housing some of the invaluable collection of perhaps the first of its kind, and probably an individual scientist. The most distin- human brains from Berlin was established the first use of the term ‘neurobiology’. guished of these were to be the chief assistant at Neustadt in the Black Forest, and there Against institutional resistance, and only Korbinian Brodmann, the histologist Max the Vogts saw out the Second World War in after the intervention of the armaments Bielschowsky, and the Vogts’ elder daughter relative peace. manufacturer F. A. Krupp, whom Oskar Vogt and neurochemist, Marthé. The work of The house journal, Journal für Psycholo- had befriended some years earlier, the centre visiting scientists, including M. Friedemann, gie und Neurologie, which had carried most was incorporated into Berlin University. In Max Lewandowsky, Theodor Mauss, Rolf of the major neuroanatomical papers of a 1914 it became the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut Hassler, the two Roses, Maximilian and whole era, saw its final issue come out there, für Hirnforschung, which in 1931 moved Jerzy, from Poland, and J. L. Pines, and containing the last significant paper by the to extensive premises in the Berlin suburb collaborations with other German scientists Vogts, on the connections of the human of Buch. such as Alois Alzheimer, conferred even thalamus and basal ganglia. Oskar devoted The philosophy of the institute was greater stature on the institute. There, the himself largely to speculations about how directed towards the localization of ‘psychic’ science of cyto- and myeloarchitectonics genetic and evolutionary alterations in functions in the brain through the use of was born at the hands of Brodmann and the cytoarchitectonic units in cortical regions refined anatomical methods. But there was Vogts. Cécile Vogt defined the subcortical might confer vulnerability to stroke and also an abiding interest in extending these connections of the thalamus and basal other pathological insults. The institute studies to reveal the basis for the superior ganglia and the pathology of the striatum, stumbled on for a decade or so after Oskar’s capacities of artists, scientists, statesmen Bielschowsky discovered his silver stain, and death in 1959 and Cécile’s departure to join and others with ‘élite’ brains. Cécile seems Hassler described the loss of neurons from Marthé in Cambridge, but it was eventually to have had the better eye for neuroanatomy, the substantia nigra that is the hallmark wound down. The Berlin and Neustadt whereas Oskar possessed the ability to of Parkinson’s disease. brain archives had by now been reunited transform observations drawn from anatom- As an old-style social democrat who had and were transferred to Düsseldorf, where ical studies, from the results of electrical enjoyed strong associations with Soviet sci- they have proved a useful resource for stimulation in animals and from human entists and physicians, Oskar Vogt was not modern investigators. neuropathology, into principles of brain popular with the Nazi régime. For a time, Since the war, the Vogts have suffered organization and function. his friendship with the Krupp family gave from a perennially bad press. Their commit- Through the doors of the institute passed him protection, and his pugnacity in the face ment to breaking up the 50 or so areas many who were to become leaders in their of ever-mounting pressure from the local defined by Brodmann in the human cerebral fields throughout the German-speaking authorities protected the institute and his cortex into finer and finer subdivisions lands, Poland and Russia. From its begin- place in it. Eventually, however, in 1936 (eventually reaching more than 200) did not ning, the institute was divided into sections he was eased out of the directorship, as sit well with the prevailing mood of modern devoted to anatomy, histology, brain stimu- much by age as by political considerations. neuroscience. Oskar’s propensity for seeing NATURE | VOL421 | 2 JANUARY 2003 | www.nature.com/nature © 2003 Nature Publishing Group 19 book reviews cellular evidence of ‘éliteness’ in the brains research. Several of these introductions pro- of accomplished individuals did not help. vide excellent mini reviews of their topic. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Oskar was Going back to The papers reprinted date from 1814 to called to Moscow to help set up the Moscow 1987, with a strong emphasis on the 1960s Brain Research Institute, which was to be the root and 1970s, but the section introductions devoted to the study of Lenin’s brain. Lenin’s Foundations of Tropical Forest cover the most recent advances in knowl- brain does not seem to have been preserved Biology: Classic Papers with edge. This mix makes the book something of very well and this, along with recognition Commentaries a hybrid between anthology and textbook. that it was remarkably atrophic and possibly edited by Robin L. Chazdon & The anthology aims to highlight well-written even syphilitic, precluded significant inves- T. C. Whitmore historical papers that have made signifi- tigation. A few blocks from the parietal University of Chicago Press: 2002. 862 pp. cant contributions to the development of cortex, however, found their way into Vogt’s $95, £66.50 (hbk) $35/£24.50 (pbk) knowledge. This is partly at odds with the hands and to Berlin. On examining sections Roderick J. Zagt duty of a textbook to be complete and from them, and apparently noticing an describe the state of the art, when modern unusual number of large pyramidal cells in This book is intended as a reminder to those findings may have added to or even over- the superficial layers of this cortex, Vogt tropical biologists who, always looking up in taken older research. An anthology can limit declared Lenin an Associationsathlete, with a their efforts to advance knowledge, forget to itself to the aims of entertainment and pronounced ability to form connections in look down at the giants on whose shoulders illustration. The editors could have been the brain. This may have reflected consider- they stand. This anthology of classic papers bolder in dismissing influential but bone- able percipience in recognizing, long before on tropical-forest biology assembles a com- dry technical papers, such as the study by the conclusive demonstration in the late prehensive group of giants, including some Raven and Axelroth on biogeography and 1970s, that the large layer III pyramids are that one never realized one was standing on. continental movements, in favour of papers the origins of long-range corticocortical Robin Chazdon and the late Tim Whit- that add flavour to the scientific facts. connections, or it may have been little more more have put together facsimile excerpts With the advantage of hindsight, the than a tongue-in-cheek concession to the of 56 seminal papers that mark milestones editors have selected historical papers that Soviet authorities who had paid Oskar in our understanding of tropical biology. proved to be milestones along a wide and handsomely. But it did nothing to help the It is too easy to fall into “sarcastic if not straight road towards increased understand- Vogts’ reputation. acrimonious criticism both of omission and ing, rather than just some of the confusing In the early 1990s, the Vogts suffered fur- of commission”, as the natural historian signposts that mark the narrow and winding ther ignominy in Tilman Spengler’s Lenin’s William Beebe put it, quoted here in the road to our current knowledge. Not every Brain (translated by Shaun Whiteside; introduction. But it does seem that to be influential paper has survived the test of Hamish Hamilton, 1993), an irreverent, and considered a foundation of tropical biology time. Similarly, the artificial cut-off date at times viciously funny, fictional send-up it helps to have written in English, rather inevitably dismisses more recent crucial of the German neurological establishment than French, Spanish or Japanese. advances, even if they are more significant during the Wilhelmine, Weimar and early The papers are categorized in 12 sections in the progress of knowledge than the ones Nazi periods. The revelation recently that covering general areas such as evolution, reproduced. For example, it would be hard some of the brains of schizophrenics in diversity, species composition and ecosys- to find a researcher studying tree species the Vogts’ collection may have come from tem ecology. This raises the question of what diversity in tropical forests who is not influ- inmates of the concentration camps has cast constitutes ‘tropical biology’.

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