Book Reviews Aphrodite of Knidos, Which Identified the Reproductive

Book Reviews Aphrodite of Knidos, which identified the Herbert A Neumann, Yvonne Klinger, reproductive organs as her "region of insanity" Knochenmark und Stammzelle, Der Kampfum (Fig. 2.76, p. 108). die Grundlagen der Hamatologie, Ex Libris Over-generalizations and the odd Roche, vol. 1, Berlin, Blackwell Wissenschafts- inconsistency are inevitable in a book that Verlag, 1994, pp. viii, 171, illus., DM 98.00 ranges so far, and many minor criticisms might (3-89421-192-0). be made of some of the authors' arguments, which they often lack space to fully The history of scientific haematology substantiate (e.g., the assertion that the originates in the increase in experimental and Enlightenment placed new emphasis on causal research in the second half of the individual responsibility for health, but was nineteenth century. Inspired, among other also defined by its "faith in institutions to cure things, by microscopic observations of the society", p. 20; or that "interest in ... heredity hepatic embryonal haematopoiesis of the as a factor in mental illness was prompted in anatomist Rudolf Albert von Kolliker part by a growing disenchantment with asylum (1817-1905), which were published in 1847, medicine", p. 121). Sometimes the choice of scientific discussion was first of all focused on images might also be questioned, whether on the localization of haematopoiesis. With the grounds of representativeness, relevance or increasing improvement of histological staining repetition, as with the three illustrations from techniques, numerous studies of different the American Shakespeare (Figs 2.2-3 and haematological cell lines in the spleen, liver and 2.41-43, pp. 39-40 and 78-9) and three bone marrow could be made, but their exact photographs of nurses exercising at classification was insufficient at that time. In Pennsylvania Hospital. (See also, Figs 2.14, 1867, it was Kolliker again who described cells 2.16 and 2.63, pp. 51, 53 and 97). There is an containing nuclei in the bone marrow without, overwhelming predominance in the first two however, identifying them as immature sections of references to source material from erythrocytes. In 1868, shortly before his Italian Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. More major colleague Giulio Bizzozero (1846-1901), the failings are to be found in the frequently pathologist Ernst Neumann (1834-1918) from uncomfortable merging of art historical and Konigsberg finally published the first historical approaches. The authors fall too description of the haematopoietic function of often, perhaps, away from their central the human bone marrow. subject-cultural shifts in conceptions of After publication, the pioneering work of madness-into rather tenuous discussions of Neumann was corroborated by Claude Bernard social history and art history, as in their in a lecture to the Paris Academy of Sciences in accounts of neo-classical and romantic painting 1869 and by a citation in the fourth edition of and slavery (e.g., pp. 19, 97 and 100-3). It is the Cellularpathologie by Rudolf Virchow in also remarkable that there is no discussion of 1871. The scientific controversy about the contemporary theories of perception, such as localization of haematopoiesis and the function the sensationalist approach to human of bone marrow would very soon lead to a new psychology, that were so important in shaping argument, to a methodical and polemical how mental processes and the mentally ill "dispute of everybody against everybody" themselves were seen. While the jacket blurb (Arthur Pappenheim), over the question of the claims that views of the mentally ill and their unitary or dualistic nature of the hematopoietic families themselves are addressed, in fact the precursor cells in the bone marrow, a book's focus is overwhelmingly on medical, controversy which lasted for years and in which artistic and educated perspectives. Emst Neumann again mediated. It is remarkable that Ernst Neumann's work Jonathan Andrews, about the localization of haematopoiesis and the Oxford Brookes University function of bone marrow was not mentioned in

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Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.19, on 28 Sep 2021 at 19:19:01, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300061822 Book Reviews the relevant literature on medical history at that century neurology. This shorter rendering of time; his name did not even appear. In their the author's 1990 doctoral thesis is the best detailed description of how the fundamentals of analysis to date of Jean-Martin Charcot's modem haematology developed, Herbert works on such important subjects as brain Neumann (who is not related to Ernst Neumann) localization, aphasia and memory. Each section and Yvonne Klinger deal primarily with this follows a classical structure where the author remarkable omission. Moreover, their book first reviews the general history of ideas on the sensitively reflects the historical development of three main subjects before turning to a detailed the successive gain in knowledge of study of Charcot's own writings. haematology through experimentation and the The largest section looks at Charcot's outstanding capabilities of new, aspiring contribution to the localization of motor generations of scientists intelligently to use and function. It was as a competent pathologist that develop these new findings from the second half Charcot contributed cases from the early 1850s of the nineteenth century to the 1980s. to support or contradict claims by other Herbert A Neumann, Professor of Internal researchers on the localization of different Medicine and Haematology at the Elisabeth brain centres. In the mid 1870s he turned his Hospital in Bochum, and Yvonne Klinger, who attention wholeheartedly to the then very is a medical historian, have written a popular field of motor localization in the wake fascinating book about the fundamentals of of the historic experiments of Gustav Fritsch, modem haematology. Only by closely Eduard Hitzig and David Ferrier. Gasser traces connecting special and experimental knowledge in detail Charcot's evolving ideas on the with past events was it possible to write this subject, and in particular his important role in unique book. It is in most points intelligible the incorporation into clinical medicine of the and, with the exception of Chapter 12 entitled new physiological data. Gasser rightly stresses 'Zellkulturverfahren', in which, understandably, that Charcot insisted that he did not blindly the authors cannot conceal their fascination accept such data and that it was only after with science, it does not require any specialized detailed anatomo-pathological studies in man knowledge. Even though the text is well- had confirmed the findings that he endorsed founded and intensely absorbing, the the physiological conclusions. publishers, regrettably, thought it necessary to The chapters on aphasia and memory, draw attention to the book by binding it in though they are good reviews of French inappropriate and loud covers which do not fit research on these subjects, reveal blatantly the its overall character. lack of originality of Charcot's contributions to A very instructive book which Goethe's these fields. Charcot's teaching on aphasia maxim fully applies: "We actually only learn relied extensively on Paul Broca's cases of the from books which we cannot judge. The author early 1860s and the writings of diagram of a book which we might be able to judge makers such as Adolf Kussmaul and Carl would have to learn from us." Thus, a Wernicke. However, Gasser makes the reviewer's task is certainly very limited. important point that though Charcot was much inspired by associationism, he never talked of Stefan Dresden Grosche, conduction aphasias. The last section on memory in fact consists mostly of a good Jacques Gasser, Aux origines du cerveau review of the writings of Theodule Ribot, moderne: localisations, langage et me'moire whose teaching played a central role in dans l'oeuvre de Charcot, Penser la Medecine, Charcot's rather limited contribution to the Paris, Fayard, 1995, pp. 335, FFr 140.00. field. Though this book stands as proof of Jacques Gasser's book is a valuable Charcot's erudition and superb teaching skills, contribution to the history of nineteenth- one can only be struck by his lack of

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