History of neurosciences

Vincenzo Malacarne, professor of medicine, surgery, and obstetrics in Turin, Pavia, and Padua, Italy, represented a perfect example of an eighteenth century Bletterato^, combining interests in humanities, sciences, and politics, embodying the ideal of an encyclopedic and universal culture. He made important contributions in anatomy and surgery, teratology, obstetrics, neurol-ogy, and history of medicine, adopting a interdisciplinary approach based on the correlation between anatomy, surgery, and clinics. He deserves a special place in the history of neurology because of the first complete description of the human cerebellum. He quantified the units of the cerebellar internal structures, the lamellae being numbered for a systematic description of the human cerebellum. He thought the mental faculties depended on their number, considering a relation between the number of cerebellar lamellae and the expression of intellectual faculties. In this way, he made first statistics on human faculties. He advanced the concept that the number of cerebellar folia was influenced by the environment, thus providing the first nature-nurture hypothesis made on the basis of observations, and the concept of neuroplasticity in the scientific literature. Finally, he also contributed to the emergence of a new science, namely electrophysiology, because he laid down experimental foundations of a project on the recording of brain electricity, comparing the structure of the human brain with Volta's galvanic pillar.

ABSTRACT: This paper employs a case study from the history of neuroscience—brain reward function—to scrutinize the inductive argument for the so-called 'Heuristic Identity Theory' (HIT). The case fails to support HIT, illustrating why other case studies previously thought to provide empirical support for HIT also fold under scrutiny. After distinguishing two different ways of understanding the types of identity claims presupposed by HIT and considering other conceptual problems, we conclude that HIT is not an alternative to the traditional identity theory so much as a relabeling of previously discussed strategies for mechanistic discovery.

Introducción. El doctor inverosímil es una novela de Ramón Gómez de la Serna (1888-1963) donde seguimos, a través de diversos casos clínicos, las andanzas del doctor Vivar. Objetivo. Presentar y discutir, por primera vez, el influjo que tuvo la neuropsiquiatría española en esta novela, tomando como modelos de estudio los siguientes relatos: 'Casos cerebrales' y 'La risita'. Desarrollo. En este par de relatos, el doctor inverosímil encarna los tres elementos definitorios de la neuropsiquiatría española. En sus repeticiones de la enfermedad de Alzheimer (o en la forma en que se refiere a la parálisis general progresiva) insinúa su orientación germánica. El componente mixto neuropsiquiátrico está ejemplificado en su destreza tanto neurológica ('La risita') como psiquiátrica ('Casos cerebrales'). La afinidad histopatológica del doctor Vivar es evidente en su amplio y oportuno uso de la terminología neurohistológica, principalmente de la cajaliana. Conclusiones. Es válido deducir que hay una influencia notoria de la escuela neuropsiquiátrica española en El doctor inverosímil de Gómez de la Serna.

[Abstract available in Spanish from the publisher.] INTRODUCTION: El doctor inverosimil (The Improbable Doctor) is a novel by Ramón Gómez de la Serna (1888-1963) in which the reader follows, by means of a series of different clinical cases, the adventures of Doctor Vivar. AIMS: To present and discuss, for the first time, the influence that Spanish neuropsychiatry had on this novel, taking the following short stories as study models: 'Casos cerebrales' ('Brain Cases') and 'La risita' ('The Giggles'). DEVELOPMENT: In these two short stories, the improbable doctor embodies the three defining elements of Spanish neuropsychiatry. The repetitions of Alzheimer's disease (or in the way in which progressive general paralysis is referred to) hints at its German orientation. The mixed neuropsychiatric component is exemplified in both his neurological ('La risita') and psychiatric skills ('Casos cerebrales'). The histopathological affinity of Dr. Vivar is evident in his ample and timely use of neurohistological terminology, mainly from Cajal neurohistology. CONCLUSIONS: It can be deduced that the Spanish neuropsychiatric school had a strong influence on Gómez de la Serna's El doctor inverosimil.