Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

In this article, the importance of the famous nineteenth-century surgeon Pierre Paul Broca's curatorial activities is assessed. Broca's curatorship secured his achievement in localising the function of speech, which was a watershed moment in the history of neuroscience. Historians have debated why Broca succeeded where others had failed, citing cultural, political and personal influences, but what has been overlooked in these previous discussions is the importance of Broca's depositing the brains of his aphasic patients in a museum of pathological anatomy. Broca's success is thus attributed to him being a faithful practitioner of the so-called ‘museological’ medicine developed by his revolutionary predecessors in the hospitals of Paris.

Keywords

museological science Pierre Paul Broca brain function speech loss neuroscience history

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abelanet

and de Saint-Maur

P. P.

. 1991. Le Musée Dupuytren, passé et présent. Histoire des sciences médicales 25 (2): 127–131.

Ackerknecht

Erwin Heinz.

1967. Medicine at the Paris Hospital, 1794–1848. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.

Alberti

Samuel.

2011. Morbid Curiosities: Medical Museums in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Broca

1861. ‘Remarks on the Seat of the Faculty of Articulate Language’ in Gerhardt von

Bonin

. 1960. Some Papers on the Cerebral Cortex. Translated from the French and German. Springfield, Ill.: Thomas, 49–72.

Domanski

Cezary.

2013. ‘Mysterious “Monsieur Leborgne”: The Mystery of the Famous Patient in the History of Neuropsychology is Explained’. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 22 (1): 47–52.

Dronkers

N. F.

, Plaisant

, Iba-Zizen

M. T.

, and Cabanis

E. A.

. 2007. Paul Broca's Historic Cases: High Resolution MR Imaging of the Brains of Leborgne and Lelong. Brain 130 (5): 1432–1441.

Finger

Stanley.

1994. Origins of Neuroscience: A History of Explorations of Brain Function. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Goldstein

Jan.

2005. The Post-Revolutionary Self: Politics and Psyche in France, 1750–1850. Cambridge, MA; London, England: Harvard University Press.

Harrington

Anne.

1987. Medicine, Mind, and the Double Brain: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Thought. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

10.

Harrington

Anne.

1991. Beyond Phrenology: Localization Theory in the Modern Era. In Pietro

, ed. The Enchanted Loom: Chapters in the History of Neuroscience. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

11.

Houel

Charles.

1878. Catalogue des pièces du Musée Dupuytren, Vol. III. Paris: R. Dupont.

12.

Hunter

William.

1784. Two Introductory Lectures. London: J. Johnson.

13.

Jacyna

L. S.

2000. Lost Words: Narratives of Language and the Brain, 1825–1926. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

14.

Nadeau

Stephen E.

, Gonzalez Rothi

Leslie J.

, and Crosson

Bruce

, eds. 2000. Aphasia and Language: Theory to Practice. New York: The Guilford Press.

15.

Orfila

Joseph.

1842. Muséum d'anatomie pathologique de la faculté de medicine de Paris, ou Musée Dupuytren. Paris: Bechet et Labé.

16.

Pearce

2009, ‘Broca's Aphasiacs’. European Neurology 61: 183–189.

17.

Pickstone

John V.

1994. ‘Museological Science? The Place of the Analytical/Comparative in Nineteenth-Century Science, Technology and Medicine’. History of Science 32: 111–138.

18.

Schiller

Francis.

1979. Paul Broca, Founder of French Anthropology, Explorer of the Brain. Berkeley: University of California Press.

19.

Selnes

Ola A.

and Hillis

Argye

. 2000. ‘Patient Tan Revisited: A Case of Atypical Global Aphasia’. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 9 (3): 233–237.

20.

Teacher

J. H.

1900. Catalogue of the Anatomical and Pathological Preparations of Dr William Hunter in the Hunterian Museum. Glasgow: Hunterian Museum.

21.

Wylock

Paul.

2010. The Life and Times of Guillaume Dupuytren, 1777–1835. Brussels: Brussels University Press.

Curating aphasia: Pierre Paul Broca's Museological Science

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References