Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2241

SIR HENRY HEAD (1861-1940) Studies in neurology. Henry Frowde; Hodder & Stoughton 1920 Vol.I: ix [1] 329 pp., illus., tables. 24.8 cm.; Vol. II: viii [331]-862 pp., illus., tables. 24.3 cm.

During the late nineteenth century and first few decades of the twentieth century, a distinguished group of British scientists made many basic discoveries and advances in neurology. Individuals such as Sir David Ferrier (see No. 2059), S. A. Kinnier Wilson (1878-1937), Sir Victor Horsley (1857-1916), J. Hughlings Jackson (see No. 2001), Sir William Gowers (see No. 2076 ff.), and Henry Head were in this outstanding group of clinical neurologists. Head received his early education at Charterhouse School in Godalming and later studied at the University of Halle, Trinity College at Cambridge, and the University of Prague. He received his M.D. degree from Cambridge in 1892 and practiced neurology in London until the early 1920s when he went into early retirement because of the onset of Parkinson's disease. In addition to his large and busy practice, Head spent a great deal of time doing basic research in neurophysiology. His first work on the pain zones of the skin in visceral disease was published only two years after his graduation from Cambridge and brought him immediate attention and recognition. From his investigation of the visceral nerves, he proceeded to other areas of the peripheral nervous system and then to the spinal cord where he concentrated on its functions. He also studied the medulla and midbrain, the basal ganglia, the speech centers, and the motor and sensory fibers of the cerebral cortex. Head's writings served to orient the physiological concept of the functions of the peripheral nerves and the sensory cortex. The latter studies were perhaps his most significant because no one before him had made such extensive investigations or had evaluated the functions of the sensory cortex so thoroughly. Head was the first to point out that the sensory fibers of the cerebral cortex deal with the recognition of spatial relations, the response to stimuli of varying intensities, and the recognition of similarity and difference in objects brought into contact with the surface of the body. The present work is essentially a compendium of seven papers that were published in Brain between 1905 and 1918 by Head, William H. R. Rivers (1864-1922), James Sherren (1872-1945), Harold T. Thompson (1878-1935), George Riddoch (1888-1947), and Sir Gordon M. Holmes (1876-1965). The book covers the entire sensory mechanism from the peripheral nerves to the brain, and includes Head's well-known paper in which he reported on the loss and restoration of sensation after division of the left radial and external cutaneous nerves in his own arm. Always responsive to criticism of his investigations, he included an appendix in Volume II in which he answers the criticisms directed at his work.

See Related Record(s): 2059 2001 2076

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 1304

Gift of John Martin, M.D.