David Ferrier's second monkey ('monkey F'): The inaugural experimental studies of the auditory cortex.

Abstract

The story of David Ferrier's demonstration at the International Medical Congress in London in August 1881 of a monkey experimentally rendered hemiplegic by a focal surgical brain lesion-prompting Charcot's observation, "C'est un malade!"-is well known as a seminal event in the history of the localization of functions in the cerebral cortex. Less well known is the fact that, on the same occasion, Ferrier demonstrated a second monkey, known as monkey F, apparently deaf as a consequence of bilateral temporo-sphenoidal brain lesions. The purpose of this article is, first, to give a chronological account of this demonstration and subsequent related events, including Ferrier's trial under the Vivisection Act, the publication of the pathological findings in the animal's brain, the dispute about the localization of the "auditory centre" with Edward Schäfer, and the first glimmerings of human homologues of cortical deafness. Second, we briefly reappraise Ferrier's findings in light of current concepts of the central substrates of complex sound processing.