Neuroliterature: David Ferrier (1843-1928)

Abstract

Introduction However great their achievements in clinical neurology and investigative neuroscience, however loud their acclamation by their peers, few if any neurologists become sufficiently famous (or infamous) to impinge on the wider public consciousness, certainly not to the point of becoming subjects for comment in popular fiction. The only example that initially springs to my mind is the “Penfield mood organ” described in Philip K. Dick’s (1968) novel Do androids dream of electric sheep? (on which the 1982 film Blade Runner, a very different cultural artefact, was based), which is surely a reference to Wilder Penfield (1891-1976), whose work stimulating the cortex of awake epilepsy patients undergoing surgery allowed him to map the functions of various regions of the brain [1]. In contrast, I am aware of three literary works which either mention by name [2], or respond to the experimental work of [3], David Ferrier (1843-1928), perhaps Penfield’s ultimate precursor in the field of brain stimulation studies.