Capturing brains: grey matter turns pink

This striking and beautiful exposure of the surface of the human brain recently won the Wellcome Image Awards. Taken by Robert Ludlow as the patient awaited a treatment for epilepsy, this vibrant, colourful picture offers a stark contrast to the grey, inert look of a brain long separated from its body.

But how easily could you convey such a sight without the latest digital camera? What if the most accurate method available was the fine point of engraver’s stylus?

This image was not made by a doctor and not even by a professional illustrator but by a man more famous for creating one of London’s iconic buildings - St Paul’s Cathedral. In 1664 two years before the Great Fire of London created the opportunity for his architectural masterpiece, Sir Christopher Wren provided the pictures to accompany a book called Cerebri Anatome.

Written by an English physician named Thomas Willis this work was the first to give a complete account of how blood was supplied to the brain. The circulatory system that supports this most complex of organs is still known as the ‘Circle of Willis’ to this day. The Wellcome Library holds several editions of this seminal work complete with Wren’s original artwork.

In this idealised painting Willis is assisting Wren to introduce drugs through a vein. A founding Fellow of the Royal Society, Willis grew wealthy on his medical practice and part-financed a shared chemical laboratory at Wadham College, Oxford University. Willis cultivated relationships with notable scientists of the day; one of his assistants in these experiments was Robert Hooke who went on to produce Micrographia a book using the power of microscopes to reveal a wonderful, new world in amazing detail.

Willis was also the first to use the word ‘neurology’ to describe the study of nerves. In his writings, he helped to focus on the solid tissues of the brain rather than the cavities and fluids emphasized in the more traditional humoral model of the body. His progressive ideas included attributing the cause of epilepsy to a physical condition rather than some form of ‘supernatural possession’, helping to pave the way for the research carried out by Robert Ludlow some 350 years later.

Images: Intracranial recording for epilepsy. Surface of human brain in situ 2011 (Wellcome Image no. N0036750)
The brain engraving from Cerebi anatome by Thomas Willis, published by J. Flesher for J. Martyn & J. Allestry, London 1664 (Wellcome Image no. L0018951)
Christopher Wren making his first demonstration of a method of introducing drugs into a vein, before Dr Willis, 1667. Oil painting by Ernest Board. (Wellcome Library no. 45901i)

Brain Season on Radio 4

This week sees the beginning of BBC Radio 4's Brain Season.

The centrepiece of the season will be a new 10-part series, A History of the Brain, presented by Dr Geoff Bunn. The series airs at 1.45pm, Monday to Friday, for the next two weeks with an omnibus edition on Friday evenings at 9pm. The series will also be available as a podcast. Audio clips of the series are also available on the Radio 4 website, accompanied by an array of historical imagery from our picture libray, Wellcome Images.

Also airing today at 8pm will be The Lobotomists, which explores the controversial history of the lobotomy. As part of the research for the programme, Dr Lesley Hall, Senior Archivist, Wellcome Library, spoke to the makers of the documentary about the Watts-Freeman lobotomy instruments we hold in our collections (the image above shows Dr Hall brandishing one of these tools).

The Lobotomists, A History of the Brain and the rest of the Brain Season will available for listeners in the UK to listen to after broadcast through the BBC iPlayer, for the next seven days. Listeners outwith these shores are able to listen live through the Radio 4 website.

Guest Post: Neurology, the “Unconscious” and Victorian Psychiatry

The Bethlem Blog is run by the Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives and Museum to provide historical information on one of the world's oldest psychiatric hospitals, access to the Museum's art collection, and to contribute generally to the public understanding and destigmatisation of mental illness. This guest post discusses the work of one of the Hospital's Superintendents, Theophilus B. Hyslop (1863-1933).

The copy of Theo Hyslop’s 1895 publication, Mental Physiology in the Wellcome Library was, presumably, originally the doctor’s own, as it is interleaved with reviews, calling cards and letters to Hyslop from other mental health professionals, forming a fascinating archive in itself.

Mental Physiology was written mainly for the psychological part of Hyslop’s London M.D, which he completed while working as Assistant Medical Officer at Bethlem. Hyslop’s successor, William Stoddart, found it “strange” that the book never reached a second edition. [1] Perhaps Hyslop’s efforts to associate somatic and psychological theories of mental health and illness did not integrate easily with a growing divide between neurological and psychotherapeutic approaches. Nonetheless, Mental Physiology certainly shares similar evolutionary concerns with much British psychiatry of the period, in emphasising the importance of volition (or will) to both the individual and broader civilization, simultaneously associating mental ill-health with a loss of, or failure to attain, this self-control.

Hyslop was also heavily influenced by French neurology, much of which stemmed from the work of Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpêtrière in Paris. Mental Physiology contains numerous references to the writings of Charcot’s pupils, such as Charles Féré and Pierre Janet. Janet is of particular note here: his calling card appears among the numerous psychiatrists’ cards pasted into the Wellcome Library's copy of Mental Physiology (from physicians across Europe and the United States), presumably received when they either visited Bethlem or attended a conference or meeting of the Medico-Psychological Association.

A letter from Janet to Hyslop, also included in the Wellcome's edition of Mental Physiology, would seem to be part of a longer correspondence between the two, for it discusses the symptoms, and treatment, of a particular individual, presumably known to both parties. Since Henri Ellenberger’s research into The Discovery of the Unconscious in 1970, Janet’s work has been regarded as important in the formation ‘dynamic psychiatry’ and psychotherapeutic techniques, through his explorations into repressed memory, multiple personality and the connections between past events and present trauma. [2] It is interesting to see here evidence of an established link between French and English psychiatry during a period in which, according to the traditional historical view, continental ideas had limited influence in England.

[1] Stoddart, W. H. B. 1933. “Obituary: Theophilus Bulkeley Hyslop, M.D., CM., M.R.C.P.E., F.R.S.E.”. Journal of Mental Science 79, no. 325: 424-426.

[2] Ellenberger, H. 1970. The Discovery of the Unconscious: the History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry. New York: Basic Books.

This post also appears on the Bethlem Blog.

Dr Henry Head

This Sunday sees the transmission of the last part of BBC One’s historical medical drama, Casualty 1909.

Set in the Royal London Hospital, the series is based on the Hospital’s original records, personal papers and contemporary newspapers accounts. So far in the series, the doctors and nurses of the hospital have contended with Anarchist ‘outrages’, protesting Suffragettes and militant animal rights activists.

Pictured above is one of the main characters in the series, Dr Henry Head (portrayed by actor Anton Lesser), by 1909 Assistant Physician at the Royal London.

Head is described in promotional material for the series as:

A pioneering psychologist, with a fiercely enquiring mind, yet a gentle touch. Despite the many frustrations Head perseveres where other doctors would give in and is able to reach even the most lost of his patients. He is willing to take huge personal risk to advance the development of medicine.

This ‘huge personal risk’, was the real-life Dr Henry (later Sir Henry) Head's research into the human nervous system, and his actions as a human guinea pig. In collaboration with W H R Rivers, Head (pictured left) carried out a series of experiments in which his cutaneous nerves were severed, and the stages in which sensation returned were measured.

Papers relating to Head’s medical work, reside in the archives of the Royal London Hospital, and at the Library of the Department of Experimental Psychology in the University of Cambridge. However, the Wellcome Library does contain an extensive collection of Head’s personal papers (PP/HEA).

Whilst our papers may not record Head’s major achievements in medicine, they do include an incomplete autobiography which Head dictated in his later years, and correspondence which illustrates Head’s close relationship with the literary and artistic circles of his time. This material formed the basis of Dr Stephen Jacyna's recent book, Medicine and Modernism: A Biography of Sir Henry Head (2008).

All of the episodes of Casualty 1909 – including those featuring Head’s self-experimentation - are still available to watch through the BBC’s iPlayer.