David Ferrier and Victor Horsley were British pioneers of experimental neurophysiology who documented the localization of motor and sensory functions within the cerebral cortex and then applied this knowledge in clinical practice to develop neurosurgery using clinicopathological correlations based on functional localization. In September 1888, Ferrier and Horsley traveled to the USA to attend the First Triennial Session of the Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons in Washington, DC, at which meeting sessions devoted to cerebral localization in its surgical relations had been arranged. Here we describe the visitors' contributions to the meeting and their reception in the USA, as a prelude to considering the possible purposes of their attendance at this meeting.

Whilst the origins of the words “neurology” and “neurologist” may be traced to the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries respectively, “neuroscience” and “neuroscientist” prove to have been of much more recent coinage, probably in the third quarter of the twentieth century. This article briefly explores those origins and then asks whether it is legitimate to fit the terms retrospectively to practice and practitioners investigating the nervous system in earlier times.

The clinical assessment of patients with cognitive complaints may appear daunting to the non-specialist, partly because of the increasing sophistication of the investigations available for such assessment. But as with all aspects of neurology, history taking and clinical examination are the foundation of assessment, in which context several simple neurological signs may be elicited in the outpatient setting that can increase or decrease the index of clinical suspicion for a neurocognitive disorder. These signs include the ‘attended alone’ and ‘attended with’ signs, the head-turning sign, la maladie du petit papier , the applause sign, the shoulder-tapping sign, the anosognosia of cognitive impairment sign and the long-term memory sign. Here we review the available data on the utility of these signs, which are described as simple because of their ease of administration and categorisation. As such, these signs are highly practical in both their application and purpose.

This article reports a case of probable subcortical band heterotopia, also known as subcortical laminar heterotopia, which was published in the English medical literature in the first decade of the twentieth century by the neuropathologist Helen Gertrude Stewart (1874-1959).

This paper traces the career trajectories of four Irish doctors - Edward Mazière Courtenay, Oscar Woods, Edward Levinge, and James Wallis - all of whom gained early clinical experience in psychological medicine whilst working at the West Riding Asylum in Wakefield, England, during the 1870s, the era during which this county asylum for paupers aspired to be a "research school" for the study of insanity. An attempt is made to examine whether, as a result of their experiences at Wakefield, these clinicians introduced research practices or any of the innovations of the West Riding Asylum, such as a dedicated pathological laboratory, into the Irish public system of district asylums. The evidence indicates that no such developments occurred in Ireland, despite two of the four clinicians, Courtenay and Woods, achieving positions of considerable authority within the profession on their return to Ireland. Possible reasons for this absence of research in Irish asylums during the latter part of the 19th century are explored.

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, three pathologists working in the laboratory of the West Riding Asylum at Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in the north of England, contributed to research on neuroglia: William Bevan-Lewis (1847–1929), Edwin Goodall (1863–1944), and William Lloyd Andriezen (ca.1870–1906). This article examines their respective contributions and notes the evolving trajectory of research from purely descriptive accounts of unitary “spider cells”, possibly endowed with a “scavenger” function as part of the “lymphatic-connective system” (Bevan-Lewis, Goodall), to the subdivision of the class of spider cells with descriptions and illustrations of different types of neuroglial cells courtesy of the Golgi stain (Andriezen). The local interactions of these three researchers are examined as well as the more general impact of their research in the field of neuroglia.

The Neurological Society of London, later the Neurological Society of the United Kingdom, was the first society dedicated to the discipline of neurology to be founded in the United Kingdom. During its period of existence, 1885/1886 to 1907, membership was exclusively male. However, examination of the Society's extant records shows that four women scientists and doctors had interactions with the society: Laura Forster, Rachel Alcock, Mary Darby Sturge, and Helen Stewart. These interactions, examined here, show evidence of the obstructions professional women faced when attempting to enter the male enclave of medical societies, despite the notional inclusivity of the Society's rules and enlightened attitudes evinced by some Society members.

Disagreement as to whether the auditory cortical center was located in the superior temporo-sphenoidal lobe-as proposed by David Ferrier in 1875, but apparently negated by the later experiments of Edward Schäfer-came to a head following an experimental demonstration given by Schäfer at a meeting of the Neurological Society of London in March 1887. Previous attempts to document the Ferrier-Schäfer dispute have been based on contemporary published sources, which are limited. Here we present documents not hitherto identified and/or transcribed to our knowledge that shed further light on the debate between Schäfer and Ferrier on the cortical localization of the auditory center. They permit a more detailed historical reconstruction of events that provides no definitive behavioral-pathological evidence to support Schäfer's claim to have disproved Ferrier's original localization.

This article explores the notion of “endophasia”, understood as “inner speech” or “inner speaking”, hence distinct from auditory hallucinations, and its possible absence, “anendophasia”. By analogy with findings in the visual domain related to phantasia and aphantasia, neurobiological mechanisms for endophasia are speculated upon, as well as possible consequences and associations of anendophasia.