Leviathan and the soft animal: Medical humanism and the invertebrate models for higher nervous functions, 1950s-90s

Medical History

Volumn 55, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 369-374

  de Sio, Fabio ^a  

^a QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

History of neuroscience; Medical humanism; Model animals; Octopus

Indexed keywords

EID: 79961051541     PISSN: 00257273     EISSN: 09505571     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0025727300005421     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. See, for instance, the earnest admission of J.Z. Young, 'Sources of Discovery in Neuroscience', in F. Worden, J.P. Swazey, and G. Adelman (eds), The Neurosciences: Paths of Discovery (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1975), 15-46: 40.
2. See Stanley Finger, Origins of Neuroscience: A History of Explorations into Brain Function (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
3. George Adelman, 'The Neurosciences Research Program at MIT and the Beginning of the Modern Field of Neuroscience', Journal of the History of the Neurosciences: Basic and Clinical Perspectives, 19, 1 (2010), 15-23.
4. See also Francis O. Schmitt, 'Preface' to Gardner C. Quarton, Theodore Melnechuk and Francis O. Schmitt, The Neurosciences: A Study Program (New York: Rockefeller University Press, 1967).
5. On a critical note, see Carl F. Craver, 'The Making of a Memory Mechanism', Journal of the History of Biology, 36, 1 (2003), 153-95.
6. Especially Max Stadler, 'The Neuromance of Cerebral History', in Surparna Choudhury and Jan Slaby (eds), Critical Neuroscience: Between Lifeworld and Laboratory (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming).
7. Cf. Pietro Corsi, The Enchanted Loom: Chapters in the History of Neuroscience (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
8. Joelle M. Abi-Rached and Nikolas Rose, 'The Birth of the Neuromolecular Gaze', History of the Human Sciences, 23, 1 (2010), 1-26.
9. Roger Smith, Being Human: Historical Knowledge and the Creation of Human Nature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), a meaningful attempt to cope with the last question.
10. See D'Arcy W. Thompson, 'How to Catch Cuttlefish', The Classical Review, 42, 1 (1928), 14-18.
11. Henry Lee, Aquarium Notes: The Octopus or the 'Devil-Fish' of Fiction and of Fact (London: Chapman and Hall, 1875).
12. Frank W. Lane, Kingdom of the Octopus: The Life History of the Cephalopoda (London: Jarrolds, 1957).
13. G. Grimpe, 'Pflege, Behandlung und Zucht der Cephalopoden für zoologische und physiologische Zwecke', in E. Abderhalden (Hrg.) Handbuch der biologischen Arbeitsmethoden (Berlin: Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1928), 331-402: 332.
14. J.A. Bierens de Haan, Animal Psychology: Its Nature and its Problems (London: Hutchinson, 1949), 119.
15. F.J.J. Buytendijk, 'Das Verhalten von Octopus nach teilweiser Zerstörung des "Gehirns"', Archives Néerlandaises de Physiologie de l'Homme et des Animaux, 18 (1933), 24-65.
16. B.B. Boycott and J.Z. Young, 'The Comparative Study of Learning', in J. F. Danielli and R. Brown (eds), The Comparative Study of Learning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), 432-53: 432-4.
17. B.B. Boycott and J.Z. Young, 'A Memory System in Octopus vulgaris Lamarck', Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, 143 (1955), 449-80.
18. R.L. Buckner, 'Memory Systems: An Incentive, Not an End Point', in Henry L. Roediger, Yadin Dudai and Susan M. Fitzpatrick (eds), Science of Memory: Concepts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 359-64.
19. J.Z. Young, unpublished autobiographical sketch (1992). I thank Dr Antony Boycott for sharing the typescript with me.
20. J.Z. Young, 'Growth and Plasticity in the Nervous System: Ferrier Lecture, Delivered on June 28th, 1950', Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, 139 (1951), 18-37.
21. J.Z. Young, 'Learning and Discrimination in the Octopus', Biological Reviews, 36 (1961), 32-96: 33-4.
22. J.Z. Young, A Model of the Brain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964).
23. J.Z. Young, The Memory System of the Brain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 7.
24. B.B. Boycott, et al., 'Octopus Optic Responses', Experimental Neurology, 12, 3 (1965), 247-56.
25. M.E. Bittermann, 'Toward a Comparative Psychology of Learning', American Psychologist, 15, 11 (1960), 704-12: 705.
26. T.H. Bullock, 'Comparative Neuroscience Holds Promise for Quiet Revolutions', Science, 225, 4661 (1984), 473-8: 474.