HANDBOOK OF PHVSIOI.OGV 



NEUROPHYSIOLOGY I 



religious dogmas, not to gain knowledge or insight, 

 or to learn how to manipulate and control the en- 

 vironment. Writers showed little critical capacity and 

 failed to distinguish between the tfue and the fabu- 

 lous, the important and the trivial. These elements 

 are .still evident in such major sixteenth century 

 biological encyclopedias as Gesner's Historiae Ant- 

 malium (5 volumes, 1551 1587), and Aldrovandi's 

 Opera Omnia (13 volumes, 1399-1677). In both the 

 mark of the medieval Bestiary is strong. 



However, the tide was turning in the sixteenth 

 century despite these notable examples of medieval 

 Weltanschauung. The range and precision of anatomi- 

 cal knowledge were greatly extended by publication 

 in 1543 of Vesalius' De Hiimani Corporis Fabrica. It is 

 interesting to note that increasingly accurate hand- 

 books of descriptive botany began to appear. At about 

 this time the great transition from the medieval to 

 the modern outlook (the 'scientific revolution of 1500- 

 1800') was under way. This has been succinctly 

 described by Raven: "Little by little, nonsense was 

 recognized, fables were exploded, superstitions were 

 unmasked and the world outlook built up out of 

 these elements fell to pieces. The seemingly irrelevant 

 labors of men like Turner or Penny to identify and 

 name and describe bore fruit in a refusal to accept 

 tradition on authority and in an insistence that state- 

 ments must be based upon observation and capable 

 of verification" (C. E. Raven. English Naturalists 

 from Neckam to Ray. 1947, p. 227). 



The rise of the mechanical philosophy in the seven- 

 teenth century and the rationalism of the eighteenth 

 furnished an intellectual climate favorable for science. 

 This was reflected in the papers, monographs and 

 compendia produced. In the spirit of the time, 

 Diderot, d'Alembert and their associates prepared 

 the Encyclopedie ou Dictionnaire Raisonne Des Sciences, 

 Des Arts et Des Metiers (35 volumes, Paris, i 751-1 780). 

 While the major contribution of this influential work 

 was to diffuse the rationalist interpretation of the 

 universe in mechanistic terms, it included many con- 

 tributions in the biological sciences. Together these 

 constitute a transitional stage of biological handbook 

 — quite modern in spirit but not in respect of fact or 

 concept. 



While the Encyclopedic was in preparation in Paris, 

 the Swiss savant Albrecht von Haller was compiling 

 the Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humani (8 volumes, 

 Lausanne, 1 757-1 765). This comprised both a hand- 

 book of anatomy and physiology and a vehicle for 

 publication of much original work by the author. 

 Compared to earlier work the writing shows impres- 



sive critical capacity, detailed familiarity with tlie 

 achievements of others, ability to distinguish the trivial 

 and the important and over-all scientific insight. This 

 was the first of the great series of German Handhuch 

 of physiology. 



The vast increase in scientific activity, with multi- 

 plication of investigators, laboratories and journals, 

 that characterized the nineteenth century led to more 

 frequent collection and systematization of knowledge 

 in the several active fields. This was naturally centered 

 in Germany where scientific activity was greatest. 

 Notable examples of handbooks of physiology were 

 R. Wagner's Handworterhuch der Physiologic mit Ruch- 

 sicht aiif Physiologisches Pathologic (Braunschweig, 

 1 842-1 853); L. Hermann's Handhuch der Physiulogie 

 (Leipzig, 1 879- 1 883); G. Richet's unfinished Dic- 

 tionnaire de Physiologic (Paris, 1 895-1 928); E. A. 

 vSchafer's Text-Book of Physiology (Edinburgh and 

 London, 1898- 1900); W. Nagel's Handhuch der 

 Physiologic des Menschen (Leipzig, 1905-1910); the 

 massive Handhuch der Normalen und Pathologischen 

 Physiologic, mit Berikksichtigung der Experimentellcn 

 Pharmakologie, edited by A. Bethe, G. von Bergmann, 

 G. Embden and A. Ellinger (Berlin, 1 926-1 932); 

 and our immediate predecessor, G.-H. Roger and 

 L. Billet's Traite de Physiologic Normale et Pathologique 

 (Paris, 1 933-1 940). Characteristically these hand- 

 books comprised the contributions of many authors 

 and, in the last two, collaboration of several editors 

 as well. These, with comparable coitipilations in 

 cognate fields such as K. von Bardeleben's Handhuch 

 der Anatomic des Menschen (Jena, 1896-1911) and 

 E. Abderhalden's Handhuch der Biologischen Arheits- 

 methoden (Berlin, 1 925-1 939), have provided a corpus 

 of collected and systematized scientific knowledge. A 

 notable feature of all handbooks, including the pres- 

 ent one, is their increasingly international character, 

 reflecting the broadening base of the world of science. 



Survey of these codifications from the earliest on 

 provides a basis for Abraham Flexner's trenchant 

 comment on the history of medicine. "From the 

 earliest times medicine has been a curious blend of 

 superstition, empiricism, and that kind of sagacious 

 observation which is the stuff out of which ultimately 

 science is made. Of these three strands — superstition, 

 empiricism and observation — medicine was consti- 

 tuted in the days of the priest-physicians of Egypt and 

 Babylonia; of the same three strands it is still com- 

 posed. The proportions have, however, varied sig- 

 nificantly; an increasingly alert and determined 

 effort, running through the ages, has endeavored to 

 expell superstition, to narrow the range of empiricism 



