THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF NEUROPHYSIOLOGY 



51 



FIG. 37. Beck and protocol from one of the experiments in his original thesis on the electrical 

 phenomena of the brain and spinal cord, i8go. (Obtained through the courtesy of Dr. Andrei Jus of 

 Pruszkow.) 



Interest became widespread in 1929 with the first 

 publication on brain potentials in man. In that year 

 Hans Berger (298), a psychiatrist in a hospital in 

 Jena, revealed to the scientific world the results of 

 work he had been pursuing in secretive seclusion for 

 over 5 years. He had repeated and confirmed the 

 findings of Caton (to whom he gave full credit) and 

 had extended them to man. He studied (and named) 

 the electroencephalogram in normal man, finding 

 the two major rhythms, alpha and beta, that Nemin- 

 ski had found in dogs (299). He applied Caton's 

 tests for the biological origin of the potentials he found, 

 showing them to be affected by hypoxia and by anes- 

 thesia. He also found them to be changed by sleep. 



Berger's outstanding contribution was the founda- 

 tion of clinical electroencephalography. Having 

 proved that brain waves could be recorded in man 

 through the unopened skull, he went on to demon- 

 strate that their characteristics could be used as an 

 index of brain disease and thus he opened up a new 

 line of approach for the physiologist and the clinician 

 to the study of brain mechanisms. Berger's major dis- 

 covery in the clinical field was that the electroen- 

 cephalogram is abnormal in epilepsy. He did not with 



298. Berger, Hans (i 873-1 941). Uber das Elektrenkephalo- 

 gramm des Menschen. Arch. Psychial. 87: 527, 1929. 



299. Prawditz-Neminski, W. W. Zur Kenntnis der elektrischen 

 und der Innervationsvorgange in den functionellen 

 Elementen und Geweben des tierischen Organismus. 

 Elektrocerebrogramm der Saugcrtiere. Arch. ges. Physiol. 

 209: 362, 1925. 



ii 



FIG. 38. Hans Berger, the first to record electroencephalo- 

 graphic potentials from man, and the founder of clinical 

 electroencephalography. Below is the first published electro- 

 encephalogram of man. The subject was Berger's son, Klaus. 

 His alpha rhythm is shown in the upper trace above a 10 per 

 sec. sine wave from an oscillator. 



centainty record the spikes that are now associated 

 with the seizure discharge, for with the technique he 

 used there was serious interference by muscle poten- 



