50 



HANDBOOK OF PHYSIOLOGY 



NEUROPHYSIOLOGY I 



FIG. 36. Richard Caton, shown in his thirties at the period 

 when he was working in electrophysiology. (From a photo- 

 graph in possession of the writer, being the generous gift of 

 Miss Anne Caton.) 



Adolf Beck, not knowing of Caton's work 15 years 

 earlier, was searching initially for the same phenom- 

 enon, namely for electrical signs in the brain of im- 

 pulses reaching it froin the periphery. Like Caton 

 before him he succeeded, but he also found the brain 

 wave. His animals were mostly dogs and he pub- 

 lished the protocols of all his experiments in the 

 Polish language for a doctoral thesis (291). In order 

 to reach a wider audience he sent a short account to 

 the most widely read journal in Germany, the 

 Cenlralblatt jur Physiologie (292). A spate of claims for 

 priority for finding sensorily evoked potentials fol- 

 lowed the German publication of Beck's findings — 

 the first coming from Fleischl von Marxow, Profes.sor 

 of Physiology in Vienna (293), and the next from 



291. Beck, .Adolf ( 1863-1942). O-z'tacz^nie lokalizocyi w moz^u 

 i rdzt'niu za ponwca zj^^^'i^^^ elektry czynch (Thesis). Krakow; 

 Univ. Jagiellonski, 1890. 



Q92. Beck, A. Die Bestiinmung der Localisation der Gehirn 

 und Riichenmarksfunktionin vermittclst der elektrischen 

 Erscheinungen. Centrathl. Physiol. 4: 473, 1890. 



293. Fleischl von Marxow, Ernst. Mittheilung betrefTend 

 die Physiologie der Hirnrinde (letter to the editor dated 

 Vienna, Nov. 24, 1890). Centralbl. Physiol. 4: 537, 1890. 



Gotch and Horsley (294). It is noticeable that it was 

 the electrical response of the brain to sensory stimula- 

 tion that drew the most interest, for this was a finding 

 that lay directly in the main stream of current think- 

 ing about cortical localization of function. The 

 completely novel idea of a continuously fluctuating 

 electrical potential intrinsic to the 'resting' brain 

 was, at that time, of interest only to its two independ- 

 ent discoverers, Caton and Beck. 



The somewhat acrimonious wrangle over priority 

 was based in Fleischl von Marxow's ca.se on work 

 done in 1883. This had not been published but only 

 noted down in a sealed letter which he had deposited 

 with the University and which he asked to have 

 opened after reading Beck's report in 1890. He was 

 solely concerned with response potentials and noted 

 "little or no movement of the base line." He was 

 clearly unaware of Caton's reports and demonstra- 

 tions. Gotch and Horsley's ignorance of their country- 

 man's work is less easily understood. Caton was a 

 prominent figure at Liverpool, the first holder of the 

 Chair of Physiology in which Gotch was to follow him 

 (and later Sherrington). 



The dispute in the columns of the Centralblalt o\er 

 priority for discovery of the electrical currents of the 

 brain was finally stilled by a letter from Caton (295), 

 drawing the attention of the protagonists to his 

 publication of 1 5 years earlier. By the turn of the 

 century the electrical activity of the brain had reached 

 the textijooks (296). Caton's interests had developed 

 along many lines and he became prominent in 

 .se\eral fields of medicine and scholarship as well as in 

 public affairs, becoming in turn President of the Medi- 

 cal Institution and Lord Mayor of Liverpool. Beck 

 (297), who at the age of 32 became professor of 

 Physiology at the University of Lvov, continued to 

 work on the subject into this century, publishing with 

 his old professor Cybulski, and interest was thereby 

 aroused in Germany and in Russia. He met a tragic 

 death during the German occupation of Poland. 



294. Gotch, F. .and V. Horslev. Uber den Gebrauch der 

 Elcktricitat fiir die Localzirung der Erregungserscheinun- 

 gen im Centralnervensystem (letter to the editor received 

 Jan. 17, 1891). Cenlralbl. Physiol. 4:649, 1891. 



295. Caton, R. Die Strome des Centralnervensystems (letter 

 to the editor received Feb. 22, 1891). Cenlralbl. Physiol. 4: 

 785, 189!. 



296. ScHAFER, E. .\. Ti'xlhook of Physiology. Edinburgh: Young 

 & Pentland, London: Morrison & Gibb; 1898, 1900. 2 vol. 



297. Beck, A. and Napoleon Cvbulskl VVeitere L'ntersuchun- 

 gen iiber die elektrischen Erscheinungen in der Hirnrinde 

 der .AflTen und Hunde. Cenlralbl. Physiol. 6:1, 1892. 



