This book traces the seminal ideas that emerged in the first half of the nineteenth century, when the fundamental concepts of modern neurophysiology and anatomy were formulated in a period of unprecedented scientific discovery.

Edwin Clarke is Director-Emeritus of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London. L.S. Jacyna is a research fellow at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Glasgow.

"A fine introduction to some of the untested, and untestable, ideas that sustain the nervous system as one of the monumental creations of modern culture."—Christopher Lawrence, Times Higher Education Supplement

"This work is so brilliant that it will not be done better for a long time."—Paul Cranefield, Bulletin of the History of Medicine

"Clarke and Jacyna provide the social, political and philosophical background of 19th century neuroscience that is so crucial to understanding it."—Charles C. Gross, Quarterly Review of Biology