Computer Diagnosis and Diagnostic Methods

pictorial description of the brain depended, in part, upon the rediscovery by artists in the 15th and 16th centuries of the laws of representational drawing. The earliest known brain illustrations, presumably based on descriptions carried forward from Antiquity, date from the 11th century. Later Medieval illustrations, more ideograms than illustrations in the modern sense, depict ventricular theories of brain function. Accurate representation of the brain effectively began, as so much else in anatomy, with the publication in 1543 of Vesalius' De Fabrica. Subsequent illustrations by later anatomists demonstrated halting progress, as well as occasional regression to Medieval ideograms. In addition to illustrating the main line of neuronatomical progress, Drs. Clarke and Dcwhurst also devote chapters to the evolution of modern concepts of ventricular anatomy, and to the strange case of the rete mirabile, based on a misunderstanding of Galen. With the 17th century, we are recognizably into the modern era, highlighted by the accurate and attractive illustrations, some by Christopher Wren, from the work of Thomas Willis. In the 19th century, a major impetus toward a highly detailed anatomy of the brain surfaces was provided by the rise of phrenology, leading indirectly to those studies of cerebral histology which still serve as the basis of our ideas of the anatomical organization of the cerebral cortex. The final chapter on modern aspects of cortical localization is the weakest in the book, due, in part, to the neccessity for extreme compression of many complicated and detailed data from clinical observations and experimental studies. Drs. Clarke and Dewhurst have performed a valuable service in bringing together these interesting and beautiful illustrations in the history of brain anatomy. This book shows how haltingly, and with what great effort, our modest knowledge of neuroanatomy has been gained. Regrettably, many typographical errors were overlooked in the production of this otherwise very handsome book. "An Illustrated History of Brain Function" demonstrates that, just as modern neurophysiology is unthinkable without electronic technology, an accurate topographical neuroanatomy required the technical developments of Renaissance drawing, and the turn of mind that gave rise to them; these technical developments were necessary not only for the neuroanatomical discoveries, but also in order to have a language in which to communicate them.