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  • Article

The mystery of the malignant brain

In 1884 a neurologist successfully used a patient’s symptoms, plus a new kind of map, to locate a brain tumour. Discover how his best-laid plans for treatment worked out.

  • Article

The anatomy of a brain dissection

Dissecting the brain after death not only helps confirm a diagnosis, but it can also teach us so much more about the symptoms and causes of brain diseases and how to treat them.

  • Book extract

The shape of thought

Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s description of the moment in 1887 when he saw a brain cell for the first time never fails to move neuroscientist Richard Wingate to tears. Here he captures that enduring sense of wonder.

  • Article

London, city of lost hospitals

Come on the trail of hundreds of ghost hospitals, whose remnants hold clues to medical treatments of the past.

All stories (27)

Images

  • Head showing the 'convolutions' (lobes) of the brain. Pen drawing after R. W. Reid.
  • Two sections of the brain, divided into different lobes and faculties, according to Hollander's system of phrenology. Pen drawing, c. 1902.
  • Phrenological chart; with design of head containing symbols of the phrenological 'faculties'. Etching after O.S. Fowler (?).
  • Diagram of the brain for a phrenological textbook. Pen drawing, c. 1902.
  • A male figure and three phrenological heads. Wood engraving.
  • Head of "a backward boy" divided into four cerebral lobes: profile. Ink drawing with watercolour, c. 1900.
  • Skull of a soldier: frontal view. Lithograph, 1835.
  • The human head, divided according to the system of phrenology. Coloured lithograph by C. Ingrey, 1824.
  • A head divided into thirty seven compartments, each containing an image representing a phrenological faculty. Wood engraving, after O.S. Fowler, c. 1840.
  • Three diagrams of the organisation of the lobes of the brain for a phrenological textbook. Pen drawing, c. 1902.
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Catalogue

All works (144)