Medicine and Modernism: A Biography of Sir Henry Head (Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century)

This is the first in-depth study of the English neurologist and polymath Sir Henry Head (1861-1940). Head bridged the gap between science and the arts. He was a published poet who had close links with such figures as Thomas Hardy and Siegfried Sassoon. His research into the nervous system and the relationship between language and the brain broke new ground. L S Jacyna argues that these advances must be contextualised within wider Modernist debates about perception and language. In his time, Head was best known for his research into the human nervous system, but also worked on the localization of the language function within the brain. Head radically revised current ideas about the physiological basis of language. As well as its impact on medicine and biology, this work was seen to have implications for other disciplines including linguistics and social anthropology. This important new study draws upon a wide range of previously unpublished resources. This is the first in-depth study of the English neurologist and polymath Sir Henry Head (1861-1940). Head bridged the gap between science and the arts. He was a published poet who had close links with such figures as Thomas Hardy and Siegfried Sassoon. His research into the nervous system and the relationship between language and the brain broke new ground. L. S. Jacyna argues that these advances must be contextualized within wider Modernist debates about perception and language. In his time, Head was best known for his research into the human nervous system. He did a series of experiments in collaboration with W. H. R. Rivers in which cutaneous nerves were surgically severed in Head's arm and the stages by which sensation returned were chartered over several years. Head's friend, the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, drew out the epistemological implications of how, in this new conception, the nervous system furthered the knowledge of the world. Acknowledgements......Page 7 List of Figures and Tables......Page 8 Introduction......Page 10 1. The Making of a Neurologist......Page 20 2. The Poles of Practice......Page 64 3. 'The Great Hard Road of Natural Science'......Page 108 4. Ruth and Henry......Page 162 5. The Cultivation of Feeling......Page 204 6. The Two Solitaries......Page 252 Notes......Page 302 Works Cited......Page 344 Index......Page 354 An in-depth study of the English neurologist and polymath Sir Henry Head (1861-1940). Head bridged the gap between science and the arts. He was a published poet who had close links with such figures as Thomas Hardy and Siegfried Sassoon. His research into the nervous system and the relationship between language and the brain broke new ground Sir Henry Head (1861-1940) was both a groundbreaking neurologist - he undertook notable research into the somatosensory system - and a published poet with close links to such figures as Hardy and Sassoon. Jacyna uses previously unpublished material to study this pioneer of interdisciplinarity