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Physiology in the American Context 1850–1940 pp 351–369Cite as

Instruments, Techniques, and Social Units in American Neurophysiology, 1870–1950

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Abstract

Afull history of neurophysiology in the United States has not yet been written, and this chapter seeks only to sketch in a few of its major features, with special attention to the role of experimental techniques and instruments in its maturation as a recognizable subdiscipline. The chapter is divided into two distinct parts, with some names and a few of the themes from the first part recurring in the second part. The first part begins by noting the extent of British influence on the history of American neurophysiology. However, its major aim is to identify the leading social units in the subdiscipline in the United States, including the American Physiological Society (APS), several major university research centers, and the informal network known as the “Axonologists.”

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Notes

  1. For a discussion of the earlier work see E. Clarke and L. S. Jacyna, Nineteenth Century Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts (Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1987), chapt. 4.

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  37. Alfred L. Loomis was a wealthy engineer who occupied himself and his well-equipped laboratory with, in addition to electroencephalography, the same types of biophysical problems as the Eldridge Reeves Johnson Foundation for Medical Physics at the University of Pennsylvania, with which he had contacts.

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  64. Sidney Ochs, has written on the history of nerve repair and regeneration in “A Brief History of Nerve Repair and Regeneration,” In: Nerve Repair and Regeneration: Its Clinical and Experimental Basis, ed. D. L. Jewett and H. R. McCarroll ( St. Louis, MO: Mosby, 1980 ), pp. 1–8.

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  65. G. L. Geison, searching for a universally valid conception of scientific change, enumerated the characteristics of an ideal group in “Scientific Change, Emerging Specialties, and Research Schools,” Hist. Sci. 19 (1981): 20–40.

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  1. Louise H. Marshall
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Program in History of Science, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA

    Gerald L. Geison (professor of history) (professor of history)

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© 1987 American Physiological Society

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Marshall, L.H. (1987). Instruments, Techniques, and Social Units in American Neurophysiology, 1870–1950. In: Geison, G.L. (eds) Physiology in the American Context 1850–1940. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7528-6_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7528-6_16

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