The Diagram Makers and Their Critics

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century, the theory of localization was strongly supported by experimental evidence from both electrocortical stimulation and cytoarchitectonics (for details, see Chaps. 5and 6, respectively). Fritsch and Hitzig had demonstrated in 1870 that cortical stimulation at specific sites of the frontal lobe of a dog elicited contralateral muscular reactions, whereas stimulation of other regions did not result in any noticeable response [1]. Brodmann had parcellated the cortex of the human brain on the basis of histological differences in cell population and neuronal architecture and came up with 43 different areas in his now famous cytoarchitectonical brain maps [2].