Between Clinic and Experiment: Wilder Penfield's Stimulation Reports and the Search for Mind, 1929-55.

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  • Author(s): Guenther K;Guenther K
  • Source:
    Canadian bulletin of medical history = Bulletin canadien d'histoire de la medecine [Can Bull Med Hist] Fall 2016; Vol. 33 (2), pp. 281-320. Date of Electronic Publication: 2016 Sep 07.
  • Publication Type:
    Historical Article; Journal Article
  • Language:
    English
  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: University of Toronto Press Country of Publication: Canada NLM ID: 101130981 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Print ISSN: 0823-2105 (Print) Linking ISSN: 08232105 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Can Bull Med Hist
    • Publication Information:
      Publication: 2016- : Toronto : University of Toronto Press
      Original Publication: [Waterloo, Ont.] : Published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press for the Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, c1987-
    • Subject Terms:
      Electric Stimulation* ; History of Medicine*; Brain Mapping/*history ; Neurosurgeons/*history; Biomedical Research/history ; Brain/physiology ; Canada ; History, 20th Century ; Humans ; Male
    • Abstract:
      In medicine, the realm of the clinic and the realm of experimentation often overlap and conflict, and physicians have to develop practices to negotiate their differences. The work of Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield (1891-1976) is a case in point. Engaging closely with the nearly 5,000 pages of unpublished and hitherto unconsidered reports of electrical cortical stimulation that Penfield compiled between 1929 and 1955, I trace how Penfield's interest shifted from the production of hospital-based records designed to help him navigate the brains of individual patients to the construction of universal brain maps to aid his search for an ever-elusive "mind." Reading the developments of Penfield's operation records over time, I examine the particular ways in which Penfield straddled the individual and the universal while attempting to align his clinical and scientific interests, thereby exposing his techniques to standardize and normalize his brain maps.
    • Contributed Indexing:
      Keywords: Wilder Penfield; brain mapping; cartographie du cerveau; clinical neurology; electrical cortical stimulation; esprit; experimentation; expérimentation; mind; neurologie clinique; neuroscience; stimulation électrique corticale
    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20170204 Date Completed: 20171212 Latest Revision: 20171212
    • Publication Date:
      20240105
    • Accession Number:
      10.3138/cbmh.33.2.148-27012015
    • Accession Number:
      28155427