James Crichton-Browne
Encyclopedia
Sir James Crichton-Browne MD
FRS (29 November 1840 – 31 January 1938) was a leading British psychiatrist
famous for studies on the relationship of mental illness
to neurological damage and for the development of public health
policies in relation to mental health
. Crichton-Browne was a celebrated author and orator, one of Charles Darwin
's most significant correspondents and collaborators, editor of the West Riding Lunatic Asylum Medical Reports (1871 to 1876), and - like Duchenne de Boulogne and Hugh Welch Diamond
- a pioneer of clinical (neuropsychiatric) photography
. Crichton-Browne was based in Wakefield from 1866 to 1875, and there he established a unique asylum laboratory, later regarding himself as the "doyen of British medical psychology
". In his later years, Crichton-Browne made extensive contributions to the literature on the relations between psychiatry and western culture. He also made some remarkable predictions about the neurological changes associated with severe mental illness
.
in 1834. She belonged to one of Scotland's foremost scientific families, and the home (at St John's Hill near Salisbury Crags) had been built in 1770 for the unmarried geologist James Hutton
(1726–1797) whose mother was Sarah Balfour. Hutton was a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment
and his geological theories, involving physical processes exerted over unimaginable periods of time ("...no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end...") laid much of the foundation for modern environmental science. Hutton's concepts were clarified and reiterated by Sir Charles Lyell (1797–1875) in his Principles of Geology
(1830–1833). Crichton-Browne's uncle, John Hutton Balfour
(1808–1884), was appointed Professor of Botany and Medicine at Edinburgh University in 1845 in preference to Charles Darwin's friend, Joseph Dalton Hooker
(1817–1911).
Crichton-Browne's father, the asylum reformer William A.F. Browne (1805–1885), was a prominent phrenologist who had befriended Charles Darwin
at the Plinian Society
in Edinburgh in November 1826. Crichton-Browne's godmother was the childless widow Elizabeth Crichton (née Grierson) (1779–1862) who endowed the Crichton
Royal hospital in Dumfries
in memory of her husband, Dr James Crichton. Crichton-Browne's younger brother, John Hutton Balfour-Browne K.C. (1845–1921), wrote a classic work on the legal relations of insanity and his cousin, Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour
(1853–1922), was Sherardian Professor at Oxford and, later, Professor of Botany at Edinburgh.
Crichton-Browne spent much of his childhood at the Crichton Royal asylum in Dumfries where his father was the first medical superintendent from 1838 to 1857. William A.F. Browne was a pioneering Victorian psychiatrist, with an early interest in the psychological lives of his patients as evidenced by their group activities, symptoms, dreams, relationships and art-works. In his childhood, Crichton-Browne lost two siblings: William (aged 11 years) in 1846 and Jessie (aged 10 years) in 1852. He went to school at Dumfries Academy
and then, in line with his mother's episcopalian
outlook, to Trinity College, Glenalmond. Shortly before his death, Crichton-Browne wrote a valuable account of his Dumfries childhood, which was published as a Foreword to Charles Easterbrook's Chronicle of the Crichton Royal in 1940.
(1812–1876), Professor of Medicine, whose "magnum opus" Mind and Brain is an extended speculative essay on neurology and psychological life. Like his father, Crichton-Browne had been elected one of the undergraduate Presidents of the Royal Medical Society
and, in this capacity, he argued for the place of psychology
in the medical curriculum
. After working as assistant physician in asylums in Exeter (with John Charles Bucknill
), Warwick and Derby, and a brief period in Newcastle, Crichton-Browne was appointed Physician-Superintendent of the West Riding Asylum at Wakefield
in 1866; this was the year in which his father served as the first President of the Medico-Psychological Association (now the Royal College of Psychiatrists
); and, in his Presidential address delivered at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, W.A.F. Browne gave a rather laborious account of the principles of medical psychology and recorded the deaths of John Conolly
(1794–1866) and Sir Alexander Morison (1779–1866).
Crichton-Browne spent ten years at the West Riding Asylum. He believed that the asylum should be an educational as well as a therapeutic institution and set about a major research programme, bringing biological insights to bear on the causes of insanity. He supervised hundreds of post-mortem examinations of the brain and took a special interest in the clinical features of neurosyphilis
.
In 1872, Crichton-Browne invited the Scottish neurologist David Ferrier
(1843–1928) to direct the asylum laboratories and to conduct electrical studies on the cortical localization
of cerebral functions, a research initiative which developed the phrenological
theories of Crichton-Browne's father and echoed Duchenne de Boulogne's electrical experiments on the facial muscles
. (In 1832-1834, William A.F. Browne had published a serial paper in the Phrenological Journal on the relationship of mental disorder to a disturbance of language, citing clinical cases of brain injury
mainly in the frontal lobes). On the more general confluence of Crichton-Browne's thinking with his father's phrenology, see Walmsley, 1993and 2003. Ferrier summarised his scientific work at Wakefield in his neurological classic The Functions of the Brain.
At the instigation of Henry Maudsley
(1835–1918), Crichton-Browne corresponded with Charles Darwin
(1809–1882) from May 1869 until December 1875. The bulk of the correspondence occurred during the preparation of Crichton-Browne's first Asylum Medical Reports and also of Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
. On 8th June 1869, Darwin sent Crichton-Browne his copy of Duchenne's Mechanism of Human Facial Expression, asking for his comments. Crichton-Browne seems to have mislaid the book for about a year at the Wakefield asylum; but, on 6th June 1870, he returned it (with some embarrassment) to Darwin, along with an illustration of a woman with erected hair (from the Southern Counties Asylum at Dumfries). Darwin explored a huge range of subjects with Crichton-Browne, including references to Maudsley's Body and Mind, the psychology of blushing
, the functions of the platysma muscle
(Darwin's "bete noire") and the clinical phenomena of bereavement and grief
. Darwin's mysterious symptoms which included vomiting
, sweating
, sighing, and weeping, particularly troublesome in the early months of 1872, seem to have resolved around the time that he completed his work on the origins of the human emotions.
Building on the early psychiatric photography of Hugh Welch Diamond
(1809 -1886) at Brookwood Hospital
(Surrey's second County Asylum), Crichton-Browne sent about forty photographs of patients to Charles Darwin during the composition of his The Expression of the Emotions; however, Darwin used only one of these in the book and this (Darwin Correspondence Letter 7220) was of a patient (with erection of her hair "like wire") (photographer unknown) - under the care of Dr James Gilchrist at the Southern Counties Asylum (Crichton Royal) at Dumfries. The complete correspondence forms a remarkable contribution to the beginnings of behavioural science and Darwin remarked (of Ferrier's experiments) that "it seems that the physiology of the brain will soon be completely understood" . Nevertheless, Crichton-Browne attached greater importance to his six volumes of West Riding Lunatic Asylum Medical Reports (1871–1876) (Jellinek, 2005) - sending Darwin a copy of Volume One on 18th August 1871 - and to the neurological journal Brain
which developed from them, in which he was assisted by John Hughlings Jackson
(1835-1911), David Ferrier
(1843-1928) and John Charles Bucknill
(1817-1897) . It is notable, however, that Charles Darwin did not make a contribution to the Asylum Reports, nor did he visit the asylum when invited by Crichton-Browne in 1873.
In 1875, Crichton-Browne expressed dissatisfaction with the classification of mental disorders
produced by the Edinburgh psychiatrist David Skae
(1814–1873) which had been bravely championed by Skae's pupil Thomas Clouston
(1840–1915); for Crichton-Browne it was "philosophically unsound, scientifically inaccurate and practically useless". In 1879, Crichton-Browne published his own considerations of the neuropathology
of insanity making some very specific predictions about the morbid anatomy of the human brain in cases of severe psychiatric disorder: he proposed that in the insane the weight of the brain was reduced, that the lateral ventricles
were enlarged and that the burden of damage fell on the left cerebral hemisphere
. This involved an evolutionary view of cerebral localisation with an emphasis on the asymmetry
of cerebral functions which he derived from the clinical research of the French neurologist Paul Broca
(1824–1880) on language centres in the brain - originally published in 1861 - and presented by Broca to the British Association for the Advancement of Science
at its 1868 meeting in Norwich (chaired by Joseph Dalton Hooker
). The question of asymmetrical cerebral functions had been raised many years earlier by the Edinburgh phrenologist Hewett Cottrell Watson in the Phrenological Journal. Crichton-Browne summarised his own views on psychosis and cerebral asymmetry in his most important scientific paper: On The Weight of the Brain (1879); the best appraisal is by Compston, 2007.
patients throughout England and Wales. He held this post until his retirement in 1922 and used his public office to give influential addresses on medical matters of popular concern. He combined this with the development of an extensive private psychiatric practice in London and became a familiar figure on the metropolitan medical scene. He served for many years as Treasurer and Vice-President of the Royal Institution
and, in 1878, he followed his father as President of the Medico-Psychological Association. Crichton-Browne also made friendships in the literary world with the idiosyncratic historian Thomas Carlyle
(1795–1881) whose marital reputation he defended against the allegations of James Anthony Froude
; and, less controversially, with his contemporary, the novelist Thomas Hardy
(1840–1928) who consulted Crichton-Browne about the anatomical peculiarities of the female brain
. Crichton-Browne informed Hardy that the brain/body ratio was much the same in women as in men; but it is not clear that he drew Hardy's attention to the greater symmetry
of female nervous structure.
Crichton-Browne was a notable stylist and orator and he often combined this with a kind of couthy vernacular evocative of the Dumfries of his childhood. He was proud to have served as President of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society from 1892 to 1896 and, on 24th January 1895, he delivered a remarkable Presidential lecture - in Dumfries - On Emotional Expression - in which he discussed some reservations about Darwin's views and touched on the role of the hands in expression, and on the relationship of language to the physical expression of the emotions. Five months later, on 30th June 1895 in London, Crichton-Browne gave his famous Cavendish Lecture on Dreamy Mental States, in which he explored the relationship of temporal lobe disease to deja vu, hallucinatory and supernatural experiences; this caught the attention of William James
(1842-1910) who referred - rather negatively - to Crichton-Browne in his Gifford lectures on The Varieties of Religious Experience
(delivered in Edinburgh in 1901-1902). In the early years of the twentieth century, Crichton-Browne delivered a number of lectures on the asymmetry of the human brain, publishing his conclusions in 1907.
Four years later, on 29th February 1924, Crichton-Browne gave the Ramsay Henderson Bequest Lecture in Edinburgh. His title was The Story of the Brain. In this, he gave a remarkable tribute to members of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society
- to George Combe
(1788–1858), Andrew Combe
(1797–1847) and to Robert Chambers (1802–1871) who had sought to combine phrenology with evolutionary Lamarckism
in his Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
- written in St Andrews, published in 1844 and inverting Hutton's aphorism "no vestige of a beginning". However, Crichton-Browne did not mention that the lecture was delivered a century (almost to the day) after his father had joined the Edinburgh Phrenological Society
.
With increasing age, and perhaps with his personal losses in the First World War, Sir James' rhetoric had taken on a more authoritarian tone and this caused his reputation to tarnish in the last two decades of his life.
, Hewett Cottrell Watson and Robert Chambers
- into contact with scientific psychiatry at the dawn of the twentieth century. Crichton-Browne's psychiatric thinking showed a remarkable balance of sociological and neurological interests and his considerations of the cerebral basis of psychotic disorder were well ahead of their time. Within the medical world, he held out the promise of a continuum
of neurological and psychiatric illness and, in the narrower world of psychiatry, he demonstrated a public role for the specialist in mental disorders.
Very early in his career, Crichton-Browne emphasised the importance of psychiatric disorders in childhood and, much later, he was to emphasise the distinction between organic
and functional
illness in the elderly. He was considered an expert in many aspects of psychological medicine, public health
and social reform. He supported a campaign for the open-air treatment of tuberculosis
, housing
reform for the working-classes, and a practical approach to sexually transmitted diseases. He condemned the corporal punishment
of children. He stressed the importance of the asymmetric lateralization of brain function
in the development of language
and deplored the fads relating to ambidexterity
advocated by (among others) Robert Baden-Powell. He was critical of public education systems for their repetitive and fact-bound character, warning of mental exhaustion in otherwise happy and healthy children. He was openly - even offensively - sceptical concerning the claims of psychic investigators and spiritualists (see The Times articles of 1897/1899 concerning the Ballechin House
controversy) and of dietary faddists and vegetarians. He argued that the benefits of Freudian psychotherapy
had been assessed with insufficient rigour. He advocated the fluoridation of human dietary intake (in 1892) and he worried about the consequences of mass transportation by motor vehicles.
In the last years of his life, from retirement at his home "Crindau" by the River Nith
in Dumfries
, Sir James published six volumes of memoirs selected from his commonplace books, consisting of fragmentary essays ranging widely over medical, psychological, biographical, literary and Scottish themes. In 1925, he published a notable study of Robert Burns
' medical problems and physical decline - but he revealed little of himself.
Crichton-Browne was twice married and cherished a lifelong affection for the traditions of the Anglican liturgy; he was a loyal member of the congregation at the Church of St John the Evangelist, Dumfries. Through family connections he became friendly with the painter Hannah Gluckstein ("Gluck") (1895–1978) who executed an arresting portrait of Sir James in 1928, now in the National Portrait Gallery. Crichton-Browne was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society in 1883 (supported by Charles Darwin
) and he was knighted in 1886. He was a vigorous opponent of teetotalism
, stating that "no writer has done much without alcohol
". When he died on 31 January 1938, at the age of 97, Crichton-Browne - like Robert Burns
, Thomas Carlyle
and James Clerk Maxwell
- was acclaimed as one of the greatest sons of Dumfries and Galloway
in South-West Scotland; and as one of the last Victorians.
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
FRS (29 November 1840 – 31 January 1938) was a leading British psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
famous for studies on the relationship of mental illness
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
to neurological damage and for the development of public health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
policies in relation to mental health
Mental health
Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...
. Crichton-Browne was a celebrated author and orator, one of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's most significant correspondents and collaborators, editor of the West Riding Lunatic Asylum Medical Reports (1871 to 1876), and - like Duchenne de Boulogne and Hugh Welch Diamond
Hugh Welch Diamond
Hugh Welch Diamond was an early British psychiatrist and photographer who made a major contribution to the progress of the craft....
- a pioneer of clinical (neuropsychiatric) photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
. Crichton-Browne was based in Wakefield from 1866 to 1875, and there he established a unique asylum laboratory, later regarding himself as the "doyen of British medical psychology
Medical psychology
Medical psychology is a very broad field and has been defined in various ways. The Academy of Medical Psychology's definition applies to both the practices of consultation and prescribing in Medical Psychology, when allowed by statutes...
". In his later years, Crichton-Browne made extensive contributions to the literature on the relations between psychiatry and western culture. He also made some remarkable predictions about the neurological changes associated with severe mental illness
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
.
Family Background and Education
Crichton-Browne was born in Edinburgh at the family home of his mother, Magdalene Balfour, who had married William A. F. BrowneWilliam A. F. Browne
Dr William A. F. Browne was one of the most significant psychiatrists of the nineteenth century. At Montrose Asylum and, later, at Crichton Royal in Dumfries , Browne introduced activities for patients including writing, art, group activity and drama, pioneered early forms of occupational...
in 1834. She belonged to one of Scotland's foremost scientific families, and the home (at St John's Hill near Salisbury Crags) had been built in 1770 for the unmarried geologist James Hutton
James Hutton
James Hutton was a Scottish physician, geologist, naturalist, chemical manufacturer and experimental agriculturalist. He is considered the father of modern geology...
(1726–1797) whose mother was Sarah Balfour. Hutton was a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment
Scottish Enlightenment
The Scottish Enlightenment was the period in 18th century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By 1750, Scots were among the most literate citizens of Europe, with an estimated 75% level of literacy...
and his geological theories, involving physical processes exerted over unimaginable periods of time ("...no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end...") laid much of the foundation for modern environmental science. Hutton's concepts were clarified and reiterated by Sir Charles Lyell (1797–1875) in his Principles of Geology
Principles of Geology
Principles of Geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the Earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation, is a book by the Scottish geologist Charles Lyell....
(1830–1833). Crichton-Browne's uncle, John Hutton Balfour
John Hutton Balfour
John Hutton Balfour was a Scottish botanist. Balfour became a Professor of Botany, first at the University of Glasgow in 1841, moving to Edinburgh University and also becoming Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and Her Majesty's Botanist in Scotland in 1845...
(1808–1884), was appointed Professor of Botany and Medicine at Edinburgh University in 1845 in preference to Charles Darwin's friend, Joseph Dalton Hooker
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...
(1817–1911).
Crichton-Browne's father, the asylum reformer William A.F. Browne (1805–1885), was a prominent phrenologist who had befriended Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
at the Plinian Society
Plinian Society
The Plinian Society was a club at the University of Edinburgh for students interested in natural history. It was founded in 1823. Several of its members went on to have prominent careers, most notably Charles Darwin who announced his first scientific discoveries at the society.-Foundation,...
in Edinburgh in November 1826. Crichton-Browne's godmother was the childless widow Elizabeth Crichton (née Grierson) (1779–1862) who endowed the Crichton
Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary
Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary is the main hospital in Dumfries. The hospital serves both the town of Dumfries and the entire catchment area of South West Scotland, with a population of at least 147,000...
Royal hospital in Dumfries
Dumfries
Dumfries is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth. Dumfries was the county town of the former county of Dumfriesshire. Dumfries is nicknamed Queen of the South...
in memory of her husband, Dr James Crichton. Crichton-Browne's younger brother, John Hutton Balfour-Browne K.C. (1845–1921), wrote a classic work on the legal relations of insanity and his cousin, Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour
Isaac Bayley Balfour
Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour FRS FRSE was a Scottish botanist. He was the son of John Hutton Balfour who was also a botanist.-Biography:...
(1853–1922), was Sherardian Professor at Oxford and, later, Professor of Botany at Edinburgh.
Crichton-Browne spent much of his childhood at the Crichton Royal asylum in Dumfries where his father was the first medical superintendent from 1838 to 1857. William A.F. Browne was a pioneering Victorian psychiatrist, with an early interest in the psychological lives of his patients as evidenced by their group activities, symptoms, dreams, relationships and art-works. In his childhood, Crichton-Browne lost two siblings: William (aged 11 years) in 1846 and Jessie (aged 10 years) in 1852. He went to school at Dumfries Academy
Dumfries Academy
Dumfries Academy is one of four secondary schools in the town of Dumfries in South West Scotland.-History:Dumfries Academy has existed in its present form, though not in the buildings it currently occupies, since 1804...
and then, in line with his mother's episcopalian
Scottish Episcopal Church
The Scottish Episcopal Church is a Christian church in Scotland, consisting of seven dioceses. Since the 17th century, it has had an identity distinct from the presbyterian Church of Scotland....
outlook, to Trinity College, Glenalmond. Shortly before his death, Crichton-Browne wrote a valuable account of his Dumfries childhood, which was published as a Foreword to Charles Easterbrook's Chronicle of the Crichton Royal in 1940.
Darwin, Ferrier and the "Asylum Reports" 1866 - 1875
Crichton-Browne studied medicine at Edinburgh University where his uncle was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine; he qualified MRCS in 1861, and MD in 1862 with a thesis on hallucinations. Among his teachers was his father's friend Thomas LaycockThomas Laycock
Thomas Laycock was an English soldier, explorer, and later businessman, who served in North America during the War of 1812, but is most famous for being the first European to travel overland through the interior of Tasmania .-Early life:Thomas Laycock was the son of Thomas and Hannah Laycock...
(1812–1876), Professor of Medicine, whose "magnum opus" Mind and Brain is an extended speculative essay on neurology and psychological life. Like his father, Crichton-Browne had been elected one of the undergraduate Presidents of the Royal Medical Society
Royal Medical Society
The Royal Medical Society is the oldest medical society in the United Kingdom . Known originally as 'the Medical Society' when it was established in 1737, it was granted a Royal Charter in 1778...
and, in this capacity, he argued for the place of psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
in the medical curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
. After working as assistant physician in asylums in Exeter (with John Charles Bucknill
John Charles Bucknill
Sir John Charles Bucknill FRS English mental health reformer. Father of judge Sir Thomas Townsend Bucknill QC MP.-Biography:Bucknill was born in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, and educated at Rugby School and at University College, London...
), Warwick and Derby, and a brief period in Newcastle, Crichton-Browne was appointed Physician-Superintendent of the West Riding Asylum at Wakefield
Wakefield
Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....
in 1866; this was the year in which his father served as the first President of the Medico-Psychological Association (now the Royal College of Psychiatrists
Royal College of Psychiatrists
The Royal College of Psychiatrists is the main professional organisation of psychiatrists in the United Kingdom responsible for representing psychiatrists, psychiatric research and providing public information about mental health problems...
); and, in his Presidential address delivered at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, W.A.F. Browne gave a rather laborious account of the principles of medical psychology and recorded the deaths of John Conolly
John Conolly
John Conolly , English psychiatrist, was born at Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, of an Irish family. He spent four years as a lieutenant in the Cambridgeshire Militia and lived for a year in France before embarking on a medical career.He graduated with an MD degree at University of Edinburgh in 1821...
(1794–1866) and Sir Alexander Morison (1779–1866).
Crichton-Browne spent ten years at the West Riding Asylum. He believed that the asylum should be an educational as well as a therapeutic institution and set about a major research programme, bringing biological insights to bear on the causes of insanity. He supervised hundreds of post-mortem examinations of the brain and took a special interest in the clinical features of neurosyphilis
Neurosyphilis
Neurosyphilis is an infection of the brain or spinal cord caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum. It usually occurs in people who have had untreated syphilis for many years, usually about 10 - 20 years after first infection.-Symptoms and signs:...
.
In 1872, Crichton-Browne invited the Scottish neurologist David Ferrier
David Ferrier
Sir David Ferrier, FRS was a pioneering Scottish neurologist and psychologist.-Life:Ferrier was born in Woodside, Aberdeen and educated at Aberdeen Grammar School before studying for an MA at Aberdeen University...
(1843–1928) to direct the asylum laboratories and to conduct electrical studies on the cortical localization
Localization
Localization or localisation, and represented as a numeronym as L10n, may refer to:* Language localization, the process of translating a product into different languages or adapting a product for a specific country or region...
of cerebral functions, a research initiative which developed the phrenological
Phrenology
Phrenology is a pseudoscience primarily focused on measurements of the human skull, based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules...
theories of Crichton-Browne's father and echoed Duchenne de Boulogne's electrical experiments on the facial muscles
Facial muscles
The facial muscles are a group of striated muscles innervated by the facial nerve that, among other things, control facial expression. These muscles are also called mimetic muscles.-Structure:...
. (In 1832-1834, William A.F. Browne had published a serial paper in the Phrenological Journal on the relationship of mental disorder to a disturbance of language, citing clinical cases of brain injury
Acquired brain injury
An acquired brain injury is brain damage caused by events after birth, rather than as part of a genetic or congenital disorder such as fetal alcohol syndrome, perinatal illness or perinatal hypoxia. ABI can result in cognitive, physical, emotional, or behavioural impairments that lead to permanent...
mainly in the frontal lobes). On the more general confluence of Crichton-Browne's thinking with his father's phrenology, see Walmsley, 1993and 2003. Ferrier summarised his scientific work at Wakefield in his neurological classic The Functions of the Brain.
At the instigation of Henry Maudsley
Henry Maudsley
Henry Maudsley was a pioneering British psychiatrist.-Biographical sketch:Henry Maudsley was born on an isolated farm near Giggleswick in the North Riding of Yorkshire and educated at University College London. He was an outstandingly brilliant medical student, collecting ten Gold Medals and...
(1835–1918), Crichton-Browne corresponded with Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
(1809–1882) from May 1869 until December 1875. The bulk of the correspondence occurred during the preparation of Crichton-Browne's first Asylum Medical Reports and also of Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is a book by Charles Darwin, published in 1872, concerning genetically determined aspects of behaviour. It was published thirteen years after On The Origin of Species and is, along with his 1871 book The Descent of Man, Darwin's main consideration...
. On 8th June 1869, Darwin sent Crichton-Browne his copy of Duchenne's Mechanism of Human Facial Expression, asking for his comments. Crichton-Browne seems to have mislaid the book for about a year at the Wakefield asylum; but, on 6th June 1870, he returned it (with some embarrassment) to Darwin, along with an illustration of a woman with erected hair (from the Southern Counties Asylum at Dumfries). Darwin explored a huge range of subjects with Crichton-Browne, including references to Maudsley's Body and Mind, the psychology of blushing
Blushing
Blushing refers to the involuntary reddening of a person's face due to embarrassment or emotional stress, though it has been known to come from being lovestruck, or from some kind of romantic stimulation. It is thought that blushing is the result of an overactive sympathetic nervous system...
, the functions of the platysma muscle
Platysma muscle
The platysma is a superficial muscle that overlaps the sternocleidomastoid.It is a broad sheet arising from the fascia covering the upper parts of the pectoralis major and deltoid; its fibers cross the clavicle, and proceed obliquely upward and medially along the side of the neck.The anterior...
(Darwin's "bete noire") and the clinical phenomena of bereavement and grief
Grief
Grief is a multi-faceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something to which a bond was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, and philosophical dimensions...
. Darwin's mysterious symptoms which included vomiting
Vomiting
Vomiting is the forceful expulsion of the contents of one's stomach through the mouth and sometimes the nose...
, sweating
Sweating
Perspiration is the production of a fluid consisting primarily of water as well as various dissolved solids , that is excreted by the sweat glands in the skin of mammals...
, sighing, and weeping, particularly troublesome in the early months of 1872, seem to have resolved around the time that he completed his work on the origins of the human emotions.
Building on the early psychiatric photography of Hugh Welch Diamond
Hugh Welch Diamond
Hugh Welch Diamond was an early British psychiatrist and photographer who made a major contribution to the progress of the craft....
(1809 -1886) at Brookwood Hospital
Brookwood Hospital
Brookwood Hospital at Woking in Surrey, was established in 1867 by Surrey Quarter Sessions as the second County Asylum, the first being Springfield Asylum in Tooting...
(Surrey's second County Asylum), Crichton-Browne sent about forty photographs of patients to Charles Darwin during the composition of his The Expression of the Emotions; however, Darwin used only one of these in the book and this (Darwin Correspondence Letter 7220) was of a patient (with erection of her hair "like wire") (photographer unknown) - under the care of Dr James Gilchrist at the Southern Counties Asylum (Crichton Royal) at Dumfries. The complete correspondence forms a remarkable contribution to the beginnings of behavioural science and Darwin remarked (of Ferrier's experiments) that "it seems that the physiology of the brain will soon be completely understood" . Nevertheless, Crichton-Browne attached greater importance to his six volumes of West Riding Lunatic Asylum Medical Reports (1871–1876) (Jellinek, 2005) - sending Darwin a copy of Volume One on 18th August 1871 - and to the neurological journal Brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
which developed from them, in which he was assisted by John Hughlings Jackson
John Hughlings Jackson
John Hughlings Jackson, FRS , was an English neurologist.- Biography :He was born at Providence Green, Green Hammerton, near Harrogate, Yorkshire, the youngest son of Samuel Jackson, a yeoman who owned and farmed his land, and the former Sarah Hughlings, the daughter of a Welsh revenue collector...
(1835-1911), David Ferrier
David Ferrier
Sir David Ferrier, FRS was a pioneering Scottish neurologist and psychologist.-Life:Ferrier was born in Woodside, Aberdeen and educated at Aberdeen Grammar School before studying for an MA at Aberdeen University...
(1843-1928) and John Charles Bucknill
John Charles Bucknill
Sir John Charles Bucknill FRS English mental health reformer. Father of judge Sir Thomas Townsend Bucknill QC MP.-Biography:Bucknill was born in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, and educated at Rugby School and at University College, London...
(1817-1897) . It is notable, however, that Charles Darwin did not make a contribution to the Asylum Reports, nor did he visit the asylum when invited by Crichton-Browne in 1873.
In 1875, Crichton-Browne expressed dissatisfaction with the classification of mental disorders
Classification of mental disorders
The classification of mental disorders, also known as psychiatric nosology or taxonomy, is a key aspect of psychiatry and other mental health professions and an important issue for consumers and providers of mental health services...
produced by the Edinburgh psychiatrist David Skae
David Skae
-Life:David Skae was born in Edinburgh on 5 July 1814. His parents were David Skae, an architect and builder, and Helen Lothian. Both parents died while David was a child, and he was educated by his maternal uncle, the Rev. William Lothian, at St. Andrews. At the age of fourteen Skae began his...
(1814–1873) which had been bravely championed by Skae's pupil Thomas Clouston
Thomas Clouston
Sir Thomas Smith Clouston was a Scottish psychiatrist.Clouston was born in the Birsay parish of Orkney, and educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and the University of Edinburgh. Clouston qualified M.D. with a thesis on the nervous system of the lobster, supervised by John Goodsir...
(1840–1915); for Crichton-Browne it was "philosophically unsound, scientifically inaccurate and practically useless". In 1879, Crichton-Browne published his own considerations of the neuropathology
Neuropathology
Neuropathology is the study of disease of nervous system tissue, usually in the form of either small surgical biopsies or whole autopsy brains. Neuropathology is a subspecialty of anatomic pathology, neurology, and neurosurgery...
of insanity making some very specific predictions about the morbid anatomy of the human brain in cases of severe psychiatric disorder: he proposed that in the insane the weight of the brain was reduced, that the lateral ventricles
Lateral ventricles
The lateral ventricles are part of the ventricular system of the brain. Classified as part of the telencephalon, they are the largest of the ventricles....
were enlarged and that the burden of damage fell on the left cerebral hemisphere
Cerebral hemisphere
A cerebral hemisphere is one of the two regions of the eutherian brain that are delineated by the median plane, . The brain can thus be described as being divided into left and right cerebral hemispheres. Each of these hemispheres has an outer layer of grey matter called the cerebral cortex that is...
. This involved an evolutionary view of cerebral localisation with an emphasis on the asymmetry
Asymmetry
Asymmetry is the absence of, or a violation of, symmetry.-In organisms:Due to how cells divide in organisms, asymmetry in organisms is fairly usual in at least one dimension, with biological symmetry also being common in at least one dimension....
of cerebral functions which he derived from the clinical research of the French neurologist Paul Broca
Paul Broca
Pierre Paul Broca was a French physician, surgeon, anatomist, and anthropologist. He was born in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Gironde. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that has been named after him. Broca’s Area is responsible for articulated language...
(1824–1880) on language centres in the brain - originally published in 1861 - and presented by Broca to the British Association for the Advancement of Science
British Association for the Advancement of Science
frame|right|"The BA" logoThe British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formerly known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between...
at its 1868 meeting in Norwich (chaired by Joseph Dalton Hooker
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...
). The question of asymmetrical cerebral functions had been raised many years earlier by the Edinburgh phrenologist Hewett Cottrell Watson in the Phrenological Journal. Crichton-Browne summarised his own views on psychosis and cerebral asymmetry in his most important scientific paper: On The Weight of the Brain (1879); the best appraisal is by Compston, 2007.
Lord Chancellor's Visitor in Lunacy 1875 - 1922
In 1875, Crichton-Browne was appointed as Lord Chancellor's Visitor in Lunacy, a position which involved the regular examination of ChanceryCourt of Chancery
The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid the slow pace of change and possible harshness of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equity, including trusts, land law, the administration of the estates of...
patients throughout England and Wales. He held this post until his retirement in 1922 and used his public office to give influential addresses on medical matters of popular concern. He combined this with the development of an extensive private psychiatric practice in London and became a familiar figure on the metropolitan medical scene. He served for many years as Treasurer and Vice-President of the Royal Institution
Royal Institution
The Royal Institution of Great Britain is an organization devoted to scientific education and research, based in London.-Overview:...
and, in 1878, he followed his father as President of the Medico-Psychological Association. Crichton-Browne also made friendships in the literary world with the idiosyncratic historian Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
(1795–1881) whose marital reputation he defended against the allegations of James Anthony Froude
James Anthony Froude
James Anthony Froude , 23 April 1818–20 October 1894, was an English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of Fraser's Magazine. From his upbringing amidst the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement, Froude intended to become a clergyman, but doubts about the doctrines of the Anglican church,...
; and, less controversially, with his contemporary, the novelist Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
(1840–1928) who consulted Crichton-Browne about the anatomical peculiarities of the female brain
Female brain
Female brain can refer to*The female brain. See sexual differentiation.*The 2006 book The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D. about the subject....
. Crichton-Browne informed Hardy that the brain/body ratio was much the same in women as in men; but it is not clear that he drew Hardy's attention to the greater symmetry
Symmetry
Symmetry generally conveys two primary meanings. The first is an imprecise sense of harmonious or aesthetically pleasing proportionality and balance; such that it reflects beauty or perfection...
of female nervous structure.
Crichton-Browne was a notable stylist and orator and he often combined this with a kind of couthy vernacular evocative of the Dumfries of his childhood. He was proud to have served as President of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society from 1892 to 1896 and, on 24th January 1895, he delivered a remarkable Presidential lecture - in Dumfries - On Emotional Expression - in which he discussed some reservations about Darwin's views and touched on the role of the hands in expression, and on the relationship of language to the physical expression of the emotions. Five months later, on 30th June 1895 in London, Crichton-Browne gave his famous Cavendish Lecture on Dreamy Mental States, in which he explored the relationship of temporal lobe disease to deja vu, hallucinatory and supernatural experiences; this caught the attention of William James
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
(1842-1910) who referred - rather negatively - to Crichton-Browne in his Gifford lectures on The Varieties of Religious Experience
The Varieties of Religious Experience
The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature is a book by the Harvard University psychologist and philosopher William James that comprises his edited Gifford Lectures on "Natural Theology" delivered at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland between 1901 and 1902.These lectures...
(delivered in Edinburgh in 1901-1902). In the early years of the twentieth century, Crichton-Browne delivered a number of lectures on the asymmetry of the human brain, publishing his conclusions in 1907.
Elder Statesman of British Psychiatry 1922 - 1938
In 1920, Crichton-Browne delivered the first Maudsley Lecture to the Royal Medico-Psychological Association, giving an affecting tribute to Henry Maudsley whose enthusiasm and energy in the 1860s had been a source of inspiration and encouragement to him. He spoke with some feeling of Maudsley the man, and of the divergence of their pathways in the later development of British psychiatry. Crichton-Browne, rather in awe of Maudsley's intellectual powers, seems to have chilled at the unforgiving character of Maudsley's emotional landscape.Four years later, on 29th February 1924, Crichton-Browne gave the Ramsay Henderson Bequest Lecture in Edinburgh. His title was The Story of the Brain. In this, he gave a remarkable tribute to members of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society
Edinburgh Phrenological Society
The Edinburgh Phrenological Society was established in 1820. Phrenology was then claimed to be a science but is now regarded as a pseudoscience. The central concepts of phrenology were that the brain is the organ of the mind and that human behaviour can be most usefully understood in neurological...
- to George Combe
George Combe
George Combe , was a Scottish lawyer and writer on phrenology and education. In later years, he devoted himself to the promotion of phrenology. His major work was The Constitution of Man .-Early life:...
(1788–1858), Andrew Combe
Andrew Combe
Andrew Combe , Scottish physician and phrenologist; was born in Edinburgh on the October 27, 1797, and was a younger brother of George Combe....
(1797–1847) and to Robert Chambers (1802–1871) who had sought to combine phrenology with evolutionary Lamarckism
Lamarckism
Lamarckism is the idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring . It is named after the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , who incorporated the action of soft inheritance into his evolutionary theories...
in his Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation is a unique work of speculative natural history published anonymously in England in 1844. It brought together various ideas of stellar evolution with the progressive transmutation of species in an accessible narrative which tied together numerous...
- written in St Andrews, published in 1844 and inverting Hutton's aphorism "no vestige of a beginning". However, Crichton-Browne did not mention that the lecture was delivered a century (almost to the day) after his father had joined the Edinburgh Phrenological Society
Edinburgh Phrenological Society
The Edinburgh Phrenological Society was established in 1820. Phrenology was then claimed to be a science but is now regarded as a pseudoscience. The central concepts of phrenology were that the brain is the organ of the mind and that human behaviour can be most usefully understood in neurological...
.
With increasing age, and perhaps with his personal losses in the First World War, Sir James' rhetoric had taken on a more authoritarian tone and this caused his reputation to tarnish in the last two decades of his life.
Crichton-Browne's Legacy
Crichton-Browne's unusual longevity, taken together with his father's lengthy psychiatric career, brought the world of the early Edinburgh phrenologists - George CombeGeorge Combe
George Combe , was a Scottish lawyer and writer on phrenology and education. In later years, he devoted himself to the promotion of phrenology. His major work was The Constitution of Man .-Early life:...
, Hewett Cottrell Watson and Robert Chambers
Robert Chambers
Robert Chambers was a Scottish publisher, geologist, proto-evolutionary thinker, author and journal editor who, like his elder brother and business partner William Chambers, was highly influential in mid-19th century scientific and political circles.Chambers was an early phrenologist, and was the...
- into contact with scientific psychiatry at the dawn of the twentieth century. Crichton-Browne's psychiatric thinking showed a remarkable balance of sociological and neurological interests and his considerations of the cerebral basis of psychotic disorder were well ahead of their time. Within the medical world, he held out the promise of a continuum
Continuum
Continuum may refer to:* Continuum , anything that goes through a gradual transition from one condition, to a different condition, without any abrupt changes-Linguistics:...
of neurological and psychiatric illness and, in the narrower world of psychiatry, he demonstrated a public role for the specialist in mental disorders.
Very early in his career, Crichton-Browne emphasised the importance of psychiatric disorders in childhood and, much later, he was to emphasise the distinction between organic
Organic
Organic may refer to:* Of or relating to an organism, a living entity* Of or relating to an organ- Chemistry :* Organic matter, matter that has come from a once-living organism, is capable of decay or the product of decay, or is composed of organic compound* Organic chemistry, chemistry involving...
and functional
Functional
Generally, functional refers to something able to fulfill its purpose or function.*Functionalism and Functional form, movements in architectural design*Functional group, certain atomic combinations that occur in various molecules, e.g...
illness in the elderly. He was considered an expert in many aspects of psychological medicine, public health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
and social reform. He supported a campaign for the open-air treatment of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, housing
House
A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
reform for the working-classes, and a practical approach to sexually transmitted diseases. He condemned the corporal punishment
Corporal punishment
Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...
of children. He stressed the importance of the asymmetric lateralization of brain function
Lateralization of brain function
A longitudinal fissure separates the human brain into two distinct cerebral hemispheres, connected by the corpus callosum. The sides resemble each other and each hemisphere's structure is generally mirrored by the other side. Yet despite the strong anatomical similarities, the functions of each...
in the development of language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
and deplored the fads relating to ambidexterity
Ambidexterity
Ambidexterity is the state of being equally adept in the use of both left and right appendages . It is one of the most famous varieties of cross-dominance. People that are naturally ambidextrous are rare, with only one out of one hundred people being naturally ambidextrous...
advocated by (among others) Robert Baden-Powell. He was critical of public education systems for their repetitive and fact-bound character, warning of mental exhaustion in otherwise happy and healthy children. He was openly - even offensively - sceptical concerning the claims of psychic investigators and spiritualists (see The Times articles of 1897/1899 concerning the Ballechin House
Ballechin House
Ballechin House was a Georgian estate home near Grandtully, Perthshire, Scotland. It was built in 1806, on the site of an old manor house which had been owned by the Stuart family since the 15th century....
controversy) and of dietary faddists and vegetarians. He argued that the benefits of Freudian psychotherapy
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
had been assessed with insufficient rigour. He advocated the fluoridation of human dietary intake (in 1892) and he worried about the consequences of mass transportation by motor vehicles.
In the last years of his life, from retirement at his home "Crindau" by the River Nith
River Nith
The River Nith is a river in South West Scotland.-Source, flow and mouth:The Nith rises in the Carsphairn hills of East Ayrshire, more precisely between Prickeny Hill and Enoch Hill, 7 km East of Dalmellington...
in Dumfries
Dumfries
Dumfries is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth. Dumfries was the county town of the former county of Dumfriesshire. Dumfries is nicknamed Queen of the South...
, Sir James published six volumes of memoirs selected from his commonplace books, consisting of fragmentary essays ranging widely over medical, psychological, biographical, literary and Scottish themes. In 1925, he published a notable study of Robert Burns
Robert Burns
Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
' medical problems and physical decline - but he revealed little of himself.
Crichton-Browne was twice married and cherished a lifelong affection for the traditions of the Anglican liturgy; he was a loyal member of the congregation at the Church of St John the Evangelist, Dumfries. Through family connections he became friendly with the painter Hannah Gluckstein ("Gluck") (1895–1978) who executed an arresting portrait of Sir James in 1928, now in the National Portrait Gallery. Crichton-Browne was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society in 1883 (supported by Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
) and he was knighted in 1886. He was a vigorous opponent of teetotalism
Teetotalism
Teetotalism refers to either the practice of or the promotion of complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages. A person who practices teetotalism is called a teetotaler or is simply said to be teetotal...
, stating that "no writer has done much without alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
". When he died on 31 January 1938, at the age of 97, Crichton-Browne - like Robert Burns
Robert Burns
Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
, Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
and James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell of Glenlair was a Scottish physicist and mathematician. His most prominent achievement was formulating classical electromagnetic theory. This united all previously unrelated observations, experiments and equations of electricity, magnetism and optics into a consistent theory...
- was acclaimed as one of the greatest sons of Dumfries and Galloway
Dumfries and Galloway
Dumfries and Galloway is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland. It was one of the nine administrative 'regions' of mainland Scotland created in 1975 by the Local Government etc. Act 1973...
in South-West Scotland; and as one of the last Victorians.
See also
- council housing
- female brainFemale brainFemale brain can refer to*The female brain. See sexual differentiation.*The 2006 book The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D. about the subject....
- Gustav FritschGustav FritschGustav Theodor Fritsch was a German anatomist, anthropologist, traveller and physiologist from Cottbus, best known for his work with neuropsychiatrist Eduard Hitzig on the electric localization of the motor areas of the brain...
- Eduard HitzigEduard HitzigEduard Hitzig was a German neurologist and neuropsychiatrist born in Berlin.He studied medicine at the Universities of Berlin and Würzburg, and had as instructors, famous men such as Emil Du Bois-Reymond , Rudolf Virchow , Moritz Heinrich Romberg and Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal...
- teleologyTeleologyA teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...
External links
- American Journal of Public Health Sir James Crichton-Browne: Victorian Psychiatrist and Public Health Reformer (biography)