1470 CICERO, Marcus Tullius (-106 – -43)
Rhetorica ad C. Herennium.
First description of the "method of loci," the memory technique as known as the "memory palace." Because of its wide use during the Middle Ages this text survives in hundreds of medieval manuscripts. Fourteen printed …
GMN 13696 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/15978
1490 ALBERTUS MAGNUS, [Albert von Bollstädt] (1195 – 1280)
Philosophia pauperum, sive Isagoge in libros Aristotelis physicorum, de coelo et mundo, de generatione et corruptione, meteororum et de anima.
This edition, chronologically the fourth printed, of Albertus's commentaries on various works of Aristotle, contains the first printed illustration of the brain, showing in profile the three-cell theory of brain funct…
GMN 6949 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/9114
1491 CARRARA, Giovanni Michele Alberto da [Johannes Michael Alberti] (1438 – 1490)
De omnibus ingeniis augendae memoriae.
An early work on memory disorders and aids to memory. ISTC no. ia00210000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.
GMN 4511.01 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/357
1512 NEMESIUS (ΝΕΜΈΣΙΟΣ), Bishop of Emesa (350 – )
Divini Gregorii Nyssae episcopi qui fuit frater Basilii Magni libri octo. I. De homine. II. De anima. III. De elementis. IIII. De viribus animae. V. De voltario etinuoltario. VI. De fato. VII. De libero arbitrio. VIII. De prouidentia.
Nemesius’ De natura hominis, a physiological and psychological study of man, was highly esteemed during the Middle Ages. Nemesius, who wrote in the 4th century CE, was one of the first to propose that mental processes…
GMN 571 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/339
1538 VIVES, Juan Luis (1492 – 1540)
De anima et vita libri tres.
Vives anticipated Bacon and Descartes in developing an empirical psychology in which the mind was to be studied both through introspection and observation of others. From his exhaustive analysis of memory he developed…
GMN 4963.2 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/6360
1887 KORSAKOFF, Sergei Sergeievich (1853 – 1900)
Disturbance of psychic activity in alcoholic paralysis.
“Korsakoff’s psychosis” or syndrome – alcoholic polyneuritis with loss and falsification of memory. A second paper on the subject in Ezhened. klin. Gaz., 1889, 9, 85, 115, 136, is translated into English in Neurology,…
GMN 4945 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/6233
1936 KENNARD, Margaret Alice (1899 – 1975)
Age and other factors in motor recovery from precentral lesions in monkeys.
This was the first of a series of papers by Kennard that led to what became known as the Kennard Principle, which posits a negative linear relationship between age of a brain lesion and the recovery outcome. The earli…
GMN 14286 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/16609
1949 HEBB, Donald Olding (1904 – 1985)
The organization of behavior: A neuropsychological theory.
Hebb connected the biological function of the brain as an organ together with the higher function of the mind. He studied how the function of neurons contributed to psychological processes such as learning. In this wo…
GMN 12735 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/14981
1961 YOUNG, Morris Nathan (1909 – 2002)
Bibliography of memory.
The most complete bibliography to date on this subject. Regarding Young, see the unusually interesting obituary in The New York Times at this link.
GMN 6945 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/9110
1961 SPERRY, Roger Wolcott (1913 – 1994)
Cerebral organization and behavior: The split brain behaves in many respects like two separate brains, providing new research possibilities.
Sperry and colleagues, including Michael Gazzaniga, conducted extensive experiments on an epileptic patient who had had his corpus collosum, the "bridge" between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, split so t…
GMN 9648 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11835
1963 SPERRY, Roger Wolcott (1913 – 1994)
Chemoaffinity in the orderly growth of nerve fiber patterns and connections.
Sperry's chemoaffinity hypothesis, which states that neurons make connections with their targets based on interactions with specific molecular markers[1] and, therefore, that the initial wiring diagram of an organism …
GMN 9647 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11834
1971 O'KEEFE, John (1939 – ); DOSTROVSKY, Jonathan
The hippocampus as a spatial map. Preliminary evidence from unit activity in the freely-moving rat.
See also: O'Keefe, "Place units in the hippocampus of the freely moving rat," Experimental Neurology, 51 (1976) 78–109. O’Keefe and his student Jonathan Dostrovsky discovered place cells in the hippocampus, and that t…
GMN 14258 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/16579
1995 BOS, Gerrit; IBN AL JAZZĀR, Ahmed Bin Jaafar Bin Brahim (Algizar) (895 – 979)
Ibn al-Jazzār on forgetfulness and its treatment. Critical edition of the Arabic text and the Hebrew translations with commentary and translation into English by Gerrit Bos.
GMN 8244 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/10420
1996 KANDEL, Eric Richard (1929 – ); BAILEY, Craig Harrison; BARTSCH, Dusan
Toward a molecular definition of long-term memory storage.
"Abstract: The storage of long-term memory is associated with a cellular program of gene expression, altered protein synthesis, and the growth of new synaptic connections. Recent studies of a variety of memory process…
GMN 14252 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/16572
2005 MOSER, May-Britt (1963 – ); MOSER, Edvard Ingjald; HAFTING, Torkel; FYHN, Marianne Hafting (1973 – ); MOLDEN, Sturla
Microstructure of a spatial map in the entorhinal cortex.
May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser and colleagues discovered grid cells, specialized types of neurons that respond to specific locations in space. They are main components of the brain's GPS. Order of authorship in the …
GMN 14259 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/16580
2008 HANSON, Marta E.
"Hand mnemonics in classical Chinese medicine: Texts, earliest images, and arts of memory," Festschrift issued in honor of Nathan Sivin, Asia Major series 3, 21.1, 325-357.
GMN 9489 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/11673
2014 PRUSINER, Stanley Benjamin (1942 – )
Madness and memory: The discovery of prions- a new biological principle of disease.
Prusiner discovered prions, the agent causing scrapie in sheep and goats, mad cow disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
GMN 7624 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/9796
