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On the weight of the brain and its component parts in the insane. By J. Crichton-Browne, MD, FRSE, Lord Chancellor's Visitor. Brain 1879: 1; 514–518 and 1879: 2; 42–67.
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In many respects, the modern study of disordered brain function in Britain has its origins in Wakefield, Yorkshire. This was where James Crichton-Browne turned the West Riding Lunatic Asylum into a research institute that attracted, amongst others, Sir David Ferrier and John Hughlings Jackson. It was a school much influenced by the teachings of Thomas Laycock. The attitude to mental illness in Yorkshire was emancipated. Crichton-Browne promoted the study of neuropathology and the keeping of meticulous medical records. These provided material for the six volumes of Medical Reports—a relatively unknown but crucial source of material in the history of neurology. In 1876 Crichton-Browne left Wakefield to take up the position of Lord Chancellor's Visitor in Lunacy. Two years later, he co-founded Brain with Ferrier, Hughlings-Jackson and John Charles Bucknill. Born in 1840, Crichton-Browne lived to the age of 98 and even delivered a broadcast on the BBC, founded in
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