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The pathology of sensory aphasia, with an analysis of fifty cases in which Broca's centre was not diseased. By M. Allen Starr, MD. Brain 1889: 12; 82–99; with A remarkable case of aphasia. Acute and complete destruction by embolic softening of the left motor-vocal speech centre (Broca's convolution), in a right-handed man: transient motor aphasia, marked inability to name objects and especially persons, considerable agraphia and slight word-blindness. By Byron Bramwell, MD. Brain 1898: 21; 343–373; and Recent work on aphasia. By James Collier, MD. Brain 1909: 31; 523–549.
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Elsewhere in this issue, Dronkers et al. report on high-resolution MR scanning of the brains of the two patients on whom Paul Broca in 1861 based his famous theory about the localization of language production in the posterior inferior frontal gyrus. They report that the lesions extend beyond what has become conventionally known as ‘Broca's area’, in a medial as well as in an anterior direction. In the three Brain papers published in the decades after Broca's discovery, the discussion revolves not only around the exact location of the lesions associated with motor aphasia, but also around the question whether different aspects of language (interestingly called ‘speech’ in all three papers) can be localized at all. In this sense the debate echoes and parallels the controversy in the second half of the 19th century about localization of brain function in general: localizationists versus equipotentialists, Gall versus Flourens, Ferrier versus
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