(The place of publication is London and the date 2009 unless otherwise stated.)

List of publications on the economic and social history of Great Britain and Ireland published in 2009

Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830-1914 (review)

The mind-body problem has lain at the heart of the way we think about human nature throughout modern thought. It became a problem for science in the early nineteenth century when efforts were first made to provide systematic observations on the relationship between mind and brain. This work became increasingly experimental as researchers sought to localise functions in the brain. This study in the history of ideas traces the problem of localisation of function from the first empirical to the first experimental work on the topic.

/pdf/mind-brain-and-adaptation-in-the-nineteenth-century-cerebral-2mm688kly7.pdf

Mind, Brain and Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century. Cerebral Localization and its Biological Context from Gall to Ferrier, by Robert M. Young, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970, pp. xiv, 278, £3.25.

The cluster of myths relating to the pursuit of knowledge has perpetuated the archetype of the alchemist/scientist as sinister, dangerous, possibly mad and threatening to society's values. Shelley's Frankenstein provided imagery and a vocabulary universally invoked in relation to scientific discoveries and technological innovation. The reasons for the longevity of this seemingly antiquated, semiotic imagery are discussed. In the twenty-first century, this stereotype has been radically revised, even overturned. Scientists are now rarely objects of fear or mockery. Mathematicians, both real-life and fictional, are discussed here as being representative of scientists now depicted empathically. This article examines possible sociological reasons for this reversal; what the revisionist image suggests about society's changed attitudes to science; and what might be the substitute fears and sources of horror.

Whatever happened to the 'mad, bad' scientist? Overturning the stereotype.

Randomized experiments have enormous potential to improve human welfare in many domains, including healthcare, education, finance, and public policy. However, such "A/B tests" are often criticized on ethical grounds even as similar, untested interventions are implemented without objection. We find robust evidence across 16 studies of 5,873 participants from three diverse populations spanning nine domains-from healthcare to autonomous vehicle design to poverty reduction-that people frequently rate A/B tests designed to establish the comparative effectiveness of two policies or treatments as inappropriate even when universally implementing either A or B, untested, is seen as appropriate. This "A/B effect" is as strong among those with higher educational attainment and science literacy and among relevant professionals. It persists even when there is no reason to prefer A to B and even when recipients are treated unequally and randomly in all conditions (A, B, and A/B). Several remaining explanations for the effect-a belief that consent is required to impose a policy on half of a population but not on the entire population; an aversion to controlled but not to uncontrolled experiments; and a proxy form of the illusion of knowledge (according to which randomized evaluations are unnecessary because experts already do or should know "what works")-appear to contribute to the effect, but none dominates or fully accounts for it. We conclude that rigorously evaluating policies or treatments via pragmatic randomized trials may provoke greater objection than simply implementing those same policies or treatments untested.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/22/10723.full.pdf

Objecting to experiments that compare two unobjectionable policies or treatments

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction A.Stiles PART I: CATALYSTS Howled Out of the Country: Wilkie Collins and H.G. Wells Retry David Ferrier L.Otis Our Lady of Darkness: Decadent Arts and the Magnetic Sleep of Magdeleine G. D.LaCoss PART II: DIAGNOSTIC CATEGORIES How Do I Look? Dysmorphophobia and Obsession at the Fin de Siecle A.Mangham Doctor Zay and Dr. Mitchell: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's Feminist Response to Mainstream Neurology K.Swenson PART III: SEX AND THE BRAIN Trauma and Sexual Inversion, circa 1885: Dr Holmes's A Mortal Antipathy and Maladies of Representation R.Knoper Singing the Body Electric: Nervous Music and Sexuality in Fin-de-Siecle Literature J.Kennaway PART IV: THE TRAUMATIZED BRAIN Emergent Theories of Victorian Mind Shock: From War and Railway Accident to Nerves, Electricity and Emotion J.Matus Medical and Literary Discourses of Trauma in the Age of the American Civil War M.Micale Works Cited Index

Neurology and literature, 1860-1920

In 1893, H. G. Wells's article "Man of the Year Million" dramatically predicted the distant evolutionary future of mankind:1The descendents of man will nourish themselves by immersion in nutritive fluid. They will have enormous brains, liquid, soulful eyes, and large hands, on which they will hop. No craggy nose will they have, no vestigial ears; their mouths will be a small, perfectly round aperture, unanimal, like the evening star. Their whole muscular system will be shriveled to nothing, a dangling pendant to their minds.2The editors at Punch evidently found this prediction hilarious, publishing a poem and accompanying sketch ridiculing Wells's lopsided future humans (Figure 1, p. 318). But not everyone was laughing.As ridiculous as Wells's bodiless, large-headed "human tadpoles" may seem, they were based on the most rigorous evolutionary science of their day. Wells, a lower-middle-class academic prodigy, received a prestigious government scholarship to attend the Normal School of Science in South Kensington (later absorbed into the University of London). Though Wells left South Kensington in 1887 without earning his degree, he was greatly inspired by his biology teacher, famed physiologist Thomas Huxley. Wells absorbed Huxley's pessimistic take on late-Victorian evolutionary theory, particularly his emphasis on the inherent brutality of natural selection.Huxley's pessimism surfaces in Wells's dystopian scientific romances, which imaginatively probe the consequences of evolutionary theory run amok.3 Beginning with the eponymous mad-scientist villain of The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) and continuing with alien invasion narratives like The War of the Worlds (1897-98) and The First Men in the Moon (1901), Wells depicts brains becoming steadily larger and more powerful as bodies grow smaller and more useless, emotions increasingly muted, and conscience all but silenced. Wells's nightmarish vision of the massively overevolved brain unites these three works, as the ruthlessly intellectual biologist Moreau morphs into the amoral, top-heavy Martians and lunar inhabitants.Wells's malevolent mad scientists and extraterrestrials owe an intellectual debt not only to Huxley, but also to discussions of genius and insanity in late-Victorian issues of Mind (1876-present).4 The now-familiar trope of the mad scientist in fact traces its roots to the clinical association between genius and insanity that developed in the mid-nineteenth century. Authors like Scottish journalist and materialist philosopher John Ferguson Nisbet, English eugenicist Francis Galton, and Austrian Jewish physician Max Nordau - all of whose works were reviewed in Mind - argued that mankind had evolved larger brains at the expense of muscular strength, reproductive capacity, and moral sensibility.5 Wells drew upon these arguments in his fiction and even contributed his own article to Mind, a philosophical reflection on science entitled "Scepticism of the Instrument" (1904).In its unique role as "the first English journal devoted to Psychology and Philosophy." Mind was an ideal venue for an inherently interdisciplinary subject like the clinical study of genius.6 The journal's first editor, George Croom Robertson, was particularly concerned that articles in Mind rise "above the narrowing influences of modern specialism."7 This disciplinary breadth attracted contributors from all fields, including fiction writers and literary critics like George Henry Lewes, Grant Allen, Andrew Lang, and, of course, H.G. Wells. During the same period, literary works probed ideas discussed in Mind, such as the nature of the soul, the possibility of free will, and the ramifications of biological determinism. In the four decades following its auspicious start, Mind provided a venue where scientists, philosophers and literary authors could find intellectual common ground.In this essay, the early fiction of H.G. Wells will serve as a case study of cross-fertilization between literature and scientific ideas discussed in Mind. …

Literature in Mind: H. G. Wells and the Evolution of the Mad Scientist

Introduction: cerebral localization and the late Victorian Gothic romance Part I. Reactionaries: 1. Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde and the double brain 2. Bram Stoker's Dracula and cerebral automatism Part II. Materialists: 3. Photographic memory in the works of Grant Allen Part III. Visionaries: 4. H. G. Wells and the evolution of the mad scientist 5. Marie Corelli and the neuron Epilogue Looking forward.

Popular fiction and brain science in the late nineteenth century

This article traces the inspiration for Stevenson's novella back to two famous French case studies of dual personality, Felida X. and Sergeant F., whose "double lives" were widely discussed in French and British periodicals. In the late-nineteenth century, such cases of dual personality were often attributed to bilateral brain hemisphere asymmetry, a condition Stevenson faithfully depicts in his fictional Strange Case. The author's awareness of contemporary neurological theories and his acute satire of the conventions of the case study contribute to his innovative take on the late-Victorian Gothic romance.

http://disciplinas.stoa.usp.br/pluginfile.php/93664/mod_resource/content/1/Double%20Brain.pdf

Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde and the Double Brain

This essay examines the life and work of Sir William Thornley Stoker, 1st Baronet (1845-1912), the eldest brother of Bram Stoker (1847-1912), the author of Dracula (1897). Sir William or "Thornley," as he was commonly known, was one of Ireland's leading physicians. He performed some of the first brain surgeries in Ireland using Sir David Ferrier's maps of the cerebral cortex. From 1879 into the twentieth century, Thornley served as inspector for Ireland under the 1876 Cruelty to Animals Act. In this role, Thornley was responsible for granting licenses to researchers who performed experiments on live animals. Due to his reservations about animal experimentation, Thornley eventually became an advocate for the antivivisection cause, testifying at the second Royal Commission on Vivisection (1906-1912). Thornley also influenced Irish literature, albeit indirectly. Bram Stoker's composition notes for Dracula show that he consulted his older brother about the medical scenes in his novel. Thornley's knowledge of cerebral localization and his animal rights advocacy both surface in Dracula.

Anne Stiles

Papers

Neurology and literature, 1860-1920

Literature in Mind: H. G. Wells and the Evolution of the Mad Scientist

Popular fiction and brain science in the late nineteenth century

Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde and the Double Brain

Bram Stoker's brother, the brain surgeon.