ABSTRACT
The historic example of the effects of a dysfunctional prefrontal cortex – the accidental frontal lobectomy of Phineas Gage in 1848, his miraculous survival, and the change in his behavior – are well known (see p. xvi). Gage’s physician noted that: “The equilibrium … between his intellectual faculties and animal propensities, seems to have been destroyed” (Harlow, 1869, p. 13). Abroad, David Ferrier (1873), initiating frontal lobe ablations in monkeys at Brown Institution, London, wrote that on seeing his operated animals little effect might be perceptible, but that a decided change was produced in their behavior: they appeared to have lost the faculty of intelligent and attentive observation. Similar descriptions of frontally lobectomized monkeys were published by the Italian, Leonardo Bianchi (1895), in his monograph, The Functions of the Frontal Lobes. It opened with a chapter on the “History and Evolution of the Frontal Lobes,”1 followed by a summary of his many observations of animals and humans with frontal lobe injuries. John Fulton (1951, p. 23) perceptively remarked,
EXPERIMENTAL RIGOR
Pioneering Experiments by Shepherd Ivory Franz (1874-1933) A beginning in formulation of quantitative measurements of behavior which Fulton found lacking at the turn of the century was made by a member of the American school of psychologists, who advocated experimental studies under
controlled conditions, in contrast to “naturalistic” observations. Not only were rigid protocols followed (as in the learning experiments with mazes described in the preceding chapter) but the animals of choice were phylogenetically close to the human and were studied as individuals or in small groups. An American pioneer in those investigations, Shepherd Ivory Franz, may not have received due recognition for his role in promoting those changes.
