ABSTRACT
As the program of the American school of comparative neurology moved into the second quarter of this century, its general investigative focus had continued a gradual climb up the evolutionary scale from an initial preoccupation with fish, to an emphasis on amphibians, and thence, to a broad concern with reptiles and birds. From this latter springboard, during a critical 5-year period, 1927 to 1932, three talented young men broke through a figurative taboo and carried the school with them into a mushrooming range of interests in research on the mammalian brain.
