ABSTRACT
On obtaining the diploma of the Apothecaries’ Society, Jacob Augustus Lockhart Clarke straight away moved into general practice starting at Pimlico, London, living with his mother. Clarke was the first to establish the location of the dorsal nucleus of the spinal cord and describe the posterior vesicular columns. The dorsal nucleus is eponymously known as Clarke’s nucleus and the posterior vesicular column as the column of Clarke. He described the nucleus intermediolateralis and differentiated the medial cuneate nucleus from the lateral cuneate nucleus. His first paper, ‘Researches into the Structure of the Spinal Cord’, was received by the Royal Society on 15 October 1850 and published in their Transactions for 1851. This paper was illustrated, like many of his subsequent papers, by particularly accurate and appreciated drawings which he drew, and these have been subsequently reproduced in numerous works.
