Editing David Ferrier (section)

==Life==
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Ferrier was born in [[Woodside, Aberdeen]], the sixth child of David and Hannah; he was educated at [[Aberdeen Grammar School]] before studying for an MA at [[Aberdeen University]] (graduating in Classics in 1863), before studying psychophysiology in Germany and medicine at Edinburgh.<ref name=Lance /> As a medical student, he began to work as a scientific assistant to the influential free-thinking philosopher and psychologist [[Alexander Bain (philosopher)|Alexander Bain]] (1818–1903), one of the founders of [[associative psychology]]. 

Around 1860, [[psychology]] was finding its scientific foundation mainly in [[Germany]], with the rigorous research of [[Hermann von Helmholtz]] (1821–1894), who had trained as a physicist, and of [[Wilhelm Wundt]] (1832–1920). They focused their work mainly in the area of sensory [[psychophysics]]. Both worked at the [[University of Heidelberg]]. In 1864, Bain prompted Ferrier to spend some time in their laboratories.

On returning to Scotland, Ferrier graduated in medicine in 1868 at the [[University of Edinburgh]]. A few years later, in 1870, he moved into [[London]] and started work as a neuropathologist at the [[King's College Hospital]] and at the [[National Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy]], [[Queen Square, London|Queen Square]]. The latter - now the [[National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery]] - was the first hospital in [[England]] to be dedicated to the treatment of neurological diseases and has a David Ferrier ward named in his memory.

At that period, the great neurologist [[John Hughlings Jackson]] (1835–1911) worked in the same hospital as Ferrier. Jackson was refining his concepts of the sensorimotor functions of the [[nervous system]], derived from clinical experience. Jackson proposed that there was an anatomical and physiological substrate for the localization of brain functions, which was hierarchically organized.

Influenced by Jackson who became a close friend and mentor, Ferrier decided to embark on an experimental program. It aimed to extend the results of two German physiologists, [[Eduard Hitzig]] (1838–1907) and [[Gustav Fritsch]] (1837–1927). 

In 1870, they had published results on localized [[electrical stimulation]] of the [[motor cortex]] in dogs. Ferrier wanted also to test Jackson's idea that [[epilepsy]] had a cortical origin, as it was suggested by his clinical observations.

Coincidentally, Ferrier had received a proposal to direct the laboratory of experimental neurology at the [[Stanley Royd Hospital]], a psychiatric hospital located in Yorkshire. The hospital's director was the psychiatrist [[James Crichton-Browne]] (1840–1938). Working under good material conditions and having an abundance of animals for experimentation (mainly rabbits, guinea pigs and dogs), Ferrier started his experiments in 1873, examining experimental lesions and electrical stimulation of the cerebral cortex. Upon his return to London, the Royal Society sponsored the extension of his stimulation experiments to macaque monkeys, work he undertook at the [[Brown Animal Sanatory Institution|Brown Institution]] in Lambeth. By the end of the year, he had reported his first results to local and national meetings and had published an account in the enormously influential ''West Riding Lunatic Asylum Medical Reports''.

Ferrier had succeeded in demonstrating, in a spectacular manner, that the low intensity faradic stimulation of the cortex in both animal species indicated a rather precise and specific map for motor functions. The same areas, upon being lesioned, caused the loss of the functions which were elicited by stimulation. Ferrier was also able to demonstrate that the high-intensity stimulation of motor cortical areas caused repetitive movements in the neck, face and members which were highly evocative of epileptic fits seen by neurologists in human beings and animals, which probably were due to a spread of the focus of stimulation, an interpretation very much in line with Jacksonanian thought.

[[File:Ferriermonkey.gif|thumb|A dog cortical map obtained by Ferrier using the electrical stimulation of the brain]]

These - and other investigations in the same line - resulted in international fame for Ferrier and assured his permanent place as one of the greatest experimental neurologists. 

In June 1876, he was elected a [[Fellow of the Royal Society]] at the age of 33<ref>{{cite web|url=http://royalsociety.org/Lists-of-Royal-Society-Fellows-1660-2007/ |title=Lists of Royal Society Fellows 1660–2007 |publisher=The Royal Society |accessdate=16 July 2010 |location=London |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100324095152/http://royalsociety.org/Lists-of-Royal-Society-Fellows-1660-2007/ |archivedate=24 March 2010 }}</ref> and Fellow of the [[Royal College of Physicians]] the following year.<ref name=JNNP /> He was also the first physiologist to make an audacious (if scientifically incorrect) transposition of [[cortical map]]s obtained in monkeys to the human brain. This proposal soon led to practical consequences in neurology and neurosurgery. 

A Scottish surgeon, Sir [[William Macewen]] (1848–1924), and two English physicians (clinical neurologist Hughes Bennett, and [[Sir Rickman Godlee|Rickman J. Godlee]]) demonstrated in 1884, that it was possible to use a precise clinical examination to determine the possible site of a [[tumor]] or lesion in the brain, by observing its effects on the side and extension of alterations in motor and sensory functions. This method of [[functional neurological mapping]] is still used today. Jackson and Ferrier were present at the first operation performed by Godlee on 25 November 1884. Godlee was a nephew of the eminent physician Sir [[Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister|Joseph Lister]] (1827–1912), the discoverer of surgical [[antiseptics|antisepsis]].

Practical results of [[animal research]] were used to justify Ferrier before a noisy public persecution carried out by [[vivisection|antivivisectionist]] societies against him and other scientists, who were accused of inhumane use of animals for experimental medicine.<ref name=TAF>{{cite web |url= https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/030801803225005201 |title= Experimentation or exploitation? The investigations of David Ferrier, Dr Benjulia, and Dr Seward |last= Pedlar |first= Valerie |date= July 18, 2013 |website= Taylor and Francies Online |publisher= |access-date= April 28, 2025|quote=}}</ref>

In 1892, Ferrier was one of the founding members of the ''National Society for the Employment of Epileptics'' (now the [[National Society for Epilepsy]]),<ref name=Lance /> along with [[William Richard Gowers|Sir William Gowers]] and John Hughlings Jackson.

He received a knighthood in 1911.<ref name=JNNP />