No books have been published on the practice of neuroscience in the eighteenth century, a time of transition and discovery in science and medicine. This volume explores neuroscience and reviews developments in anatomy, physiology, and medicine in the era some call the Age of Reason, and others the Enlightenment. Topics include how neuroscience adopted electricity as the nerve force, how disorders such as aphasia and hysteria were treated, Mesmerism, and more.

Introduction.- Chronology.- Background: Introduction.- Brain and Mind in the ‘Long’ 18th Century.- Enlightening Neuroscience: Microscopes and Microscopy n the Eighteen Century.- Corpus Curricula: Medical Education and the Voluntary Hospital Movement.- Some Thoughts on the Medical Milieu in the Last Quarter of the Eighteenth Century as Reflected in the Life and Activities of James Parkinson (1755-1824).- The Nervous System: Introduction.- John Hunter’s Contributions to Neuroscience.- Cullen and Whytt on the Nervous System.- 1710: The Introduction of Experimental Nervous System Physiology and Anatomy by François Pourfour du Petit.- Irritable Glue: The Haller-Whytt Controversy on the Mechanism of Muscle Contraction.- The Taming of the Electric Ray: From a Wonderful and Dreadful ‘Art’ to ‘Animal Electricity’ and Electric Battery.- Luigi Galvani, Physician, Surgeon, Physicist: From Animal Electricity to Electrophysiology.- Brain and Behavior: Introduction.- The Vision of William Porterfield – David Hartley’s Neural Vibrations and Psychological Associations.- Charles Bonnet’s Neurophilosophy.- Swedenborg and Localization Theory.- Medical Theories and Applications: Introduction.- Neuroscience in the Work of Boerhaave and Haller.- Apoplexy-Changing Concepts in the Eighteenth Century.- Benjamin Franklin and the Electrical Cure for Disorders of the Nervous System.- Gentleman’s Magazine, the Advent of Medical Electricity, and Disorders of the Nervous System.- Therapeutic Attractions: Early Applications of Electricity to the Art of Healing.- John Wesley on the Estimation and Cure of Nervous Disorders.- Franz Anton Mesmer and the Rise and Fall of Animal Magnetism: Dramatic Cures, Controversy, and Ultimately a Triumph for the Scientific Method.- Hysteria in the Eighteenth Century.- Cultural Consequences: Introduction.- Technological Metaphors and the Anatomy of Representations in Eighteenth Century French Materialism andDualist Mechanism.- Explorations of the Brain, Mind and Medicine in the Writings of Jonathan Swift.- Temperament and the Long Shadow of Nerves in the Eigthteenth Century.- Index.