Under the heading "Brains" (20120902) the blog, BibliOdysssey, has posted an amazing set of 15 neuroanatomical atlas illustration plates from the 1786 'Traité d'Anatomie et de Physiologie' by Félix Vicq D'Azyr (1748-1794, Wikipedia entry). The blog's author (peacay) cites the Hagströmer Medico-Historical Library Virtual Book Museum's (Stockholm, Sweden) description of the book's creator: "Vicq d-Azur, permanent secretary to the Paris Academy of Medicine and personal physician to Marie Antoinette, found that his dissections of the brain were facilitated by first hardening the brain in alcohol. He identified accurately for the first time many of the cerebral convolutions, along with various internal structures of the brain. He rediscovered the white line in calarine cortex and described the mammillothalmic tract which still bears his name, as well as the central sulcus with the pre- and postcentral convolutions and insula twenty years before Reil and Rolando."
BTW, while he died during The Terror period of the French Revolution (1794), his passing was due to pneumonia rather than the guillotine.
I was struck both by how beautiful the engravings are as well as their accuracy/informative quality. A link is provided to the set on Flickr® with varying sizes available of each plate for download and use.
At the bottom of the entry, there is a very helpful list of online sources regarding Vicq D'Azyr and this volume. Prof. Dorothy Bishop, the eminent UK/Oxford professor of developmental neuropsychology, researcher on children's language disorders, and one of the most astute social media authors in science that I know of, has posted a great set of comments on the difficulty that Noam Chomsky seems to have with understanding (or even knowing the current research regarding) the development of language by children. It can be found on her weblog at http://deevybee.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/what-chomsky-didnt-get-about-child.html. l found it terrific.
Her weblog: http://deevybee.blogspot.co.uk
Her Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/deevybee (@deevybee)
