RESUMO
In 1906, Pierre Marie triggered a heated controversy and an exchange of articles with Jules Déjerine over the localization of language functions in the human brain. The debate spread internationally. One of the timeliest responses, that appeared in print 1 month after Marie's paper, came from Christofredo Jakob, a Bavarian-born neuropathologist working in Buenos Aires. The present study comprises an English translation of Jakob's 1906 paper and a discussion of Jakob's ideas on the localizationist-holistic approach regarding the role of Broca's area. This issue is still at the core of scientific debate in the light of current neuropsychological and neuroimaging findings.
Assuntos
Afasia de Broca/história , Lobo Frontal/anatomia & histologia , Neuroanatomia/história , Neurologia/história , Afasia de Broca/fisiopatologia , Argentina , França , Lobo Frontal/fisiologia , História do Século XX , HumanosRESUMO
In 1906, the year of the renowned holistic-localizationist controversy between neurologists Pierre Marie and Jules Déjèrine in Paris, Christfried Jakob, a protagonist researcher of the cerebral cortex at the time working in Argentina, published two relevant articles entitled 'Does Broca's area exist?' and 'Anatomo-biological considerations on the centers of language'. The two articles addressed neuropsychological and developmental aspects of language functions in normality and pathology with regard to the brain areas that subserve them. The present article provides an English translation of Jakob's second paper, on the embryonic and postnatal development of brain areas related to language. The information given and the views expressed may still shed, a century later, useful light on our understanding of brain-language relationships.