Pergamon zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA J. Neurolinguistics. Vol. 9, No. 3, R. 157-164, 199516 zyxwvutsrqp so91145044(%)oooO!I-7 Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 091 l-6044/% 515.00+0.00 JOHANNES SCHENCK AND JOHANNES JAKOB WEPFER: CLINICAL AND ANATOMICAL OBSERVATIONS IN THE PREHISTORY OF NEUROLINGUISTICS AND NEUROPSYCHOLOGY CLAUDIO LUZZATTI* and HARRY WHITAKER~ *Istituto di Psicologia della Facolti Medica, Universita di Milano, Italy; tD6partement de Psychologie, UQAM, Montr&l, Canada Abstract-Historical observations of disorders of language have been reported from Pharaonic medical texts circa 3ooO nc, the Hippocratic corpus circa 400 BC, Latin texts circa 1st century AD, through the Renaissance and in various 17th and 18th century texts. In none of the extant historical papers, however, have certain critical elements of aphasia been discussed, i.e. the distinction between a disorder of language and a deficit in its articulatory realization, nor tbe relation between aphasia and a left hemisphere lesion. This paper discusses the relatively unknown aphasia studies of two 16th and 17th- century physicians, J. Schenck and J. J. Wepfer, with respect to these critical elements. Johann= Schenck (1530-1598) assembled a collection of clinical observations from antiquity to those of his contemporaries; Vol. 1 (Obsenutiones Mediate de Chpite Humano, BaseI, 1584) discusses the pathology of the head and face, at least 16 cases of which refer to patients with aphasia. Johannes Jakob Wepfer (1620-1695) wrote a book on the vascularization of the brain and on apoplexy; in addition he wrote (published posthumously) a collection of neurological cases (Observationes Medico-practicae de Afectibus CopirisIntemis & fitemis, SchalTbausen, 1727). In the latter he reported on 222 neurological and neurosurgical cases, at least 15 of which had an overt aphasia, almost all due to a left hemisphere lesion. The level of functional and anatomical detail in these case studies invites comparison with the best of the late 19th century classical aphasia literature. Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd INTRODUCTION Benton and Joynt [ 1 ] traced reports of aphasic disorders from the Edwin Smith surgical papyrus [ 21, the Hippocratic corpus [ 31, the classical Latin period (Valerius Maximus [ 41 and Pliny the Elder [5]), through the medieval and renaissance medical traditions (e.g. Guainerius [ 61). They mentioned a few observations from the 17th century (Schmidt [ 71 and Rommel [ 8]), and a few more from the 18th century (Linnaeus [ 91, Morgagni [lo] and Gesner [ 111). We present here the work of two medical scientists of the 16th and 17th centuries, Johannes Schenck and Johann Jakob Wepfer, whose research has not previously been adequately analysed with regard to the history of aphasia studies. Schenck was occasionally mentioned (e.g. Gesner [ 111, Dax [ 121 and Trousseau [ 131) in the 18th and 19th centuries. O’Neil [ 141 used Schenck as a primary bibliographic source; she discussed several of Schenck’s cases to illustrate her thesis of how models of the central control of speech-ventricular vs meningeal- changed during the 16th century. Bouton [ 151 also mentioned Schenck (p. 122) but his footnote indicates that his source was Trousseau (see below) and not the original. The full description Address for correspondence: Dr Luzzotti, Department of Psychology, School of Medicine, University of Milano, Via Tomaso Pini, 1 20134 Milano, Italy. 157