References
1. Sperry R. Some effects of disconnecting the cerebral hemispheres.
Science 1982;217:1223-6.
2. Wigan AL. The duality of the mind. London: Longman. 1844.
3. Harms E. Predecessors of Morton Prince's dissociation concept. Am.J Psychiatry
1961;117:941.2.
4. Reeves A, ed. Epilepsy and the corpus callosum. New York; PIenum, 1985.
June 1986 NEUROLOGY 36 803
The 1981 award of a Nobel Prize in physiology to Roger
Sperry(1) brought widespread recognition to the concept of the dual brain,
for which the split-brain research under Sperry's aegis provided the
most important evidence. However, that concept (that we each have two
brains that can function, to some extent, independently) had engaged
psychologists, physicians, and philosophers for well over a century.
Of the many who wrote on this subject, Arthur Ladbroke Wigan(2) was not
only the most ardent enthusiast, but he may have heen the most thoughtful.
Wigan had an acquaintance who died rather suddenly. At the postmortem
examination, when the skull was opened, one cerebral hemisphere was missing.
This not only astounded Wigan, but he realized that it was meaningful.
He looked for and eventually found other cases. In 1844, after 20 years
of collecting relevant evidence, he published The Duality of the Mind
in which he claimed first that one hemisphere clearly sufficed to support
a fully human mind. He wrote:
If, for example, as 1 have so often stated, and now again repeat, one brain
. . . be capable of aII the emotion,. sentiments, and faculties, which we call
in the aggregate, mind--then it necessarily follows that man must have two
minds with two brains: and however intimate and perfect their unison in their
natural state, they must occasionally be discrepant, when influenced by disease,
either direct, sympathetic, or reflex.
Wigan developed thus a theory of mental illness: he also touched upon
most of the implications for other social problems, anticipating (albeit
from a medical point of view) most of the speculations offered by current "right
brain/left brain" theorists.
Harms(3) wrote:
History has treated this important man rather strangely. Although referred
to in contemporary literature as ingenious and celebrated, nothing about his
life has come down to us, except the date of his death. December 7, 1847.
For Wigan (as for Bouillaud) there were only three lobes in a cerebral hemisphere. And he was, of course, completely mistaken in his view that "whenever disease spreads from one cerebrum to the other, it is through the meninges, and never through the corpus callosum." As additional data accumulate to indicate that the results of split-brain studies have implications beyond the practical value in the treatment of epilepsy,(4) Wigan's book takes on renewed interest, because it shows us the insights and concerns of a man whose prophetic vision was 100 years ahead of the evidence that ultimately sustained his inferences.
Joseph E. Bogen, MD
Pasadena. CA