Evolution and the Neurosciences Down–Under

Abstract

At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century three Australians made notable contributions to founding the neurosciences: Alfred Walter Campbell (1868–1937) conducted the first extensive histological studies of the human brain; Grafton Elliot Smith (1871–1937) studied the monotreme brain and established the basis for understanding the mammalian brain; and Stanley David Porteus (1883–1972) extended his studies of intellectual disability to encompass the relation between brain size and intelligence. The work of each was decisively influenced by important members of the Edinburgh medical school or by Edinburgh medical graduates: William Turner (1832–1916) and William Rutherford (1839–1899) Professors of Anatomy and Physiology respectively at Edinburgh; James Thomas Wilson (1861–1945) Professor of Anatomy at the University of Sydney; and Richard James Arthur Berry (1867–1962) Professor of Anatomy at the University of Melbourne. An important aspect of the influence on the Australians was a materialist view of brain function but the work of all was most important for a theory even more central held by the Scots who had influenced them: Darwin's theory of evolution. The importance of the work of Campbell and especially that of Smith for Darwinism is contrasted with Darwin's own indifference to the peculiarities of the Australian fauna he observed when he visited Australia during HMS Beagle's voyage of discovery in 1836.