Paul Broca

1824-1880

Paul BrocaBroca is most widely known for his discovery of "Broca's area." In 1862 he demonstrated the brain lesion of his first patient, Tan, who had suffered from aphémie (renamed aphasia later by Armand Trousseau (1801-1867)). From this presentation, and from other observations, Broca concluded that the left frontal convolution was responsible and necessary for speech production.

Paul Broca was a professor of surgery and anthropology in Paris in the middle of the 19th century. He was not only known as a clinician but also as a researcher, delivering over 500 presentations. He wrote a classic 900 page monograph on aneurysms and experimented with hypnotism. With considerable opposition, he helped introduce the microscope in the diagnosis of cancer.

In 1859 Broca was prevented from reading a series of papers at a biology meeting because the papers were considered too revolutionary, given the rigidly controlling government of Napoleon III. The political climate forbade the expressions of philosophical notions related to positivism and materialism as well as to notions expressing political liberalism and republicanism. Also at issue were religious differences between those who saw the mind as non material (the vitalists) and god given and those who studied the mind as a part of the physical body and secular. In response to this repression, Broca founded a society of anthropology, in which these radical issues could be discussed freely (see Jacyna, 2000, for the details on the political atmosphere Broca faced and the political venue that his Societe d'Anthropologie provided.)

Excerpts from Broca's writings, translated into English by Paul Eling in the book Reader in the history of aphasia

Eling, P. (1994). Selection from the work of Paul Broca: Notes on the site of the faculty of articulated language, followed by an observation of aphemia (1861). In Reader in the History of aphasia: From Franz Gall to Norman Geschwind. (pp. 41-46) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Eling, P. (1994). Aphemia, lasting twenty-one years, produced by chronic and progressive softening of the second and third convolutions of the superior layer of the left frontal lobe. In Reader in the History of aphasia: From Franz Gall to Norman Geschwind. (pp. 46-49) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Eling, P. (1994). Complete atrophy of the insular lobe and of the third convolution of the frontal lobe with preservation of the intelligence and the faculty of articulated language (1863). In Reader in the History of aphasia: From Franz Gall to Norman Geschwind. (pp. 50-55) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Eling, P. (1994). On the site of the faculty of articulated language (1865). In Reader in the History of aphasia: From Franz Gall to Norman Geschwind. (pp. 56-58) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Writings about Paul Broca

Caplan, D. (1987). The discoveries of Paul Broca: Localization of the faculty for articulate language, and, classical connectionist models. In D. Caplan (ed) Neurolinguistics and linguistic aphasiology: An introduction, (pp. 43-64). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Eling, P. (1994). Paul Broca (1824-1880). In Paul Eling (Ed.) Reader in the History of aphasia: From Franz Gall to Norman Geschwind. (pp. 29-58) Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Jacyna, L. S. (2000). Lost words: Narratives of language and the brain, 1825-1926. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Schiller, F (1979). Paul Broca: Founder of French anthropology, explorer of the brain. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Young, R. M. (1970). Mind, brain and adaptation in the nineteenth century: Cerebral localization and its biological context from Gall to Ferrier. Oxford: Clarendon.