Luigi Luciani and the Localization of Brain Functions. Italian Research within the Context of European Neurophysiology at the End of the Nineteenth Century

Luigi Luciani, the Italian physiologist who lived during the second half of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth, is generally remembered for his studies on the cerebellum, the physiology of the heart, the respiratory system and on fasting. Less well known is the experimental research he carried out in the field of cerebral localization. It should however be pointed out that, as a result of his work in experimental neurophysiology between the years 1875 and 1885, Luciani was perfectly familiar with the latest findings on the relationship between brain and behavioural functions, but above all he was led by this work to develop an interesting model for the description of brain functions. He refined this model in a close dialectic relationship, of comparison and contrast, with the theories of the leading European neurophysiologists of his time – either those who favoured a localizationistic explanation of the brain’s functions or those who opposed this view. This paper gives a quick presentation of Luciani’s experimental work on the functions of the brain as well as what he thought of the question of cerebral localisation. His localisationistic model is compared – both in its general characteristics and in its specific details – with other models which had been proposed during the same years by the outstanding European physiologists of the day like Goltz, Ferrier, and Munk. Luciani’s epistemological foundations, as well as his experimental methodology, are analysed within the context of his wider theoretical ideas about how nervous and psychic activity were linked, with his ideas on physiology, and more in general in relation to his view of man’s biological place in the rest of the living world. On the basis of this analysis, the state of the experimental work being done in Italy by Luciani is placed within the European context of neurophysiology in which Luciani was an outstanding figure.