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David Ferrier's second monkey ('monkey F'): The inaugural experimental studies of the auditory cortex

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Tim GriffithsORCiD

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Abstract

© 2025 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. The story of David Ferrier’s demonstration at the International Medical Congress in London in August 1881 of a monkey experimentally rendered hemiplegic by a focal surgical brain lesion—prompting Charcot’s observation, “C’est un malade!”—is well known as a seminal event in the history of the localization of functions in the cerebral cortex. Less well known is the fact that, on the same occasion, Ferrier demonstrated a second monkey, known as monkey F, apparently deaf as a consequence of bilateral temporo-sphenoidal brain lesions. The purpose of this article is, first, to give a chronological account of this demonstration and subsequent related events, including Ferrier’s trial under the Vivisection Act, the publication of the pathological findings in the animal’s brain, the dispute about the localization of the “auditory centre” with Edward Schäfer, and the first glimmerings of human homologues of cortical deafness. Second, we briefly reappraise Ferrier’s findings in light of current concepts of the central substrates of complex sound processing.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Larner AJ, Griffiths TD

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Journal of the History of the Neurosciences

Year: 2025

Pages: Epub ahead of print

Online publication date: 06/01/2025

Acceptance date: 02/04/2018

Date deposited: 21/01/2025

ISSN (print): 0964-704X

ISSN (electronic): 1744-5213

Publisher: Routledge

URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/0964704X.2024.2436676

DOI: 10.1080/0964704X.2024.2436676

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