Paula Hellal

Darwin's “Natural Science of Babies”

In 1877, the newly founded British journal Mind published two papers on child development. The earlier, by Hippolyte Taine, prompted the second article: an account of his own sons development by the naturalist Charles Darwin. In its turn, Darwins paper, “A Biographical Sketch of an Infant,” influenced others. Diary studies similar to Taines and Darwins appeared in Mind from 1878. In addition, the medical profession started to consider normal child language acquisition as a comparison for the abnormal. Shortly before his death in 1882, Darwin continued with his theme, setting out a series of proposals for a program of research on child development with suggested methodology and interpretations. Darwin, whose interest in infants and the developing mind predated his 1877 paper by at least 40 years, sought to take the subject out of the nursery and into the scientific domain. The empirical study of the young childs developing mental faculties was a source of evidence with important implications for his general evolutionary theory. The social status of children in England was the subject of considerable discussion around the time Darwins 1877 paper appeared. Evolutionary theory was still relatively new and fiercely debated, and an unprecedented level of interest was shown by the popular press in advance of the publication. This article considers the events surrounding the publication of Darwins article in Mind, the notebook of observations on Darwins children (1839–1856) that served as its basis, and the research that followed publication of “Biographical Sketch.” We discuss the impact this article, one of the first infant psychology studies in English, made on the scientific community in Britain in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

The Validity of Barlow's 1877 Case of Acquired Childhood Aphasia: Case Notes Versus Published Reports

In 1877, Barlow described a ten-year-old boy with right hemiplegia and aphasia, quick recovery of language function, and subsequent left hemiplegia and aphasia, who was shown to have symmetrical left and right Brocas area lesions at autopsy. The report of this case motivated many writers in the second half of the nineteenth century to develop theories on localization, laterality, equipotentiality and development of specialization, recovery of function, and the role of the right hemisphere (see Finger et al., 2003, for review). This paper presents an analysis of the original archived case notes that have recently come to light. Examination reveals discrepancies in significant details of the history of the case and raises questions about the degree of impairment and recovery throughout his illness as reported in the published article. Consideration of these differences between the presentation of the case in the British Medical Journal publication and the documentation in the original patient records raises issues about the validity of this case as evidence for the many arguments it was to support that have persisted to the present.

The Victorian Question of the Relation between Language and Thought

This essay considers the reception of Müller’s axiom, first stated in 1861, regarding the interdependence of language and thought. The response and engagement with this notion by individuals working within the nascent fields of psychology, neurology, paediatrics, education and the law are examined over a period of four decades. Müller was relatively unique in successfully transmitting linguistic ideas to the medical and scientific research communities. Evidence is presented that traces how Müller’s theoretical arguments were seen to resonate with new research questions early on, but later became challenged by empirical observations towards the end of the century.