Brainwaves: A Cultural History of Electroencephalography

346 Pages·2018·7.512 MB·English

by  Cornelius Borck

Brainwaves
In the history of brain research, the prospect of visualizing brain processes
has continually awakened great expectations. In this study, Cornelius Borck
focuses on a recording technique developed by the German physiologist Hans
Berger to register electric brain currents; a technique that was expected to
allow the brain to write in its own language, and which would reveal the way
the brain worked. Borck traces the numerous contradictory interpretations of
electroencephalography, from Berger’s experiments and his publication of the
first human EEG in 1929, to its international proliferation and consolidation
as a clinical diagnostic method in the mid-twentieth century. Borck’s thesis
is that the language of the brain takes on specific contours depending on
the local investigative cultures, from whose conflicting views emerged a new
scientific object: the electric brain.
Cornelius Borck is Professor of History, Theory and Ethics of Medicine and
Science and Director of the Institute of History of Medicine and Science
Studies at the University of Lübeck, Germany.
Science, Technology and Culture, 1700–1945
Series Editors
Robert M. Brain
The University of British Columbia, Canada
and Ernst Hamm
York University, Canada
Science, Technology and Culture, 1700–1945 focuses on the social, cultural,
industrial and economic contexts of science and technology from the
‘scientific revolution’ up to the Second World War. Publishing lively, original,
innovative research across a broad spectrum of subjects and genres by an
international list of authors, the series has a global compass that concerns the
development of modern science in all regions of the world. Subjects may
range from close studies of particular sciences and problems to cultural and
social histories of science, technology and biomedicine; accounts of scientific
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change; monographs examining instruments, their makers and users; the
material and visual cultures of science; contextual studies of institutions and
of individual scientists, engineers and popularizers of science; and well-edited
volumes of essays on themes in the field.
Also in the series
Science Policies and Twentieth-Century Dictatorships
Amparo Gómez, Antonio Fco. Canales and Brian Balmer
Entrepreneurial Ventures in Chemistry: The Muspratts of Liverpool,
1793–1934
Peter Reed
Barcelona: An Urban History of Science and Modernity, 1888–1929
Oliver Hochadel and Agustí Nieto-Galan
Pursuing the Unity of Science: Ideology and Scientific Practice from the
Great War to the Cold War
Harmke Kamminga and Geert Somsen
The Enlightenment of Thomas Beddoes: Science, Medicine and Reform
Trevor Levere, Larry Stewart, and Hugh Torrens, with Joseph Wachelder
Brainwaves: A Cultural History of Electroencephalography
Cornelius Borck, translated by Ann M. Hentschel
Brainwaves
A Cultural History of
Electroencephalography
Cornelius Borck
Originally published as
Hirnströme: Eine Kulturgeschichte der
Elektroenzephalographie (Wallstein Verlag 2005)
Translated by
Ann M. Hentschel
First published 2018
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Cornelius Borck, English language translation by Ann M. Hentschel
The right of Cornelius Borck to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Original title: Hirnströme: Eine Kulturgeschichte der
Elektroenzephalographie, © Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2005
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Borck, Cornelius, author. | Hentschel, Ann, translator.
Title: Brainwaves : a cultural history of electroencephalography / Cornelius
Borck ; translated by Ann M. Hentschel.
Other titles: Hirnströme. English | Science, technology and culture,
1700-1945.Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge,
2018. | Series: Science, technology and culture, 1700-1945 | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017038464| ISBN 9781472469441 (hardback :
alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315569840 (ebook)
Subjects: | MESH: Electroencephalography—history
Classification: LCC RC386.6.E43 | NLM WL 11.1 |
DDC 616.8/047547—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017038464
ISBN: 978-1-472-46944-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-56984-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Keystroke, Neville Lodge, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton
Contents
List of figures vii
Acknowledgments to the German version xi
Introduction to the English translation: brainwaves
then and now 1
EEG research as part of scientific culture 2
Writing and translating a cultural history of
electroencephalography 5
The ongoing dynamics of brain research 7
1 Electrifying brain images 12
2 Hans Berger’s long path to the EEG 25
Current in the head 25
Research strategies of a conservative psychiatrist 29
The measure of psychic energy 35
The course to current 41
Amplified oscillations 52
Artifacts and noise 60
Invitation to Stockholm 67
3 Electrotechniques of the live mind 76
Cultural currents 1918–1933 76
The bioengineer and psychodiagnostics 80
Nerve apparatus and psychic circuits 89
Thought rays and radio-telepathy 98
Configurations of electrotherapy in the radio age 103
Poetics of new objectivity in brain script 111
The experimentalization of daily life 118
vi Contents
4 Terra nova: contexts of electroencephalographic explorations 122
Epistemic resonances and material cultures 122
Berger’s further voyage through brainwaves 124
Local appointment in Buch near Berlin 140
Acknowledgment with British understatement 153
The leap over the pond 163
The matrix of the waves 180
5 Set to and survey much! 182
On the cultural practice of a new technology 182
Dynamics of standardization 184
A diagnostic panopticon 196
Under the shock spell 207
The electrical brain at Auschwitz 218
6 Designing, tinkering, thinking 223
What is hidden inside the EEG? 223
Rapid vibrations of thought 226
The concert of cerebral currents 233
A German physiologist’s lofty flights 239
The brain as a cybernetic machine 245
Brain theories out of the model building-block box 254
7 Conclusion: plea for an open epistemology 264
References 274
Figure sources 316
Index 319
Figures
1 Season’s greetings in brain script from Herbert H. Jasper
to Hans Berger; card from 1938 13
2 Hans Berger at his desk, 1927 30
3 Plethysmographic curves 34
4 Title-page autograph sketch by Hans Berger for his last
publication Psyche 36
5 Berger’s sketch for an engraving of the psychic energy
formula 47
6 Cerebral current recording from 19 October 1925
generated by the string galvanometer 59
7 Cerebral current recording dated 27 September 1927
generated by the moving-coil galvanometer 59
8 Trial analysis of different variants of EEG registration
from 5 October 1930 61
9 Trial analysis dated 28 September 1928 65
10 Berger holding a lecture at the Psychiatrische
Universitätsklinik in Jena 72
11 The techno-medial practice of the future physician,
according to Fritz Kahn 82
12 Objectivizing emotive diagnostics for the selection
of suitable theatrical actors 83
13 Electrical research on the mind by diagnoscopy according
to Zacher Bissky 86
14 Fritz Kahn, modern life as stimulator of the organ of equilibrium 95
15 Fritz Kahn, big-city life and radio apparatus to illustrate
the function of nerves 96
16 Ferdinando Cazzamalli with radio-wave detector in front
of his testing chamber 100
17 The Roman daily paper Il Messaggero depicted Berger’s
EEG as a fusion between Cazzamalli’s brainwaves and
Schlemmer’s “Triadic Ballet” 101
18 Therapy of a female patient with the multiple wave
oscillator by Georges Lakhovsky 106
viii Figures
19 Brain washing by electrotherapy—the German radio
listener as imagined by electrical engineer Fiala in 1925 109
20 Electrosuggestive therapy according to Fiala 110
21 A typical example of the echo in the press in summer
1930 about Berger’s publication of the EEG 113
22 Blockage of alpha waves by opening the eyes in a specific
test by Berger 1929 130
23 Sketch by Berger to evaluate the participation of alpha waves
and beta waves in brain function, and their interference 132
24 Berger’s about-face in interpreting the roles of alpha waves
and beta waves in the functioning brain 135
25 Berger’s laboratory with the Siemens oscillograph, in
operation as of 1931 136
26 The EEG of Ilse Berger while reckoning in her head 138
27 The new building of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for
Brain Research at Buch 142
28 The first version of the neurograph, from 1932 148
29 Alois Kornmüller experimenting in 1935 in Buch near Berlin 151
30 Alois Kornmüller’s cartography of a field’s intrinsic currents
(Feldeigenströme) according to the cytoarchitectonic
partitioning of a rabbit’s cerebral hemispheres 152
31 Letter from Douglas Adrian to Hans Berger dated 28 January
1935, in which he established the basic agreement between
their EEG findings 160
32 Comparison of the current oscillations in the light responses
by the great diving beetle and a human subject 162
33 Herbert H. Jasper having his own EEG registered 169
34 Alfred L. Loomis used high-precision instruments for his
EEG experiments 172
35 A. J. Derbyshire registering an EEG of Donald B. Lindsley
at Harvard 176
36 Illustration of a typical curve pattern for a petit mal seizure
in the electroencephalography textbook by Robert Schwab
from 1951 178
37 Peter Paul Rubens’s “Miracle of Saint Ignatius of Loyola”
healing the possessed 190
38 The search by William Lennox, Erna and Frederic Gibbs for
pathological EEG signs from relatives of epilepsy patients 192
39 Three-dimensional wooden model to illustrate the childhood
development of EEG frequencies by Gibbs and Knott 194
40 Group forming should present a high proportion of slow
and irregular frequencies among boys of “poor personality”
compared to more rapid frequencies of “good personality” 201
41 Sketch of how to administer an electroshock, by Adolf von
Braunmühl in introducing electroshock therapy to Germany 215
Figures ix
42 Advertisement of an electroshock device in Psychiatrisch-
neurologische Wochenschrift from 1941 216
43 EEG research between intellectual history and technical
torture 230
44 The phenomenon of “smooth coordination,” according to
Erich von Holst a universal principle of control, illustrated
here by a loping German shepherd dog 236
45 The experimental set-up for EEG examinations of high-
altitude physiology at the KWI for Brain Research during
World War II 241
46 Harvard’s supercomputer as a typewriting American officer,
cover illustration from 1951 246
47 Norbert Wiener observing an MIT computer compiling
an autocorrelation analysis of his EEG 251
48 Einstein undergoing EEG recording 253
49 Examples of typical EEG patterns and spectra using
Walter’s resonance filter for frequency analysis from 1943 257
50 EEG visualization as a brain television, 1953 260
51 Grey Walter’s staging of his family life, with an electric
tortoise as the second child 262