Abstract

Since its origins, the history of science was confronted with challenging questions, some of those being related to the "compilative approach" which had been used to gain an insight in the history of the knowledge of the nature. In particular, the history of medicine which is a specific field in the history of science and human activities, seems to reflect the evolution of the society, as well as the advances in chemistry and in laboratory techniques. In this context, the history of neurophysiology raises special problems because molecular biology and biochemistry produced new, once inconceivable results. The aim of this paper is to show some shortcomings during the history of the early days of neuroscience, in the late nineteenth century, at dawn of the revolution in the sensorial physiology.