Abstract
Claude Bernard, whose insights drove the progress in the life sciences that took place in the nineteenth century, devoted a considerable part of his research to neurological studies. In 1872, Bernard wrote an essay entitled Des Fonctions du Cerveau. Because of its modern tone and its emphasis on equating brain functions to those of other organs, this work can be regarded as an ante litteram manifesto of the neurosciences.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the Revue des Deux Mondes and the Académie Française for making Claude Bernard's essays available to me; to G. Berlucchi (Verona), G. Corbellini (Rome), P. Mazzarello (Pavia) and T. Manzoni (Ancona) for reading an earlier version of this manuscript and for useful suggestions; to P. d'Ascanio (Pisa), C. Franzini (Bologna) and G. Tassinari (Verona) for help with the bibliography; and to S. Modena (Ancona) for reviewing the English.
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Conti, F. Claude Bernard's Des Fonctions du Cerveau: an ante litteram manifesto of the neurosciences?. Nat Rev Neurosci 3, 979–985 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn985
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn985
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