Fearful Asymmetry: Bouillaud, Dax, Broca, and the Localization of Language, Paris, 1825-1879

Paul Broca made the most significant discovery in nineteenth-century human biology when he found that speech resides within the left frontal lobe of the human brain. As a young surgeon working at the hospice at Bicêtre on the outskirts of Paris - a repository for the criminal, the insane, the indigent, and the sick - Broca had to overcome derision, acrimony, personal attacks, vindictiveness, and prevailing doctrines before his findings were accepted.

Based on a new reading and translation of...