The early history of aphasiology:From the Egyptian surgeons (c.1700 BC) to Broca (1861)

Background: According to many aphasiologists the scientific study of aphasia dates back to the second half of the 19th century when Broca and Wernicke described the two classical forms of aphasia that now bear their names. About 100 years later, Benton and Joynt presented a historical overview of the literature on aphasia from the Hippocratic writings ( c. 400 BC) to 1800. Since this seminal review ( Benton & Joynt, 1960) there has been a growing interest in the history of aphasiology, resulting in many papers (cf. the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences) and even books ( e. g., Eling, 1994; Finger, 2000; Jacyna, 2000) about hitherto unknown writings about aphasia.Aims: The aim of this paper is to present a new, updated, and extensive review of the early history of aphasiology, starting with the earliest observation of ''speechlessness'' in an Egyptian papyrus ( c. 1700 BC) and ending with Broca's discovery of the ''speech centre'' in 1861.Main Contribution: By presenting and discussing passages taken from major contributions to aphasiology in the past 3500 years, this literature survey offers a review of the clinical observations and theoretical analyses of aphasic phenomena preceding the pioneering article by Broca in 1861.Conclusions: Although many forms and symptoms of aphasia were described and a few theoretical explanations of its nature had been advanced before 1800, significant hypotheses about the localisation of aphasia were not formulated until the period 1800-1860. Based on his ( otherwise misguided) ''phrenological'' theory, Gall ( in Gall & Stuart, 1806) was the first to localise language in the frontal cortex. This hypothesis was then tested and supported by neuropathological data collected by Bouillaud ( 1825) who not only localised language in the frontal lobes, but also made the fundamental distinction between ''a general faculty of language'' and ''the faculty of articulated speech'', thus preparing the ground for Broca's famous discovery in 1861.