The West Riding Lunatic Asylum Medical Reports: the precursor of Brain?

Abstract

First published in 1878, Brain: A Journal of Neurology is generally considered to be the world's first neuroscientific journal. However, this claim might be challenged since the West Riding Lunatic Asylum Medical Reports, another journal with significant neuroscientific content, was published between 1871 and 1876. Some have suggested this journal was the precursor of Brain, since it shared similar subject matter as well as editorial and authorial contributors, including James Crichton-Browne, David Ferrier and John Hughlings Jackson. To address this question, this article examines the origins, aims, structure and contents of, and some of the contributors and contributions to, the West Riding Lunatic Asylum Medical Reports and compares these elements to the first six volumes of Brain (1878-9 to 1883-4). Although the two journals did overlap in terms of some shared neuroscientific interests, Brain evidently had a broader scope and a more international authorship. Nevertheless, this analysis suggests that, through the agency of Crichton-Browne, Ferrier and Hughlings Jackson, it is appropriate to regard the West Riding Lunatic Asylum Medical Reports as not only the antecedent but also the precursor of Brain.