David Ferrier

Sir David Ferrier FRS (13 January 1843 – 19 March 1928) was a pioneering Scottish neurologist and psychologist. Ferrier conducted experiments on the brains of animals such as monkeys and in 1881 became the first scientist to be prosecuted under the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876 which had been enacted following a major public debate over vivisection.

Life

Ferrier was born in Woodside, Aberdeen, the sixth child of David and Hannah; he was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School before studying for an MA at Aberdeen University (graduating in Classics in 1863), before studying psychophysiology in Germany and medicine at Edinburgh. and it won a gold medal. A few years later, in 1870, he moved into London and started work as a neuropathologist at the King's College Hospital and at the National Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy, Queen Square. The latter—now the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery—was the first hospital in England to be dedicated to the treatment of neurological diseases and has a David Ferrier ward named in his memory.

At that period, the great neurologist John Hughlings Jackson (1835–1911) worked in the same hospital as Ferrier. and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians the following year. The case, in 1881, saw his acquittal. His son Claude was a well-known architect.

The Royal Society created the Ferrier Medal and lectureship in his honour; it is still running in 2025.

Works

Of Ferrier's publications, two books are particularly notable. The first one, published in 1876, The Functions of the Brain, describes his experimental results. In 1886, he published a new edition, considerably expanded and reviewed.

His second book was published two years later, The Localization of Brain Disease It had as its subject the clinical applications of cortical localization.

Some of his speeches were also published.

Ferrier was one of the founders of the journal Brain, to the Royal College of Physicians on "The localisation of cerebral diseases".