Roberts Bartholow

Roberts Bartholow or Roobert Bartholow (November 28, 1831 – May 10, 1904) was an American physician and a professor at several American medical colleges. He is best known for his experiments involving a 30-year-old patient named Mary Rafferty. Rafferty was admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1874 with a 2-inch-diameter (51 mm) hole in her skull caused by a cancerous ulcer. Bartholow experimented with applying current to Rafferty's exposed dura using needle electrodes. His report detailed the first observations of how electrical stimulation of the brain affects motor functions of the body, but many ethical concerns were raised about the way in which he carried out his experiments. After his work in the army, Bartholow worked at the Medical College of Ohio where he performed research and was able to publish On Spermatorrhoea in 1866 which detailed complications with the male reproductive system. He also published The Principles and Practice of Disinfection in 1867 and two years later published A Manual of Hypodermic Medication. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1880.

Research methods Bartholow's research often used live animals, which caused backlash from advocates of anti-vivisectionism. The method was called the “physiological method” and promoted the idea of applying medicine and research as a therapeutic method as opposed to a purely scientific endeavor. Through Bartholow's work, research became intertwined with clinical medical practice which set the stage for later medical discoveries in the modern era.

Major works Bartholow's major work was in the field of neurology in which he studied to excitability of the brain through the use of electrodes. He worked to understand and localize sections of the brain responsible for certain motor actions. It is still uncertain who was the first to stimulate the brain with electrodes although some historians attribute this feat to Bartholow.