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Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud, Claude-François Lallemand, and the Role of the Frontal Lobe
Location and Mislocation of Language in the Early 19th Century
Claudio Luzzatti, MD;
Harry Whitaker, PhD
Arch Neurol. 2001;58:1157-1162.
In 1825, Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud read a paper at the Royal Academy of
Medicine in Paris supporting Franz Gall's theory of a relation between speech
and the frontal lobes. Bouillaud argued that if the frontal lobes are crucial
to speech, 2 conditions must be satisfied: when the frontal lobes are affected,
speech must also be affected; conversely, when the frontal lobes are spared,
speech is also spared. Following these principles, he tested and argued in
support of Gall's theory by analyzing the data from 2 neuropathological casebooks
(Lallemand, 1820-1823; Rostan, 1820 and 1823). We now know that Bouillaud
was wrong, since the crucial dichotomy is between the left and right hemispheres
and not between the anterior and posterior areas. What is interesting is that
the actual data refute Bouillaud's conclusion. We replicated his experiment
by reanalyzing the 147 clinical cases described by Lallemand. There were,
of course, some cases with frontal lesions and speech disorders; other cases,
however, had speech disorders with lesions outside the frontal lobes, and
still others had frontal lesions without speech disorders. Although Bouillaud
did not notice it, as we expected, almost all patients with speech disorders
had a left hemisphere lesion.
From the Department of Psychology, University of Milan–Bicocca,
Milan, Italy (Dr Luzzatti); and Department of Psychology, Northern Michigan
University, Marquette (Dr Whitaker).
Corresponding author and reprints: Claudio Luzzatti, MD, Department
of Psychology, University of Milan-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126
Milan, Italy (e-mail: luzz{at}unimib.it).
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