Arthur Benton has long been recognized as a distinguished researcher, an influential educator, and a gifted writer. Early in his career, he was struck by the extreme divergence in the acceptance and usage of concepts and terms such as "agnosia," "amnesic aphasia," and "apraxia" by leadingfigures in the then young field of neuropsychology/behavioral neurology. This prompted him to explore the literature of 19th century neurology and led to an abiding interest in the historical background of current developments, which often proved to be the outgrowth of earlier formulations. In thiscollection of his historical papers, he traces the evolution of thought and practice in diverse areas of neuropsychology and behavioral neurology. He captures the setting in which observations and discoveries were made and shows how the limited knowledge of basic neuroscience that prevailed at thetime influenced their interpretation. He emphasizes the interplay of clinical and experimental approaches in advancing understanding of brain-behavior relationships and clarifies the connections between past and present knowledge. Some of the essays are systematic accounts of developments in thebroad discipline of neuropsychology while others deal with individual clinicians and scientists whose contributions are now components of current knowledge. Among the topics covered are the frontal lobes, developmental dyslexia, disorders of spatial thought in patients with brain disease and therole of cerebrovascular disease in the history of aphasiology.

PART I: EVOLUTION OF THE DISCIPLINE ; 1. Neuropsychology: past, present, and future (1988) ; 2. Four neuropsychologists (1994) ; 3. The fate of some neuropsychological concepts: A historical inquiry (1990) ; 4. The prefrontal region: Its early history ; 5. Cerebrovascular disease in the history of neuropsychology ; 6. Spatial thinking in neurological patients: Historical aspects ; PART II: THE APHASIC DISORDERS ; 7. Early descriptions of aphasia ; 8. Aphasia: 1800-1860 (1964) ; 9. The memoir of Marc Dax on aphasia (1965) ; 10. Johann A.P. Gesner on aphasia (1965) ; 11. Bergson and Freud on aphasia: A comparison (1988) ; 12. Pitres and amnesic aphasia ; PART III: METHODOLOGY AND ASSESSMENT ; 13. The interplay of experimental and clinical approaches in brain lesion research (1978) ; 14. Basic approaches to neuropsychological assessment (1991) ; 15. The amusias (1977) ; 16. Clinical neuropsychology: 1960-1990 (1992) ; PART IV: HEMISPHERIC CEREBRAL DOMINANCE ; 17. The "minor" hemisphere (1972) ; 18. Hemispheric cerebral dominance before Broca (1984) ; 19. The Hecaen-Zangwill legacy: Hemispheric dominance examined (1991) ; PART V: PEDIATRIC NEUROPSYCHOLOGY ; 20. Dyslexia: Evolution of a concept (1980) ; 21. Developmental neuropsychology: Its present state (1992)