Events

It is essential for scientists to appreciate their field's history. Each generation tends to claim some kind of exceptionalism, exaggerating the extant progress and ignoring the fact that numerous foundational concepts, ideas, and approaches were developed by previous generations. As the saying goes, we are all "standing on the shoulders of giants," often without realizing it. Scientific progress is driven by curiosity, uncertainty, and humility – not by hype and by illusions of all-explaining theories. The history of science puts our current knowledge into perspective – perhaps we know nowhere near as much as we pretend to?
 
In his talk, Professor Zoltán Molnár will outline the initiatives he and his colleagues at the University of Oxford have undertaken to preserve crucial material in the history of neuroscience for future generations and to foster interest in this rich legacy. Safeguarding our scientific and cultural heritage is crucial for advancing teaching and research in the years to come. He will illustrate these points through the life of Thomas Willis (1621-1675) and Charles Sherrington (1857-1952).

De Carlos JA, Molnár Z. (2019) Cajal's Interactions with Sherrington and the Croonian Lecture. Anat Rec (Hoboken). 303(5):1181-1188. 
Lorusso L, Piccolino M, Motta S, Gasparello A, Barbara JG, Bossi-Régnier L, Shepherd GM, Swanson L, Magistretti P, Everitt B, Molnár Z, Brown RE. Neuroscience without borders: Preserving the history of neuroscience. Eur J Neurosci. 2018 Sep;48(5):2099-2109.
Molnár Z (2004) Thomas Willis (1621-1675), the founder of clinical neuroscience. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 5(4):329-35. https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn1369
Molnár Z and Brown RE (2010) Insights into the life and work of Sir Charles Sherrington. Timeline.  Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 11(6):429-36. Box of Sherrington - https://learntech.medsci.ox.ac.uk/wordpress-history/slides/
Molnár Z and Brown RE (2010) Insights into the life and work of Sir Charles Sherrington. Timeline.  Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 11(6):429-36.
Molnár Zoltán (2021) On the 400th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Willis. Brain, Volume 144, Issue 4, April 2021, Pages 1033-1037, https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awab016
Quatercentenary of Thomas Willis’s birth - aPrepared by Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, St John’s College, Oxford Neuroscience, and The Anatomical Society to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the birthday of the greatest neuroanatomist of all time, Thomas Willis, on 27 January 2021.https://www.dpag.ox.ac.uk/about-us/our-history/thomas-willis
Richard E Brown, Zoltán Molnár, Ludmila Filaretova, Mikhail Ostrovsky, Marco Piccolino, Lorenzo Lorusso (2017) The 100th Anniversary of the Russian Pavlov Physiological Society. Physiology (Bethesda, Md.) 32:  6.  402-407. 
The circle of Willis Videos from The Royal Sociey's online history of science conference 'Celebrating the quatercentenary of the birth of Thomas Willis' - https://royalsociety.org/blog/2022/01/circle-of-willis
Thomas Willis (1621-1675): The Founder of Neurology, St John's College online exhibition - https://sway.office.com/sDxoxop8O0u4gRD3
 

History of Medicine Oxford Website: https://history.medsci.ox.ac.uk/