Skip to main content
Historical Bibliography Updated: March 21, 2020

Stereotaxic apparatus for operations on the human brain.

Publication Details

Science, 106, 349-50. 1947 CE.

"The first successful cranial application of stereotactic surgery in humans is credited to the team of Ernest Spiegel and Henry Wycis in the Department of Experimental Neurology at Temple University in Philadelphia (Spiegel et al. 1947). Their original frame, using a Cartesian coordinate systems and similar in design and operation to the Clarke-Horsley device, was fixed to a patient’s head by means of a plaster cast. The frame and cast were removable, allowing separate imaging and surgery sessions. Contrast radiographyventriculography and later pneumoencephalography permitted the visualization of intracranial reference points from which the location of target structures of interest could be determined. Initial applications were for psychosurgery.[7](Wikipedia article on Ernst Adolf Spiegel, accessed 3-2020)

 With M. Marks, and A. J. Lee.

Catalog MetadataReference Information
Entry Number#4912.1
Permanent Linkhttps://staging.historyofmedicine.com/entry/6004
Author Bio LinkWikipedia ↗
External URLstereotaxic-apparatus-for-operations-on-the-human-brain

Geographic Context

Mentioned in annotation: Philadelphia