As junior doctors, one of us watched as consultant neurologists evaluated patients with neurological diseases while the other investigated the mathematics and physics of the new imaging technologies.  Computerized imaging was in the process of development, and professors of neurology were the product of classical training that depended on clinical diagnosis.  They took great pains to elicit a detailed history, then engaged in a ritualized set of bedside manoeuvres that, to an uninitiated observer, would seem almost magical, and certainly inexplicable.  Nevertheless, they arrived at a correct diagnosis with remarkable frequency. 

At the same time we were reading the history of physics, chemistry and mathematics.  These histories, which often took the form of scientific biographies, made us curious about the origins of the strange science of diagnostic neurology.  When we examined neurology in the nineteenth and twentieth century, we found that many people made crucial observations about the anatomy, physiology and pathology of the nervous system.  On the other hand, we were surprised to find that the conceptual threads of our research consistently led us to the work of John Hughlings Jackson.  This confluence motivated us to embark on a detailed study of Hughlings Jackson\'s ideas. 

Like most students, we began with the papers collected in the *Selected writings of John Hughlings Jackson*, edited by his amanuensis James Taylor.  When we started to think seriously about the circumstances under which Hughlings Jackson worked, we recognized that the *Selected writings* are completely devoid of context or commentary.  We also realized that, though the *Selected writings* are printed to a high standard of accuracy, Taylor edited and combined papers in ways that obscure an understanding of the development of Hughlings Jackson\'s ideas.  We therefore undertook to collect and categorize Hughlings Jackson\'s writings by examining them in their primary states: as articles printed in the medical literature of 1861--1911.  This resulted in the catalogue raisonné that we present here.  We have been able to find eighty-four previously unrecognized works by and about Hughlings Jackson. 

Our introduction to the life and works of Hughlings Jackson is intended to guide readers through the development of his neurological ideas, and to provide the most accurate bibliography of his work.  We have only hinted at its social, medical, scientific and intellectual context, and we acknowledge that this context is a rich source for historical research.  We hope that our work will direct Jackson scholars, and general readers, to the original sources for his work. 

This study would not have been possible without the invaluable support of librarians and archivists in London and California.  We particularly thank Louise Shepherd and Kate Bricknell, at the Rockefeller Library of the Institute of Neurology, University College London, and Jonathan Evans at the Royal London Hospital.  We thank the librarians at the University of California in Davis and San Francisco, Stanford University, the California State Library, and the Royal Society of Medicine in London.  We also thank our wives, Pamela Wehrlie York and Tracy K Genesen, for their patience and support. 

George K York

David A Steinberg

Fiddletown CA

23 December 2005
