William Charles Wells (1757–1817) and vestibular research before Purkinje and Flourens

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Wade, Nicholas J.^;

Affiliations: Department of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, UK

Note: [*] Correspondence: N.J. Wade, above address, Fax: +44 1382 229993; E-mail: n.j.wade@dundee.ac.uk

Abstract: Vestibular research before Flourens typically involved vertigo and eye movements. In 1820 Purkinje integrated these in studies of postrotary vertigo and he is linked with Flourens as a founder of vestibular research. In the late eighteenth century Erasmus Darwin described vertigo in detail, but he did not accept that it involved an oculomotor component. Darwin reached this conclusion despite detailed experiments by William Charles Wells (1757–1817), who described the pattern of postrotary nystagmus and its dependence on head orientation during rotation. Wells generated afterimages prior to rotation and subsequently compared their motions with those of real images. He was able to distinguish between the slow and fast phases of nystagmus, its reducing amplitude following cessation of rotation, its suppression with fixation, and its torsional dimension. In many ways, Wells's experiments were more sophisticated than those of Purkinje, and he should be recognised as a founder of vestibular research. Possible reasons for the neglect of Wells's work are discussed.

Keywords: vestibulo-ocular nystagmus, vertigo, afterimages, vestibular history

DOI: 10.3233/VES-2000-10301

Journal: Journal of Vestibular Research, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 127-137, 2000