The study of the brain and the nervous system is called neurology. One of the luminaries of this branch of medicine is Charles Bell, who published a book in 1811 called New Idea of Anatomy of the Brain. This work is referred to as the ‘Magna Carta of Neurology’. Bell was the first to describe the motor nerves and the sensory nerves in detail and distinguish between the two.
In 1833, an English physician named Marshall Hall established that automatic reflexes like reactions to pain and blinking are linked through the spine; and that the spinal cord is made up of a chain of units that function as independent reflex arcs. He further stated that reflexes occur as isolated activities within a reflex arc.
However in 1895, Sir Charles Scott Sherrington proved otherwise. He carried out a series of experiments on animals such as cats, dogs and apes and found that reflexes should be regarded as integrated activities of the whole organism and not as the result of isolated reflex arcs. He received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1932 for his pioneering works.
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