The dilemma of localizing language: John Abercrombie's unexploited evidence.

John Abercrombie (1780-1844) was considered the most eminent Scottish physician of his time. In his Pathological and Practical Researches on the Diseases of the Brain and Spinal Cord (1836, Edinburgh: John Carfrae and Son, 3rd ed.) he described the cases of 140 patients with cerebral disorders, 48 of whom suffered from language disturbances. Despite the overwhelming clinical and neuropathological evidence of a close association between language disorder and right-sided hemiparesis or diseases of the left hemisphere, and in spite of his great interest in language disorders, he made no attempt to localize the aphasic syndrome to a specific brain area.