Charting the Sea of Brain Waves

Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, and Montreal Neurological Institute Presidential address delivered before the second annual meeting of the American Electroencephalographic Society, Atlantic City, June 1948. Reprinted with permission from Science, October 1, 1948, Vol. 108, No. 2805, pages 343-347. Copyright 1948 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Herbert JasperDr. Herbert Jasper is a pioneer and father of neurophysiology who played a crucial role in the development of electroencephalography. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and a D.Sci. Degree from the University of Paris. This was complemented in 1943 by a MD degree from McGill University in Montreal. Dr. Jasper is particularly well known for his collaboration with Dr. Wilder Penfield. Together they introduced neurophysiologically guided surgery of epilepsy to the North American continent. Dr. Jasper also had an active role in the establishment and development of the American EEG Society which recently has become the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society. In recognition of these achievements, Dr. Jasper has received an unprecedented number of honors and awards including honorary doctor degrees from the Universities of Bordeau, D'Aix-Marseille and Western Ontario, the William G. Lennox award of the American Epilepsy Society and the most distinguished prize for basic research granted by the Milken Family Medical Foundation. In this issue, we reprint Dr. Jasper's Presidential address which the delivered in June 1949 in Atlantic City at the second annual meeting of the American EEG Society. The cover shows an EEG tracing of one of the cases studied by Dr. Jasper in collaboration with Dr. Penfield.