Heroes of the Engram

The view that Richard Semon's work was neglected seems to be based on psychologist Daniel Schacter's 1982 text (1). This was reissued with a new title and a few changes in 2001, without mention of the profound interim account by historian Laura Otis (2). While the authors cite my 2006 text on Samuel Butler and Ewald Hering, later work corroborates and extends Otis’s study and casts a somewhat different light on the authors' prime hero (3, 4).

Even if offering a list of heroes that is "entirely personal," a paper that extolls the "benefits of exploring the history of science" and of acknowledging our "debts … to those scientists who have offered key ideas," could have mentioned the doubts cast on Semon by Freud and Hertzog, and Semon's dismissal of Butler's work as "rather a retrogression than an advance."

1. Schacter DL (1982) Stranger behind the Engram: Theories of Memory and the Psychology of Science. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

2. Otis L (1994) Organic Memory. History and the Body in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

3. Forsdyke DR (2009) Samuel Butler and human long term memory: is the cupboard bare? J Theor Biol 258:156-164.Forsdyke DR, 2009

4. Forsdyke DR (2015) "A vehicle of symbols and nothing more." George Romanes, theory of mind, information, and Samuel Butler. History of Psychiatry 26:270-287. Forsdyke DR, 2015