The 1860s was an interesting time in the development of clinical and anatomical knowledge, particularly that relating to degenerative diseases. In 1863, Nikolaus Friedreich described progressive hereditary degenerative CNS disorder (Friedreich's ataxia). A year later Hughlings Jackson portrayed traumatic aphasia. More fundamental was the differentiation of dendrites and axons by Otto Friedrich Karl Deiters in 1865, and the detailed histological analysis of the cerebral cortex in 1867 by Theodore Meynert. The stage was set for further research, and the identification of the subthalamic nucleus and the centrum median by Jules Bernard Luys.

Bernard Luys was a French neurologist born in Paris. His doctorate thesis in 1857 was on the microscopic pathology of tuberculosis. In 1862, he was Médecin des Hôpitaux and Chef de Service at the Salpêtrière and the Charité, and succeeded Marcé as Director of the Maison de Santé …