I. His Early Life
    A. Born in Sainte-Foy-La-Grande in the Dorfogne region of France in 1824.
    B. Child Prodigy and loved school
    C. Had baccalaureate degrees simultaneously in literature, mathematics and physics.
    D. Entered medical school at 17 years old in Paris.
    E. He graduated at 20

 II. After his degree
    A. Became a professor of surgical pathology at the University of Paris soon after obtaining his medical degree.
    B. By age 24 he had many awards, medals and important positions.
    C. He conducted research in many different areas including histology of cartilage and bone, cancer pathology, treatment\
         of aneurysms and infant mortality.
    D. Because he was a great brain anatomist he made important contributions in furthering the understanding of the limbic
         system.

III. His most famous accomplishment:
    A. Discovery of the speech center
        1. Now known as Broca’s Area
        2. Also known as the third circumvoultion of the frontal lobe.
    B. Found it by studying the brains of people who had aphasia
        1. M. Leborgne (also known as Tan).
            a. Nicknamed Tan because it was the only word he could say
            b. His first patient at Bicetre Hospital
            c. He died of gangrene on Broca’s surgical ward.
            d. In 1861 Broca did a post-mortem showing that Tan had a superficial lesion in the left frontal lobe of his brain,
                in exactly the area that controlled speech.

        2. Franz Joseph Gall’s Phrenology
            a. Gall thought there were specific parts of the brain that were localized
            b. Broca’s finding suggested that there was indeed localization within the brain but that it did not have to do specifically
                with the skull in respect to those abilities.
            c. Broca’s finding had a scientific pathological basis, where as Galls had a non-scientific crainiological basis.

        3. Broca presented his findings at the Parisian Anthropological Society meeting in 1861 with his proud father looking on.

IV. His other contributions
    A. He founded a society for free-thinkers in 1848
    B. He founded the Anthropological society of Paris in 1859
    C. Founded the Revue d’Anthropologie in 1872
    D. Founded the School of Anthropology in Paris in 1876
    E. Developed may new instruments and numerical indices for studying the brain
    F. Also contributed to the comparative anatomy of primates.
    G. Near the end of his life he was elected a lifetime member of the French Senate.
    H. Wrote over 500 presentations, and a classic 900 page monograph on aneurysms
    I. Introduced the use of the microscope in the diagnosis of cancer

V. Inspirations
    A. Broca was sympathetic to Darwin’s theory of natural selection
    B. Gall and his study of functional localization
    C. Ernest Aubertin
        1. A student and son-in-law of Jean Baptiste Boullaud
        2. April 4, 1861 At a meeting of the anthropological society Broca sat an listened intently at Aubertin’s paper on several
            craniological cases for cerebral localization of articulate language.

VI. His Personality
    A. Friends describe him as generous, compassionate and kind
    B. Honest and admired by all
    C. Friends also say that he "never made and enemy and never lost a friend"
        (http://www.epub.org.br/cm/n02/historia/broca.htm)
    D. Christian follower- even though he founded the society for free thinkers in 1848.

VII. Thinks you probably didn’t know
    A. He was accused by authorities of being a rebellious person who was a materialist and a corrupter of youth.
    B. Concerned with health care for the poor and an important figure in Public Assistance.
    C. He experimented with hypnotism on some of his surgical patients
    D. His brain is preserved in the Musee de l’Homme in Paris
    E. Quoted as saying "I would rather be a transformed ape than a degenerate son of Adam" (Sagan, 1979)

VIII. His death
    A. Died in Paris in 1880
    B. It is suspected, ironically, he died of the same thing that he studied and wrote many papers about....a brain aneurysm.

References

Department of Neurology, University of Illinois. Dr. Paul Broca. Available at:
http://www.uic.edu/depts/mcne/founders/page0013.html

Hooper, Judith and Teresi, Dick.(1987) The Three-Pound Universe. New York: Macmillan

Paul Broca. Available at: http://www.serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/Adaption.html

Lauria, A.R. (1973) The Working Brain: An introduction to neuropsychology.New York: Basic Books Inc.

Sabbatini, R.M.E. Paul Pierre Broca: A brief biography. Available at:
http://www.epub.org/br/cm/n02/historia/broca.htm

Sagan, Carl.(1979) Broca’s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science. New York: Random House