Physiology in the Nineteenth Century -- The Birthplace -- The Forebears -- The Formative Years: 1817-1837 -- The Medical Student: 1838-1846 -- The Lone Experimenter: 1846-1851 -- The Visitor to America: 1852-1853 -- The Cholera Physician: 1854 -- The Richmond Professor: 1854-1855 -- The Paris Practitioner: 1856-1857 -- The Itinerant Lecturer: 1856-1859 -- The London Consultant Neurologist: 1860-1864 -- The Harvard Professor: 1864-1867 -- The Paris Course Lecturer: 1869-1872 -- The New York Practitioner: 1872-1874 -- The Indigent Physician: 1874-1877 -- The College de France Professor: 1878-1894 -- The Father of Hormonal Therapy: 1889-1893 -- The Last Years: 1892-1894.

Genius and dilettantism often go hand in hand. Nowhere is this truer than in the life of Charles-Edouard Brown-Séquard, the bilingual physician and neurologist who succeeded Claude Bernard as the Chair of Experimental Medicine at the College de France in Paris after having practiced in Paris, London and in the USA, especially in Harvard. For most men, making one discovery of global importance would have sufficed to satisfy their curiosity and self-image. Not so Brown-Séquard. His explanation of the neurological disparity following the hemi-section of the spinal cord was a unique achievement that added his name to the syndrome and made him immortal. Yet, the demons of his mind tormented him in his endless search for medical truths and drove him to explore other phenomena, seeking to explain and remedy them. This unique biography shows for the first time the conflict between his professional and personal life, and should appeal to all students of medical history and psychology.