Gray's greyness

Light tries the expert eye: the introduction of photography in nineteenth-century macroscopic neuroanatomy

It is often argued that photography's scientific inauguration meaningfully coincided with a shift towards the ideal of mechanical objectivity. Values of disinterestedness and precision were readily attributed to photography and were cherished by the emerging field of neurology as well. However, after the publication of the first neuroanatomical atlas to contain photographs, Jules Bernard Luys' Iconographie Photographique des Centres Nerveux (1873), the use of photography in macroscopic neuroanatomy remained rare. The present article sketches this largely overlooked terrain of investigation and will expand on why in macroscopical neuroanatomy photography failed to offer a satisfactory alternative to drawing or engraving.