With a passion for knowledge and a backstage pass to 87 cabinets of the work of Pierre Paul Broca, Florida State University Francis Eppes Professor Dr. Leonard LaPointe set off to Paris to spend the summer of 2011 to research the 19th century neuroscientist for his latest book Paul Broca and the Origins of Language in the Brain.

LaPointe, a professor at Florida State’s School of Communication Science & Disorders, visited Paris a few years ago for a conference on Parkinson’s disease and while he was there set out to find Broca’s actual brain at the Musée de l’ home (Museum of Man).

“I went to the museum and tried to find Broca’s brain because there was an essay written by Carl Sagan about Broca’s actual brain in addition to his two famous patients (which are housed at the museum),” LaPointe said.  “I couldn’t find it, but along the search I met the curator of Broca’s collections at the Museum of Man in Paris.”

While he was not successful in his search for Broca’s brain, the contacts he made at the museum led to securing incredible access from the French government to all of the Broca museum holdings.  The research LaPointe was able to do led to the first biography written about Broca since 1979.

“Paul Broca is probably one of the premier neuroscientists,” LaPointe said.  “He was the one who eventually linked a portion of the brain to the process of human speech and language – there is even an area in the left hemisphere of the brain that is named Broca’s area.”

During his career, LaPointe has written several essays about Broca, but for the book he was able to delve into the prodigy’s life from a whole new viewpoint.

“I’ve had an interest in him and his life for a long time, but when I was able to dig into the national French bibliothèque and all of the holdings on him, it was a great pleasure,” LaPointe said.  “The purpose of the book was not so much to document facts about his life and contributions, but focus on the issue of localization of language in the brain.”

However, LaPointe did not stop with scientific findings and incorporated many other facets of Broca’s life such was the founder of the anthropology department at the University of Paris, was a freethinker and backer of Darwin and his theories on evolution, was an early advocate for women’s education and was appointed to the French Senate less than two years before he died at the age of 56.

“I wanted to humanize him a little bit,” LaPointe said.  “I found two volumes of letters he had written to his parents when he was a student in medical school in Paris.  Wow, that a treasure trove … there was personal stuff in his letters and I tried to incorporate that in the book.”

The book has received favorable reviews by the Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, the London-based journal Aphasiology and the Academy of Neurological Communication Disorders and Sciences.  LaPointe was also quoted in the July-August 2013 issue of Smithsonian Magazine about Broca.

“In Paul Broca and the Origins of Language in the Brain, Leonard L. LaPointe approaches the legendary figure from all possible angles—the man, the visionary, the inventor and the pioneer,” Silvia Martinez-Ferreiro wrote in the April 2013 edition of Aphasiology.  “With a very personal style, at times novelesque, at times travel diary, the author artfully designs 12 chapters that take the reader on a journey to the Paris of the nineteenth century, an adventure addressed to all imaginable audiences, from specialists to students and even beyond to history lovers from all possible backgrounds.

“This book is written not just for professionals or scientists, but also for the educated public and people who read biographies and non-fiction,” LaPointe said.

More information about the book can be found on the Plural Publishing web site.