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Re: propriocepsis 

Dear Paul,

As you imply, the term "proprioception" and the concept of propriocepsis did
not appear simultaneously.  The term was introduced by Sherrington just after
the turn of the century.  Fulton's Physiology of the Nervous System (2nd Ed.,
1943) indicates that Sherrington first used the phrase "proprioception" was in
his paper, "On the proprio-ceptive system, especially in its reflex aspect"
(Brain, vol. 29, 1906/7).  Yet, the terms "proprio-ceptive field," "proprio-
ceptive reflexes," "proprio-ceptors," and "proprio-spinal nerve tracts" all
appeared the year before in Sherrington's Integrative Action of the Nervous
System (First edition, 1906).  As Swazey describes in her book, Reflexes and
Motor Integration: Sherrington's Concept of Integrative Action (pp. 118-120),
Sherrington divided up the receptors of the body into surface and deep sensory
receptors, and he proposed that "the deep receptors may be termed proprio-
ceptors and the deep field a field of proprioception."  He claimed that
proprioception had three features: (1) they are secondary responses to an
organism's interaction with its environment, becoming "appended" to the
primary reflexes mediated by the surface receptors; (2) these secondary
proprio-ceptive reflexes are organized in opposition to primary surface
reflexes; and (3) their function is to maintain tonic reactions in the
skeletal musculature.  You might want to further consult Swazey's discussion
of this topic in her book.  
  The broader concept within which Sherrington's concept of proprioception
emerged was undoubtedly that of "muscle sensation," a concept which was
popular among many physiologists and physicians in the second half of the
nineteenth century.  You might want to consult Fritsch and Hitzig's classic
1870 paper on electrical stimulation of the cortex (the Wilkins translation in
his Neurosurgical Classics is more reliable than von Bonin's widely used
translation, especially in the last few important paragraphs), Charles
Bastian's articles in Brit Med J (1869) and Brain (1887) as well as his book
The Brain as an Organ (1880), George Henry Lewes "Motor-feelings and the
muscular sense" (Brain, 187?), and Sherrington's own chapter on "Muscular
Sensation" in Schaefer's Textbook of Physiology (1900).  Good luck!

David Millett

Committee on the Conceptual Foundations of Science
University of Chicago
<HISTNEUR-L@library.ucla.edu>