Snowy Campbell

Snowy Campbell: Australian Pioneer Investigator of the Brain

Malcolm Macmillan

Imprint: Australian Scholarly Publishing

Format: Paperback

ISBN: 9781925333749

Released: October 2016

Alfred Walter Campbell—'Snowy' Campbell—was a pioneer of the neurosciences in Australia. From rural New South Wales, he trained in medicine in Edinburgh and did his early research in Prague and at the County Lunatic Asylum at Rainhill in Lancashire.

Campbell's major work, the first histological study of the minute structures of the human brain and their functions, led to international recognition. On his return to Australia, he began in clinical practice, completed a study of localisation in the cerebellum, and in 1915 spent a year in the Australian Army Medical Corps dealing with neurological casualties from Gallipoli. Later in his busy career, he completed the first histological study of the gorilla's brain and with others comprehensively investigated the disease that became known as Murry Valley Encephalitis. He died in 1937.