"The 19th century compared the nervous system to telegraph networks, illustrating how contemporary technologies shaped scientific metaphors for the brain."
De Palma and Pareti trace the historical use of technological metaphors in neuroscience, including nineteenth-century comparisons of nerve fibers with telegraph wires by Hermann von Helmholtz and Emil du Bois-Reymond. Their historical analysis supports the section's argument that successive generations have interpreted the nervous system through the dominant technologies of their age.
View Source