Jean Pierre Flourens
Marie Jean Pierre Flourens (13 April 1794 – 6 December 1867), father of Gustave Flourens, was a French physiologist, the founder of experimental brain science and a pioneer in anesthesia. Through the study of ablations on animals, he was the first to prove that the mind was located in the brain, not the heart.
Scientology and psychiatry
In 1923, Navy medical doctor and psychoanalyst, Joseph "Snake" Thompson reportedly accompanied then-12-year-old L. Ron Hubbard from Seattle to Washington, D.C. According to a recording of Hubbard sharing anecdotes from his life, he considered Thompson to be a "very great man" who sparked Hubbard's interest in "the human mind". Hubbard said that Thompson told him, "If it's not true for you, it's not true." Thompson was affiliated with Saint Elizabeth’s in D.C., the first federally operated psychiatric hospital. Thompson died in 1943, seven years before the publication of Dianetics. William Alanson White was an American neurologist and psychiatrist who served as superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital. A letter from the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International to the FBI, dated June 12, 1954, claims that Hubbard was trained by both Joseph Thompson and William Alanson White. In a lecture, Hubbard described consulting White about a theoretical calculation of human memory capacity, apparently during Hubbard's university days. White died in 1937, thirteen years before the publication of Dianetics.