phrenological ideas of localised brain organs and emerging concepts of cerebral localisation. Crichton-Browne's title, The Story of the Brain, nailed his narrative colours to the mast: the complexities of brain structure were the evidence of its lengthy evolutionary history and development. He paid tribute to George Combe, comparing him to Robert Chambers and Charles Darwin. He introduced his father W.A.F. Browne as 'a phrenologist of the old school' and gave a wideranging account of

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... l psychiatry with emphasis on the discovery of functional asymmetry in the second half of the 19th century. Conclusion Sir James Crichton-Browne was not prominently linked with the Colleges of Physicians, did not occupy a senior academic position, endowed no lectures or institutions, left no textbook of psychiatry and was 'owned' neither by England nor Scotland. Yet in his very long life and career, there is conspicuous lineage between early asylum medicine and contemporary ideas of the cerebral basis of psychotic disorder. Renewed study of his life and many contributions, perhaps starting with his links to Charles Darwin and Hughlings Jackson would throw new light on the origins of evolutionary psychiatry.