Chris Bunting, Times Higher Education Supplement, April 2001. Subsequently reproduced in "Big Questions in Science" (Jonathan Cape, Hardback, 2002)
A solitary "matador" and a half-crazed bull replayed their parts in an old, violent ritual in a sun soaked arena in southern Spain. It was the summer of 1964 but film of the incident is still shown in lecture halls today.
As the bull bore down on the unarmed man it was apparent that he was no matador. In fact, the man at the centre of the ring, the renowned scientist Dr Jose Delgado, had never faced a charging animal in his life.
But the horns never reached the doctor. Seconds before impact, Delgado flicked a switch on a small radio transmitter he was holding and the bull immediately braked to a halt. He pressed another button and it meekly turned to its right and trotted away.
Delgado was triumphant: after 15 years studying the workings of the brain he had proved in the most dramatic fashion that understanding and control of its mechanisms had reached a refinement that allowed an animal's aggression to be turned on and off by remote control. He explained he had been "playing" monkeys and cats "like little electronic toys" to fight, mate and go to sleep using the same technique of inserting probes in the brain and electrically stimulating relevant tissues.
"A turning point has been reached in the study of the mind," he announced. "I do believe that an understanding of the biological bases of social and antisocial behaviours and of mental activities, which for the first time in history can now be explored in a conscious brain, may be of decisive importance in the search for intelligent solutions to some of our present anxieties."
It was the hot, high summer of scientists' belief in their ability to not only to explain but to intervene in the workings of the brain ....
(Because this chapter is included in a book which is still in print and because all claims to copyright have been bought from me by the publishers, I have decided not to reproduce the main body of the text on the web. The full chapter is included in "Big Questions in Science", Jonathan Cape, Hardback, 2002.)