The Forgotten Legacy of the Physiologist Élie De Cyon: The Correspondence with the Italian Physiologist Casimiro Doniselli (1909-1912)

Between 1909 and 1912 the Russian physiologist and journalist Ilya Fadeevich Tsion (1843-1912) – later known in French as Élie de Cyon – exchanged an extensive correspondence with the Italian physiologist and psychologist Casimiro Doniselli (1876-1960). Their collaboration was occasioned by the Italian translation of Cyon’s work "Das Ohrlabyrinth als Organ der matematischen Sinne für Raum und Zeit" (1908). The letters deal especially with Cyon’s theory of the cochlea as the musical and arithmetic organ and with the original contribution given by Doniselli with regard to the lively discussion on the relationship between physiological and psychological processes. The annotated transcripts of the most relevant letters of Cyon to Doniselli shed light on the final stages of Cyon’s obscure life and work as well as on his family and personality.