In 1863, 2 years before Paul Broca published his heralded paper on the
special role of the left hemisphere in speech, Gustave Dax sent a pap
er to the Academie de Medecine in Paris, France. His lengthy submissio
n included an insightful memoir presumably written by his father Marc
in 1836 and supportive material that he had collected himself. The pre
sent article examines the events leading to Gustave's 1863 submission
to the Academie. It also presents an English translation of the negati
ve response that this paper received and a translation of the short ar
ticle that Gustave published in 1865. These materials help to show how
cerebral dominance was first discovered, how it was made public, and
how the first advocates of the concept were judged by their contempora
ries.