Airy, George and Hubert

English mathematician and astronomer Sir George Biddell Airy (1801–92) and his son Hubert (1838–1903) provided classic illustrations of migrainous fortification spectra. While George was then the British Astronomer Royal, Hubert was a physician, and as such had greater knowledge of medicine and anatomy than his father. Although his father remained unclear whether the phenomenon was monocular or binocular, Hubert determined that vision was identically impaired in both eyes, and therefore concluded the cause of the migrainous scotoma was in the retrochiasmal visual area of the brain. Hubert's report was discussed in every major neurology text of the late nineteenth century and his illustrations were used by Jean-Martin Charcot and Sir William Gowers among many others.