The Book of Eccles was written for the Centenary of the birth of Nobel Laureate, Sir John Eccles, in 1903 and traces his family and school life from the early days in Jumbunna and Koroit inVictoria. From there, John attended Warrnambool College and Melbourne High School where he was Dux in 1919. Later, as an outstanding University student at Melbourne University, he gained a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford to study with Sir Charles Sherrington. Over his long life he was concerned with the mind/brain problem. He went beyond the materialistic concepts of Darwinism, “to reinstate the spiritual self as the controller of the brain”.

Sir John Eccles held positions as Director of the Kanematsu Institute in Sydney 1937 to 1943; Professor of Medicine at Otago University 1944 to 1952; Professor of Physiology at the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra 1952 to 1966 and then Professorships in Chicago and Buffalo until he retired to Switzerland in 1975. Sir John Carew Eccles was knighted in 1958 for his contributions to science and in 1963 won the Nobel Prize for Medicine and was Australian of the Year.

In his long life, he wrote many books including: The Neurophysiological Basis of Mind 1953; The Physiology of Nerve Cells 1968; Facing Reality 1973; The Human Mystery 1979; The Wonder of Being Human 1984; his last book, which he considered his finest, was written when he was 90 years old  How the Self Controls the Brain 1994.”

In his private life John Eccles married Irene Miller in 1928 and they had nine children; Rose, Peter, Alice, William, Mary, John, Judith, Frances and Richard who all excelled in their chosen fields.  In 1968 he married Helena Taborikova of Czechoslovakia.

Published in 2003 with 60 illustrated pages in soft cover. It is written for anyone who may want to know more about this great Australian.

Price $AUD25. Postage within Australia $AUD5

A version of this book will be available for free download in the future.

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