In his book, The Process of Thought Adapted to Words and Language published in 1851 English surgeon and writer Alfred Smee suggested the possibility of information storage and retrieval by a mechanical logical machine operating analogously to the human mind. This was an attempt to produce an artificial system of reasoning based upon neurological principles, which were then primarily a matter of speculation. The problem was that Smee's hypothetical “electro-biological” machine, built out of mechanical parts, which he conceived in generality, but had no way of engineering, or building even in part, might have occupied a space larger than London.
