Apologies blog fans for the 3-week break between posts, but relax I'm back and the subject this time is the brain. A few weeks of research has gone into this posting, so to prevent it from being too taxing on the brain I've split it into two parts. First I'm going to look at how the human mind has been viewed throughout history, and in my next blog I'll look at modern neuroscience. So here goes.
In the 5th century BC, Hippocrates declared the brain as the source of all pleasure and emotion, but 100 years later Aristotle claimed the heart was the central organ of the body, the source of blood and therefore life. He saw the brain as a refrigerator, a counterpoint to the heat of blood. Galen (d. 200 AD) argued that the soul has its seat in various organs – the liver, the heart and also the brain. However, in his system the brain is still seen as subordinate to the heart, where our passions and humanity lie, and this conception of things persisted for over 1,000 years.
In the West, Christianity throughout the early Middle Ages accepted Aristotle’s idea of a single soul, whereas Galen’s idea of 3 souls became increasingly problematic. Then, in the 12th century, the West receives via the Arabic tradition various Latin texts which are an amalgam and progression of Galen and Aristotle’s initial work, all of which go on to form the basis of medical education in European universities. I'll look at this crucial period in human history known as the Translation Movement, when Muslim scholars acted as a bridge between Greek and Roman learning and Mediaeval Europe, in a future blog.
During the Renaissance, there is vivid interest in the workings of the human body and its “mechanisms”, especially via dissection. Da Vinci makes drawings of the brain, carefully depicting human anatomy to enhance his understanding of how these structures work. He develops the idea of a place in the brain known as the “sensus communis”, where all
the senses meet and therefore where the soul resides; the nerve centre. But the first to really step out of the shadow of Galen and Aristotle is William Harvey, who showed that the heart is little more than a muscular chamber that circulates blood. This returns the emphasis to the brain as the central processor, and overturns years of Mediaeval thinking. Thomas Willis, a student of Harvey, provides new ways of visualising the brain that inspires various physicians in Holland to create anatomical works of art.
In Shakespeare, the heart is omnipresent, whereas the brain is almost a term of abuse – something cool and calculating, inhuman almost. Another literary reference to the brain comes from Edmund Spencer, who takes about the brain as the House of Alma, where little homunculi operate to deliver information as if assistants in a vast library. This is a powerful metaphor that still has resonance today. In the 18th century, there is more emphasis on the idea of stimuli, an idea developed by Luigi Galvani in Bologna who discovers a link between our nervous system and electricity via experiments on frog legs, which twitch despite being dead. And of course all this is only one step away from Frankenstein…
During Victorian times, phrenology became fashionable with people like Dickens believing they could ascertain a person’s character from examining the shape of the head and even bumps on their skull. This idea known as physiognomy is popular in the works of Hardy and Dickens (i.e. Scrooge had a “nipped pointed nose”) and still has currency today.
Frenchman Paul Broca makes a huge leap in the understanding of a link between the brain and language in the 19th century, measuring activity in a particular part of the brain now known as the “Broca area”. Brain science at the time is developing quickly, helped by advances in technology and especially electricity, concentrating on function. Questions begin to arise about where individuality is found in this pulpy mass? Do certain malformations in the brain cause criminality? At the turn of the 20th century, there were still no answers to these questions as brain science remained primitive, but the past 100 years have heralded a massive advance, and my next blog on neuroscience will explore where progress has been made. To be continued ...
In the 5th century BC, Hippocrates declared the brain as the source of all pleasure and emotion, but 100 years later Aristotle claimed the heart was the central organ of the body, the source of blood and therefore life. He saw the brain as a refrigerator, a counterpoint to the heat of blood. Galen (d. 200 AD) argued that the soul has its seat in various organs – the liver, the heart and also the brain. However, in his system the brain is still seen as subordinate to the heart, where our passions and humanity lie, and this conception of things persisted for over 1,000 years.
In the West, Christianity throughout the early Middle Ages accepted Aristotle’s idea of a single soul, whereas Galen’s idea of 3 souls became increasingly problematic. Then, in the 12th century, the West receives via the Arabic tradition various Latin texts which are an amalgam and progression of Galen and Aristotle’s initial work, all of which go on to form the basis of medical education in European universities. I'll look at this crucial period in human history known as the Translation Movement, when Muslim scholars acted as a bridge between Greek and Roman learning and Mediaeval Europe, in a future blog.
During the Renaissance, there is vivid interest in the workings of the human body and its “mechanisms”, especially via dissection. Da Vinci makes drawings of the brain, carefully depicting human anatomy to enhance his understanding of how these structures work. He develops the idea of a place in the brain known as the “sensus communis”, where all
the senses meet and therefore where the soul resides; the nerve centre. But the first to really step out of the shadow of Galen and Aristotle is William Harvey, who showed that the heart is little more than a muscular chamber that circulates blood. This returns the emphasis to the brain as the central processor, and overturns years of Mediaeval thinking. Thomas Willis, a student of Harvey, provides new ways of visualising the brain that inspires various physicians in Holland to create anatomical works of art.In Shakespeare, the heart is omnipresent, whereas the brain is almost a term of abuse – something cool and calculating, inhuman almost. Another literary reference to the brain comes from Edmund Spencer, who takes about the brain as the House of Alma, where little homunculi operate to deliver information as if assistants in a vast library. This is a powerful metaphor that still has resonance today. In the 18th century, there is more emphasis on the idea of stimuli, an idea developed by Luigi Galvani in Bologna who discovers a link between our nervous system and electricity via experiments on frog legs, which twitch despite being dead. And of course all this is only one step away from Frankenstein…
During Victorian times, phrenology became fashionable with people like Dickens believing they could ascertain a person’s character from examining the shape of the head and even bumps on their skull. This idea known as physiognomy is popular in the works of Hardy and Dickens (i.e. Scrooge had a “nipped pointed nose”) and still has currency today.
Frenchman Paul Broca makes a huge leap in the understanding of a link between the brain and language in the 19th century, measuring activity in a particular part of the brain now known as the “Broca area”. Brain science at the time is developing quickly, helped by advances in technology and especially electricity, concentrating on function. Questions begin to arise about where individuality is found in this pulpy mass? Do certain malformations in the brain cause criminality? At the turn of the 20th century, there were still no answers to these questions as brain science remained primitive, but the past 100 years have heralded a massive advance, and my next blog on neuroscience will explore where progress has been made. To be continued ...
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