Basic Functions

Abstract

The attempt to “correlate” behavior and mind to brain functions is not new. Hippocrates rejected spiritualism and adopted Alcmaeon’s materialist hypothesis that the brain is the organ of mind, from which it follows that mental disorders are brain maladies. The Hippocratic views on this and other matters were perfected by Galen and remained in force until the seventeenth century. Thus, in a book published in 1575, that was translated into several languages and remained in print for more than one century, the Spanish doctor Juan Huarte conceived of the various mental faculties as so many functions of different brain subsystems: He was a localizationist. And when Cardinal Richelieu died in 1642, the team that performed his autopsy reported that the Cardinal’s brain had twice the normal number of ventricles, which proved that “il y faisait double quantité d’ esprit en général.” (See Beaulieu, 1983.)