Abstract
In the year 1531, François Rabelais,1 later to become a famous name in literature, was conferred with a bachelor’s degree in medicine by the University of Montpellier, and almost immediately found himself on the teaching faculty. The basis of medical education at the time consisted of reading and commenting on the works of the Ancients and the Arabs in Latin. Practical exercises on skeletons were rare, and even rarer, dissection of cadavers anatomy. Rabelais carried on the tradition, but he introduced an important innovation: instead of using the bad Latin translations current at the time, he decided to present Hippocrates and Galen in the original, according to Humanistic method. In Rabelais’ science, philology had as great a role as observation and experiment, and the text of the Hippocratic Aphorisms which he subsequently published2 shows in its accompanying notes his abilities as a classical scholar. In 1537, Rabelais was conferred with an M.D. Thanks to his reputation, he could now openly practise the direct observation method of human dissection.
Then carefully revisit the books of the Greek, Arab and Latin physicians, without dismissing the Talmudists and Cabalists; and by frequent anatomies get thyself perfect knowledge of the other world which is Man. Rabelais, Pantagruel viii
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References
François Rabelais (1494-1553).
In 1532, on returning to Lyon.
Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626).
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642).
[132b], p. 56.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).
This drawing is to be found in [77], p. 32, as no. 43.
See p. 42, n. 11.
See p. 42, n. 12.
See [336]. Fig. 117 of that work is one of the best efforts at representing medieval notions. These are superimposed on a crude imitation of Greek anatomy.
See p. 35.
Thomas Willis (1621-1675): see [423a].
Gaspard Bauhin (1560-1623): see [22].
His drawings prove this. See [409].
Arcangelo Piccolomini (1526-1586).
Costanzo Varolio (1543-1575). Note that he is the originator of the “cortex” metaphor: he was the first to describe the outer envelope of the brain as a kind of protective bark (cork).
François de la Boé, or Sylvius (1614-1672).
See n. 12.
Gassendi (1592-1655).
Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777).
Thomas Willis: see [423b].
René Descartes (1596-1650).
“I explained all these matters in sufficient detail in the treatise I previously intended to publish” ([99a], V, p. 139).
“We see clocks, artificial fountains, mills and similar machines which, though entirely by man, lack not the power to move in various ways” ([99d], p. 4).
Thus the spirits are used to explain the mechanism of sight: [99d], p. 857.
Santrio Santro (1561-1635).
See [374b].
Soury [375c], [375a].
See the Bulletin de la Société Française de l’Histoire de la Médecine, March 1938.
[99c], art. 42, p. 343f.
Souques comments: “Thus the soul uses the gland like a helmsman his rudder or a driver his steering-wheel, to direct the spirits towards a particular region of the ventricles” ([374b]).
The Treatise on Man becomes clearer in the light of the fact that the 17th century saw the birth of modern theories of hydraulics. Cf., in particular, p. 100: “Indeed, one may compare the nerves of the machine I am describing with the pipes in the works of these fountains…”
The anatomical metaphor from which the term “pineal” derives is enough to make one suspicious. It is, to say the least, a peculiar place for the soul. Galen, however, had explained the name of the gland by analogy between its shape and that of a pine-cone.
For the notion of engram, see [392].
“Which shows how the recollection of one thing can be excited by that of another which was imprinted in the memory at the same time” (Descartes [99d], p. 90).
Niels Stensen, or Steno (1638-1687) studied under Thomas Bartholin, and worked with Silvius and Blasius.
Melchisedec Thévenot (1620-1694).
The basic ideas on which contemporary speculation relied were borrowed from Antiquity. The great anatomists of the preceding centuries had only added details that made interpretation of the overall picture that much more complex. Descartes had not just failed to transcend the speculative tradition; he gave himself over to it in the very name of reason. See [74b].
Mention should be made of Bartholius the Elder and the Younger (see [20]); Gaspard Bauhin (see [22]); J. Riolan the Younger, and J. Ves-ling (see [344]); and last but not least Sylvius, who directly influenced Steno.
Chapelain (1595-1674).
Graindorge writing to Huet: “This Monsieur Steno is a sensation”. And the Journal des Sçavans, 25th March 1665, states: “He has the particular gift of making most things so concrete that one is forcibly convinced of them, and astonished that they could have escaped previous anatomists.”
Silvius’ modest and cautious nature was no doubt shown in his teaching. His personal remarks are inserted in the works of Bartholin in the form of notes [387].
Willis’ localization of the common sense in the corpus striatum, imagination in the corpus callosum and memory in the grey matter was purely hypothetical. See [423b].
It must be noted that Silvius had an approach to dissection that revealed the anatomical reality of the brain to an extent little known before him and dissipated some of the illusions created by manipulation.
Imaginary, that is, in the function which Descartes attributes to it: “What Descartes says, that the Glandula Pinealis may perform its Functions, though it sometimes inclines to one side, sometimes to another, Experience shows to be groundless; because it is so hedged in between all the Parts of the Brain, and so fixed to them on all sides, that it cannot be moved in the least without violence, and without breaking the Fibres by which it is connected” ([384], p. 15).
“Besides, the greatest number of these terms are so low and so unworthy of the most noble part of the Body of Man, that I am at a loss whether I ought most to wonder at the bad turn of thought of those who first made use of them, or at the Indolence of their Successors who continue still to return them. What necessity could there be to imploy the words Nates, Testes, Anus, Vulva and Penis, which in their common Signification have no relation at all to the Parts expressed by them in the Anatomy of the Brain? And accordingly what one Author calls Nates, another calls Testes, &c.” ([384], p.21).
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© 1991 Plenum Press, New York
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Bouton, C.P. (1991). Paths of Seeing. In: Neurolinguistics Historical and Theoretical Perspectives. Applied Psycholinguistics and Communication Disorders. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9570-0_5
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