HISTNEUR-L: The History of Neuroscience Internet Forum

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Re: Ventricular Doctrine 

On Sat, 21 Feb 1998 14:30:58 -0500 ^H. Christopher A. Robinson wrote:

In their _Illustrated History of Brain Function_, Clarke and Dewhurst say
in regards to the ventricular theory that: "The most important
development in the theory, however, was the addition of a dynamic element
to the original static model and this appears to have taken place in the
10th century AD" (p. 8). While I lack the hubris to directly challenge
this, I did find a reference from Nemesius of Emesa in the 4th century
that reveals a dynamic ventricular scheme. Nemesius says, "So, then, the
faculty of imagination hands on to the faculty of intellect things that
the senses have perceived, while the faculty of intellect (or discursive
reason) receives them, passes judgement on them, and hands them on to the
faculty of memory" (in Telfer, 1955, p. 341).

Was Nemesius' dynamic element ignored for 500 years? If not, does anyone
know what happened to the ventricular scheme in the 10th century AD that
led Clarke and Dewhurst to make their statement?
___________

I don't think it requires hubris to challenege Clarke and Dewhurst's
statement. The dynamic causal analysis of cognition given by Nememsius
had been known since Aristotle, if not earlier, but was discussed
either independtly of any particular organic embodiment, or in a
general way with reference to EITHER the heart (Aristotle, earlier
Stoics) or the brain (Platonists, Hippocratics, Galenists). I don't
believe there ever was an "original static model." Nemesius's source
is certainly Galen, who lived in the 2nd century A.D. His discussion
of brain localization of the faculties of imagining, reasoning, and remembering,
can be found in _De Locis Affectis_ iii.9 (Kuehn edition vol.8, 174ff.)
Galen's influence is quite important among the later Greeks/Byzantines
and crucially important among the Arabs. I'm not sure what 10th century
source Clarke and Dewhurst had in mind, but to take a wild guess, I
think it might well have been Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 980-1037), whose
ideas on brain function were very much based on those of Galen, and who
in turn exercised enormous influence in European medicine and physiology
throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Avicenna's _Canon_ was the
standard medical encyclopedia in medieval and renaissance Europe and was
still used as a textbook in medical schools as late as the 17th century.

I would strongly recommend that you read a paper by Nicholas H. Steneck,
"Albert the Great on the Classification and Localization of the Internal
Senses," _Isis_ 65.193-211.

Jeffrey Wollock
<HISTNEUR-L@library.ucla.edu>