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Ventricles in Nemesius and Augustine 

While I can't find any information on ventricular localization in Galen,
I did find the following from Nemesius and Augustine. 

     In the fourth century work On the Nature of Man, by Nemesius, the
bishop of Emesa, discusses  the ventricular doctrine (Telfer, 1955). He
begins by enumerating the faculties of the soul as imagination, intellect
and memory. Then he proceeds, based essentially on lesion evidence, to
localize these faculties in the cerebral ventricles. In this treatise, he
says that "as organs, the faculty of imagination has, first the front
lobes of the brain and the psychic spirit contained in them" (ibid., p.
321). Later, he says that the faculty of the intellect is in the middle
part of the brain "and the vital spirit there contained" (ibid., p. 338).
Finally, the organ of memory was in the "hinder part of the brain and the
vital spirit there contained" (ibid., p. 341).
     During the same period, Augustine also presents a ventricular
doctrine. Citing the medical knowledge of the day (based on lesions or
diseases), he notes a correlation between the ventricles and function
(Augustine, 1982). He writes, "One of these, which is near the face, is
the one from which all sensation comes; the second, which is in the back
of the brain near the neck, is the one from which all motion comes; the
third, which is between the first two, is . . . the seat of memory
(Augustine, de Genesi ad littoram, 7.18).
     There are two notes that I would like to make. First is that the two
schemes differ, unless Augustine got the numbering right but the anatomy
wrong. Second, Augustine uses as his support medical knowledge of the
day. While it is clear that Nemesius at least was familiar with Galen,
Augustine does not cite his source in this context. It would seem
strange, however, that Herophilus would postulate a simple ventricular
doctrine and it would disappear for nearly seven hundred years only to
reappear in the fourth century.  It seems more reasonable to suppose that
there was a ventricular idea "in the air", as it were. Unfortunately, I
don't have enough information on the doctrine from the time period in
question. Does anyone else?

Christopher Robinson
University of Alabama-Birmingham.
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