HISTNEUR-L: The History of Neuroscience Internet Forum

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Re: Ventricular Doctrines 

I find Dr. Kemp's comments very helpful, and I am in complete agreement
with what he says in paragraphs (2) and (3).

As for paragraph (3), I would only point out that Nemesius' _On the Nature
of Man_ belongs to a genre of Christian theological literature showing the
wisdom and providence of God as manifested in the structure of the human
body. It dates from the last decade of the 4th cetnury. As a work of
Christian theology (though heavily based on medical literature) it is less
likely to have been quoted even by Christian medical writers and I assume
it was unknown to the Muslim medical writers. It was however heavily drawn
on by Meletius, a Christian monk who wrote a work on The Nature and Structure
of Man. He used to be conventionally assigned to the 9th century, but more
recently, Morani (_La tradizione manoscritta del "De Natura Hominis" de
Nemesio_, Milan, 1981), p.147-149, has shown that Meletius probably lived
in the 13th c. and certainly no earlier than the 12th, because the
Nemesius manuscript he used could not have been copied prior to the 12th
c. In other words, Nemesius was known in the 10th century -- by Christian
theologians in the East.

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