Historical Perspectives

The Common Vein Copyright 2010

1700-2500 BC.

The early Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle, believed that the heart was the center of intelligence and thought. Later on, however, various philosophers and physicians from the time of ancient Greece began to describe the anatomy of the brain and its importance in the higher intellectual functions.

Galen, a famous Roman physician, advanced the ideas of the importance of the brain in higher intellectual functions and the function of nerves within the nervous system.

ca. 4000 B.C. – Euphoriant effect of poppy plant reported in Sumerian records ca.

2700 B.C. – Shen Nung originates acupuncture ca.

1700 B.C. – Edwin Smith surgical papyrus written. First written record about the nervous system ca.

500 B.C. – Alcmaion of Crotona dissects sensory nerves

460-379 B.C. – Hippocrates discusses epilepsy as a disturbance of the brain

387 B.C. – Plato teaches at Athens. Believes brain is seat of mental process

335 B.C. – Aristotle writes on sleep; believes heart is seat of mental process Herophilus active in 335 B.C. “father of anatomy” interested in the brain named torcular Herophili Herophilus (the “Father of Anatomy”); believes ventricles are seat of human intelligence

280 B.C. – Erasistratus of Chios notes divisions of the brain

0 A.D. to 1500 177 – Galen lecture “On the Brain” ca.

see reference by Robert Burton on GAlens concept of the  brain http://www.culture.com.au/brain_proj/CONTENT/17THC_2.HTM

100 – Marinus describes the tenth cranial nerve

Talmud 4 th century A.D. Judaic culture had knowledge of the brain and meninges ca.

1000 – Alhazen compares the eye to a camera-like device

1316 – Mondino de’Luzzi writes the first European anatomy textbook (Anothomia)

1410 – Institution for the mentally ill established in Valencia, Spain

1504 – Leonardo da Vinci produces wax cast of human ventricles 1536 – Nicolo Massa describes the cerebrospinal fluid

1538 – Andreas Vesalius publishes Tabulae Anatomicae

1543 – Andreas Vesalius publishes “On the Workings of the Human Body” 1543 – Andreas Vesalius discusses pineal gland and draws the corpus striatum

1561 – Gabriele Falloppio publishes “Observationes Anatomicae” and describes some of the cranial nerves

1562 – Bartolomeo Eustachio publishes “The Examination of the Organ of Hearing”

1564 – Aranzi coins the term “hippocampus”

1573 – Constanzo Varolio names the pons

1573 – Constanzo Varolio is first to cut brain starting at its base 1583 – Felix Platter states that the lens only focuses light

1586 – A. Piccolomini distinguishes between cortex and white matter

1587 – Giulio Cesare Aranzi describes ventricles and hippocampus

1590 – Zacharias Janssen invents the compound microscope

1500-1700AD Anatomy

The period between 1500AD and 1700AD saw signifcant advances in the understanding of neuroanatomy as a result of the pursuits of Andreas Vesalius, Malpighi, Prochaska, Willis, Piccolomini, da Vinci, Varolio.

1600 – 1700

1604 – Johannes Kepler describes inverted retinal image

1609 – J. Casserio publishes first description of mammillary bodies

1611 – Lazarus Riverius textbook describing impairments on consciousness published

1641 – Francis de la Boe Sylvius describes fissure on the lateral surface of the brain (Sylvian fissure)

1649 – Rene Descartes describes pineal as control center of body and mind

1658 – Johann Jakof Wepfer theorizes that a broken brain blood vessel may cause apoplexy (stroke)

1662 – Rene Descartes “De homine” is published (He died in 1650)

1664 – Thomas Willis publishes “Cerebri anatome” (in Latin)

1664 – Thomas Willis describes the eleventh cranial nerve 1664 – Gerardus Blasius discovers and names the “arachnoid.”

1665 – Robert Hooke details his first microscope

1667 – Robert Hooke publishes “Micrographia”

1668 – l’Abbe Edme Mariotte discovers the blind spot

1670 – William Molins names the trochlear nerve

1673 – Joseph DuVerney uses experimental ablation technique in pigeons

1681 – English edition of Thomas Willis’ “Cerebri anatome” was published

1681 – Thomas Willis coins the term Neurology

1684 – Raymond Vieussens publishes “Neurographia Universalis”

1684 – Raymond Vieussens uses boiling oil to harden the brain

1695 – Humphrey Ridley describes the restiform body

1695 – Humphrey Ridley publishes “The Anatomy of the Brain”

 

1700 – 1800

1700s and 1800s Physiology

Conductive properties of muscle and nerve were described by the scholalrly pursuits of Galvani, Dubois-Reymond, and Helmholtz. 

 Other important developments at this time include those in the area of histology. Through the work of people like Camillo Golgi, Schwann, Betz, Purkinje, and Cajal, the idea was put forth of the neuron being the fundamental anatomic structure and functional component of the nervous system. Since then, the advances in neuroscience have been tremendous. The work of people such as Sherrington in developing the term “synapse”, and others have been invaluable. Since then, others such as Freud and Pavlov, tried to understand the behavioral aspects of neuroscience. The contributions to the understanding of the pathology of neurological disease during this time period, by people such as Alois Alzheimer, and Eugen Bleuler, were noted. In 1909, the famous neurosurgeon, Harvey Cushing, was able to stimulate the human sensory cortex and Broadmann was able to characterize 52 different areas of cortical function. These early developments in neuroscience have been advanced tremendously over the last century. In areas or neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and, recently, neuropharmacology, there have been tremendous advances in the understanding of this subject that continues to capture our attention. However, the field of neuroscience is still in its infancy, and we eagerly await new discoveries which may revolutionize our understanding of this exciting field

1704 – Antonio Valsalva publishes “On the Human Ear”

1705 – Antonio Pacchioni describes arachnoid granulations

1709 – Domenico Mistichelli describes pyramidal decussation

1717 – Antony van Leeuwenhoek describes nerve fiber in cross section

1721 – The word “anesthesia” first appears in English (in Dictionary Britannicum)

1736 – Jean Astruc coins the term reflex

1740 – Emanuel Swedenborg publishes “Oeconomia regni animalis”

1764 – D.F.A. Cotugno describes spinal subarachnoid cerebrospinal fluid

1772 – John Walsh conducts experiments on torpedo (electric) fish

1773 – John Fothergill describes trigeminal neuralgia (tic douloureux, Fothergill’s syndrome)

1773 – Sir Joseph Priestley discovers nitrous oxide

1774 – Franz Anton Mesmer introduces “animal magnetism” (later called hypnosis)

1776 – M.V.G. Malacarne publishes first book solely devoted to the cerebellum

1777 – Philip Meckel proposes that the inner ear is filled with fluid, not air

1779 – Antonius Scarpa describes Scarpa’s ganglion of the vestibular system

1781 – Felice Fontana describes the microscopic features of axoplasm from an axon

1782 – Francesco Gennari publishes work on “lineola albidior” (later known as the stripe of Gennari)

1783 – Alexander Monro a Scottish physician, described the foramina of Munro in his 1783 publication, “Observations on the Structure and Functions of the Nervous System”. They were therefore named after him.  However these structures had alrady been identified by Vieussens in the  17th century .

1786 – Felix Vicq d’Azyr discovers the locus coeruleus

1791 – Luigi Galvani publishes work on electrical stimulation of frog nerves

1794 – John Dalton describes color blindness

1796 – Johann Christian Reil describes the insula (island of Reil)

1800 – 1850

1800 – Alessandro Volta invents the wet cell battery

1800 – Humphrey Davy synthesizes nitrous oxide

1803 – Friedrich Serturner isolates morphine from opium

1805 – Felix Vicq d’Azyr discovers the red nucleus

1808 – Franz Joseph Gall publishes work on phrenology

1809 – Johann Christian Reil uses alcohol to harden the brain

1809 – Luigi Rolando uses galvanic current to stimulate cortex

1811 – Julien Jean Legallois discovers respiratory center in medulla

1811 – Charles Bell discusses functional differences between dorsal and ventral roots of the spinal cord

1813 – Felix Vicq d’Azyr discovers the claustrum

1817 – James Parkinson publishes “An Essay on the Shaking Palsy”

1818 – Library of the Surgeon General’s Office established (later to become the Army Medical Library and then the National Library of Medicine)

1820 – Galvanometer invented

1821 – Charles Bell describes facial paralysis ipsilateral to facial nerve lesion (Bell’s palsy)

1821 – Francois Magendie discusses functional differences between dorsal and ventral roots of the spinal cord

1822 – Friedrich Burdach names the cingular gyrus

1822 – Friedrich Burdach distinguishes lateral and medial geniculate

1823 – Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens states that cerebellum regulates motor activity

1824 – John C. Caldwell publishes “Elements of Phrenology”

1824 – Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens details ablation to study behavior

1824 – F. Magendie provides first evidence of cerebellum role in equilibration

1825 – John P. Harrison first argues against phrenology

1825 – Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud presents cases of loss of speech after frontal lesions

1825 – Robert B. Todd discusses the role of the cerebral cortex in mentation, corpus striatum in movement and midbrain in emotion

1825 – Luigi Rolando describes the sulcus that separates the precentral and postcentral gyri

1826 – Johannes Muller publishes theory of “specific nerve energies”

1827 – F. Magendie discovers foramen of Magendie

1832 – Chloral hydrate discovered

1836 – Marc Dax reads paper on left hemisphere damage effects on speech

1836 – Gabriel Gustav Valentin identifies neuron nucleus and nucleolus

1836 – Robert Remak describes myelinated and unmyelinated axons 1836 – Charles Dickens (the novelist) describes obstructive sleep apnea

1837 – Jan Purkyne (Purkinje) describes cerebellar cells; identifies neuron nucleus and processes

1838 – Robert Remak suggests that nerve fiber and nerve cell are joined

1838 – Theordor Schwann describes the myelin-forming cell in the peripheral nervous system (“Schwann Cell”)

1839 – Theordor Schwann proposes the cell theory

1839 – C. Chevalier coins the term microtome

1839 – Francois Leuret names the Rolandic sulcus for Luigi Rolando

1840 – Adolph Hannover uses chromic acid to harden nervous tissue

1840 – J.G.F. Baillarger discusses the connections between white and gray matter of cerebral cortex 1842 – Benedikt Stilling is first to study spinal cord in serial sections

1842 – Crawford W. Long uses ether on man

1843 – James Braid coins the term “hypnosis”

1844 – Robert Remak provides first illustration of 6-layered cortex

1846 – Carlo Matteucci invents the kymograph

1844 – Horace Wells uses nitrous oxide during a tooth extraction

1846 – William Morton demonstrates ether anesthesia at Mass. Gen. Hospital

1847 – Chloroform anesthesia used by James Young Simpson

1847 – American Medical Association is founded

1848 – Phineas Gage has his brain pierced by an iron rod

1849 – Hermann von Helmholtz measures the speed of frog nerve impulses In the early period of recorded history, the brain was not seen as an important organ. The Egyptians believed the heart and other organs were essential for functions such as thinking and other higher intellectual functions. A set of documents, known as the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, from the civilization of ancient Egypt is the earliest known written record of the brain. In it an unknown physician describes various brain injuries and treatments for those injuries. These papers are thought to be from the period between

 

References

Michelangelo Michelangelo

Body of Knowledge   Harvard Exhibit on the History of Anatomy

History of Anatomy Wikipedia

Vesalius – Wikipedia

Physiology – Wikipedia