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Some Brain History |
 I am simply passionate about the wonders of the human brain. I also love history, so I thought I might combine the two for you and share a bit of ancient brain history with you. You might think that everything we know about the brain has come to light in the last 500 years or so. Not so however, in fact it is quite remarkable that as far back as the late stone age, maybe 9500 BC, we see evidence of brain surgery. Trephination or the burring, drilling or scraping of a hole in the brain is a medical intervention exposing the brain's covering called dura mater in order to treat health problems related to intracranial diseases. Cave paintings indicate that people believed the practice would cure epileptic seizures, migraines, and mental disorders. More importantly, cave woman had to be very careful when informinf their spouse, "Not tonight honey, I've got a headache".
The ancient Egyptians (2500 BC) believed that the heart was the seat of perception, cognition and the soul of the individual. When Pharaoh died, his liver, lung, stomach and intestine were carefully washed, wrapped in resin, and preserved in large ornate alabaster canopic jars and stored at one end of the pyramid. The heart however, remained on the other side of the pyramid and still within Pharaoh. He needed it for his trip to the "Hall of the Dead". Sounds like a great start to a 50's horror film, doesn't it. Once in the Hall, Anubis (the guy with the head of a dog) weighed your heart against the feather of Ma'at. Ma'at, the goddess of justice, sits on top of the scales to make sure that the weighing is carried out properly. Ma'at was firm but fair! In the graphic you can see Anubis steadying the scales to make sure the weigh-in was on the up and up just like before a professional boxing match. If Pharaoh's heart was lighter than the feather, he got to live forever. We still talk of "a heart as light as a feather" to mean care-free, and "heavy-hearted" to mean sad. If his heart was heavier than the feather, then it was given as an appetizer to the demon Ammit, the Destroyer (Ammit was pictured with the head of a crocodile, the shoulders of a lion and the rump of a hippopotamus). This was good incentive for Pharaoh to do good things during his reign. Thoth, god of wisdom and writing, stands by to record what happens. These Eygptains were sticklers for good record keeping.
But what did they do with Pharaohs brain? Well, they did not think much of the brain, so they simply took a long curvy tool, put it up his nose, and extracted the brain and discarded it. I guess even Ammitt was interested in brain, even if it was the mighty Pharaoh's.
Aristotle also believed that the heart was the seat of the mind. However he did believe the brain had a purpose, and this was to cool down the passions of the heart. A sort of "Radiator Theory" I guess. The Roman physician Galen (around 200 AD) concluded that mental activity occurred in the brain rather than the heart, as Aristotle had suggested. His observations of the effects of brain injuries on mental activity formed an important practical basis for his conclusions. Galen concluded that the brain was the seat of the animal soul.
So it took a lot of years for us to even know that we would not be much without a brain. Well yes, and no. Hippocrates, our father of medicine, said this of the brain around 460 BC, "Men ought to know that from nothing else but thence [from the brain] come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, grief, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in an special manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hear, and know what are foul and what are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet and what unsavory. Some we discriminate by habit, and some we perceive by their utility. By this we distinguish objects of relish and disrelish, according to the seasons; and the same things do not always please us. And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us, some by night, and some by day, and dreams and untimely wanderings, and cares that are not suitable, and ignorance of present circumstances, desuetude, and unskilfulness. All these things we endure from the brain." |
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