Brainy ideas

Matthew Cobb, The Idea of the Brain

Matthew Cobb, The Idea of the Brain (Profile Books, 2020)

This enthralling book starts at the earliest points of the halting journey to an experimental science of the brain, moving to the present era, where we simultaneously have a surfeit of data, and a poverty of far-reaching, intellectually-satisfying, theories of brain function.

The Idea of the Brain

The brain is notable by its absence in both the Bible and the Koran. Generations were content to rely on the writings of the ancients, even where they were obviously wrong. And medical science, such as it was, for generations was content to engage in textual analysis, rather than inspect the brain and body, then dissect, draw and describe what was there.

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Interesting reflections on minimal brains here:

What's a Brain?

Cobb dates a change in attitude to the late Middle Ages, and to the investigatory willingness of certain Italian academics. One important figure was Mondino de Luzzi, Professor of Medicine and Anatomy at the University of Bologna. Mondino, on writing of the preparations for a human dissection, stated simply that ‘The human corpse, killed through decapitation or hanging, is placed in the supine position’, words conveying an utter indifference to the dignity of the body in death which we do not assume today.