Ancient Greeks

At reference 1, Bloom has written a successful book of popular science, already noticed at reference 3. A book which covers a lot of ground, includes all kinds of fascinating snippets – but at times seems a bit glib. It is hard to cover so much ground without making mistakes or carelessly glossing a complicated story.

On page 192 (of the Heinemann hardback edition) he talks of the ancient Greeks believing that the main function of the brain was to cool the blood, thus facilitating the workings of the all important heart. Rather like the radiator of a modern, petrol driven car. For once, I was moved to check, something which is far easier in these days of connection than it would have been twenty years ago.

On asking Bing, he turned up reference 2, which tells me all about it. It seems that before the all-important Aristotle, there were three main schools of Greek medicine, none of them in what is now mainland Greece: Croton in southern Italy, Agrigentum in southern Sicily and the island of Cos, which last later gave its name to the famous lettuce. 

Alcmaeon of Croton, who did dissection, believed in the supremacy of the brain. This being around the fifth century before our Lord, say 500-401BC (or BCE if you prefer). Well over two thousand years ago. It was also the time of the Buddha out east.

A successor, Democritus, went in for atoms. Small atoms mainly in the brain, middle sized atoms mainly in the heart and big atoms mainly in the liver. Responsible for the soul, the emotions and the grosser appetites respectively. A scheme I find rather attractive.

While Empedocles of Agrigentum went in for blood being all important, with the heart in charge. In some ways a reversion to earlier ideas from further south and east.

Then we had Hippocrates of Cos. The chap who gave his name to the Hippocratic oath, snapped above from Wikipedia at reference 4. Noting in passing that it forbids both suicide and abortion, both widely practised at the time. He did not go in for dissection but he and his followers did go in for doctoring for pay and did a lot of writing. He was interested in epilepsy and was clear about the primacy of the brain.

Aristotle knew about all this, but was a botanist rather than a doctor (which his father had been), and for some reason reverted to what was then the minority view of the primacy of the heart. The blood cooling role of the brain was important, was essential – but subordinate to that of the heart, the seat of the real action. In his private tutoring days, one of his pupils was the boy who went on to be Alexander the Great.

His scientific work lived on in the medical institute of Alexandria, founded by the then king of Egypt, who had been another of his pupils. An institute which, as least occasionally, went in for vivisection of criminals. It seems that the Greeks were rather squeamish about dissecting humans, but the Egyptians, possibly because of their funerary customs and canopic jars, were rather less so. But proper study of the brain had to wait until Galen, who came much later, in the Roman era.

The wider work of Aristotle went on to dominate western thought for getting on for two thousand years. On which, if you want a break from Wikipedia, you can always visit reference 5.

In sum, Bloom’s short story about how we have slowly learned about the functions of the brain over the last couple of thousand years is not greatly disturbed, but he is guilty of careless glossing. Although I would add, in mitigation, that when writing with a broad brush, proper checking of all this sort of thing is time consuming and often boring, even in the age of connection. The sort of thing one might like to delegate to an assistant, if one could afford one.

I close with Gross, who reminds us that Portia was still speculating about the roles of brains and hearts in ‘The Merchant of Venice’. Which reminds me that the blood theory lives on in plenty of common phrases: the blood line, mixed blood, bad blood between neighbours, something being in the blood and someone’s blood being up. Not to mention feeling a bit liverish. Also that the blood is important in moving chemicals, chemical messages and markers around the body. The ancients did have a point.

PS: Wikipedia suggests that versions of the Hippocratic oath are still used in the US, but not here in the UK. Which last accords with what I have been told about the matter by a correspondent.

References

Reference 1: Descarte's baby: how the science of child development explains what makes us human - Paul Bloom – 2004.

Reference 2: Aristotle on the Brain - Charles G. Gross – 1995.

Reference 3: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/04/on-disgust.html. 

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath. 

Reference 5: https://plato.stanford.edu/search/searcher.py?query=aristotle. 

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