HANDBOOK OF PHYSIOLOGY ^ NEUROPHYSIOLOGY I 



all generally by scholars in Western Europe (i, 2). 

 In the sixteenth century Thomas Linacre (3), physi- 

 cian to Henry V'lII, who had taught Greek to Eras- 

 mus at Oxford, translated some of Galen's works into 

 Latin directly from the Greek. The copies he gave to 

 Henrv VIII and to Cardinal VVolsey can be seen in 

 the British Museum. Erasmus, commenting on Lin- 

 acre's translations, said, "I present you with the 

 works of Galen, by the help of Linacre, speaking better 

 Latin than ever they spoke Greek." 



Galen's emphasis, in spite of his dissection of ani- 

 mals, was not so much on the structures he found as 

 on the contents of the cavities within them. Function, 

 according to his doctrine, was mediated by humors 

 which were respon.sible for all sensation, movement, 

 desires and thought, and hence pathology was 

 founded on humoral disturbance. The role of the 

 organs of the body was to manufacture and process 

 these humors. His teaching about the nervous system 

 was that the blood, manufactured in the liver and 

 carrying in it natural spirits, flowed to the heart where 

 a change took place converting them into vital spirits. 

 These travelled to the reie muahtle (the terminal 

 branches of the carotid arteries at the base of the 

 brain) where they were changed into animal spirits,- 

 a subtle fluid which then flowed out to the body 

 through hollow nerves. Some of the.se ideas Galen 

 developed from those of his predece.s.sors (such as 

 Alcmaeon, Herophilos, Erisistratos), some were 

 inspired by his dissection of animals, but all were 

 hypothetical, none had any experimental proof or 



1. Galen (130-200 A.D.). Opera Omnia (in acdibus Atdi el 

 Andrea Asulani) (in Greek). Venice, 1525. 5 vol. 



2. Galen. Opera Omnia (in Greek). Basle, 1538. 



3. Galen. De Facullalibiis naturalibus, Latin translation by 

 Thomas Linacre. London: Pynson, 1523; English transla- 

 tion by A. J. Brock, Loeb Classical Library. London: 

 Heineman, 1916. 



' The usage of the term animal spirits' throughout the 

 centuries carries the connotation of the Latin anima meaning 

 soul and has no reference to the modern meaning of the word 

 'animal.' 



^ No other was to appear until the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century when Johann Gottfried von Berger (1659-1736) 

 published his textbook entitled P/iysiologa Medica sine natura 

 humana. Wittenberg: Kreusig, 1701. 



' "Nor lesse Worthy of Commendation are the Cravings. . . 

 those eleven pieces of Anatomic made for Andrea Vessalius 

 design'd by Calcare the Fleming, an Excellent painter, and 

 which were afterwards engraven in Copper by Valverdi in 

 little." Evelyn, John. Sculpltira: or the History, and Art of Chalcog- 

 raphy. London, 1662. The reference is to the plagiarism of the 

 Spaniard, Juan Valverde. Vivae Imagines Partium Corporis 

 Humani. Antwerp: Plantin, 1566. (His artist was Becerra.) 



even partial support, yet some of them were to last 

 well into the nineteenth century. 



The sixteenth century gave to physiology its first 

 textbook.^ This was the contribution of Jean Fernel, 

 physician and scholar, who in 1542 published his 

 De Naturali Parte Medicinae (4). This was so well 

 received that it saw inany editions. In the ninth of 

 these Fernel changed the title to Medicina (5) and 

 named the first section of the revised book Physio- 

 logia. According to Sherrington (6) this was the first 

 use of the term 'physiology.' There is, however, a 

 manuscript in the Danish Royal Library entitled 

 Physiologus that deals with animals and inonsters. 

 This copy is an Icelandic version of an apparently 

 much-copied treatise; it is a kind of bestiary. For some 

 time after Fernel's revival of it, the term 'physiology' 

 was still used by most writers to mean natural philoso- 

 phy. An example of this usage is to be found in the full 

 title of Gilberd's book on the magnet published in 

 1600. Although still grounded in a classification de- 

 rived froin the four elements of the ancients, Fernel's 

 physiology nevertheless shows dawning recognition 

 of some of the automatic movements which we now 

 know to be reflexly initiated for, although only the 

 voluntary muscles were known to him, he realized that 

 sometimes they moved independently of the will. 



Before the seventeenth century opened, a technical 

 achievement in another field laid a foundation on 

 which physiology was to spread. Lagging about 50 

 years after the invention of printing came the develop- 

 ment of copper plate engraving and accurate repro- 

 ductions of anatomists' drawings became more 

 widely distributed. Supreine, however, ainong the 

 woodcuts contemporary with the early engravings 

 were those made from the drawings of Jan Stephen of 

 Calcar for the anatoinical studies of Vesalius (7^9). 

 These, published in 1543, were to draw the praise of 

 John Evelyn in his treatise on chalcography.^ After 



4. Fernel, Jean (1497- 1558). De Naturali Parte Medicinae. 

 Paris: Simon de Colines, 1542. 



5. Fernel, J. Medicina. Paris: Wechsel, 1554. P/iysiologia, 

 translated into French by Charles de Saint Germain, 

 Les VII Livres de la Physiologic, composes en Latin par Messire 

 Jean Fernel. Paris: Guignard, 1655. 



6. Sherrington, C. S. The Endeavour of Jean Fernel. Cam- 

 bridge: Cambridge, 1946. 



7. Vesalius, Andreas (1514-1564). De Humani Corporis 

 Fabrica. Basle: Oporinus, 1543; translated into English 

 by J. B. de C. M. Saunders and C. D. OMallcy. New 

 York: Schuman, 1947. 



8. Vesalius, A. Epitome. Basle: Oporinus, translated into 

 English by L. R. Rind. New York: Macmillan, 1949. 



9. Vesalius, .\. Tabulae Sex. Venice, 1538. 



