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UNDERSTANDING BRAIN THROUGH THE HISTORY

Anja Petaros

Sažetak

Humankind has always employed many scientific and less scientific methods in the attempt
to define the origin of our existence and the functioning of our body. In this process a lot of
energy has been employed to study the brain.
From the very beginning, the real role of the brain was not recognized, and the brain was
treated in many different wrong ways: as a mystic organ in the Paleolithic and as a useless
organ in the Egyptian medicine. This idea of the brain began to change only with the development
of the Greek philosophy and Roman medicine. Plato, Hypocrates, Pythagoras and other
cerebrocentrists started to describe the brain as the most important human organ. Through
many experiments, Galen tried to prove his theories and to define the real role of the brain.
Although his results were incorrect because based on animal examples, they were utilized and
accepted by the medicine of later periods (until the 17th century). Only with the beginning of
Renaissance many scientists and artists resumed brain studies and pointed out the mistakes
made by the Galenic medicine. Andreas Vesalius, Leonardo da Vinci, and Thomas Willis
significantly contributed to understanding the brain, its morphology and its functioning. This
trend continued in the 18th and 19th century when the human body started to be accepted
as a machine, moved mainly by the principles of physics and mathematics. These discoveries
played the main role in the later development of brain science which continued in the 20th
and 21st century.

Ključne riječi

History of medicine; brain; neuroscience

Hrčak ID:

101680

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/101680

Datum izdavanja:

15.12.2007.

Podaci na drugim jezicima: hrvatski

Posjeta: 3.473 *