Brain, Mind and Medicine: (eBook)

Contents 6
Contributors list 9
Section A Introduction 12
Introduction 13
Chronology 15
Section B Background 21
Introduction 22
Brain and Mind in the ÎLongÌ Eighteenth Century 24
Enlightening Neuroscience: Microscopes and Microscopy in the Eighteenth Century 38
Corpus Curricula: Medical Education and the Voluntary Hospital Movement 51
Some Thoughts on the Medical Milieu in the Last Quarter of the Eighteenth Century as Reflected in the Life and Activities of James Parkinson ( 1755Ò 1824) 61
Section C The Nervous System 69
Introduction 70
John HunterÌs Contributions to Neuroscience 73
William Cullen (1710Ò1790) and Robert Whytt ( 1714Ò 1766) on the Nervous System 91
1710: The Introduction of Experimental Nervous System Physiology and Anatomy by Fran¡ois Pourfour du Petit 105
Irritable Glue: The HallerÒWhytt Controversy on the Mechanism of Muscle Contraction 120
The Taming of the Electric Ray: From a Wonderful and Dreadful Ï ArtÓ to Ï Animal ElectricityÓ and Ï Electric BatteryÓ 130
Luigi Galvani, Physician, Surgeon, Physicist: From Animal Electricity to Electro- Physiology 149
Section D Brain and Behaviour 163
Introduction 164
The Vision of William Porterfield 166
David HartleyÌs Neural Vibrations and Psychological Associations 180
Charles BonnetÌs Neurophilosophy 194
Swedenborg and Localization Theory 204
Section E Medical Theories and Applications 212
Introduction 213
Neuroscience in the Work of Boerhaave and Haller 215
Apoplexy: Changing Concepts in the Eighteenth Century 234
Benjamin Franklin and the Electrical Cure for Disorders of the Nervous System 245
GentlemanÌs Magazine, the Advent of Medical Electricity, and Disorders of the Nervous System 257
Therapeutic Attractions: Early Applications of Electricity to the Art of Healing 271
John Wesley on the Estimation and Cure of Nervous Disorders 284
Franz Anton Mesmer and the Rise and Fall of Animal Magnetism: Dramatic Cures, Controversy, and Ultimately a Triumph for the Scientific Method 299
Hysteria in the Eighteenth Century 319
Section F Cultural Consequences 329
Introduction 330
Technological Metaphors and the Anatomy of Representations in Eighteenth- Century French Materialism and Dualist Mechanism 332
Explorations of the Brain, Mind and Medicine in the Writings of Jonathan Swift 342
Temperament and the Long Shadow of Nerves in the Eighteenth Century 350
Index 367