Margaret Cavendish, Thomas Willis, and the Circle of the Brain

A Portrait of Margaret Cavendish (1661–1717)

"True it is, Spinning with the Fingers is more proper to our Sexe, then studying or writing Poetry, which is the Spinning with the braine: but I having no skill in the Art of the first (and if I had, I had no hopes of gaining so much as to make me a Garment to keep me from the cold) made me delight in the latter; since all braines work naturally, and incessently, in some kinde or other; which made me endeavour to Spin a Garment of Memory, to lapp up my Name, that it might grow to after Ages: I cannot say the Web is strong, fine, or evenly Spun, for it is a Course peice; yet I had rather my Name should go meanly clad, then dye with cold. . . "

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A Portrait of Thomas Willis (1621-1675) and the Frontispiece of his Cerebri Anatome of 1664

The Circle of Willis:
Basic Info from Wikipedia
Medical Overview of Circle of Willis

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More for the Curious...


On Cavendish
From The Atomic Poems of Margaret (Lucas) Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, from her Poems, and Fancies, 1653, an electronic edition. Edited with an introduction by Leigh Tillman 
Partington

"In Cavendish's atomic theory, all matter is composed of four elements, either in a pure form or mixed in various ratios. The four elements are fire, earth, air, and water, and they are comprised of atoms of different shapes. Fire's atoms are sharp; earth's are square and flat; air's are long, straight, and hollow; and water's are round and hollow. The longer atoms, fire and air, are more active than the squatter atoms, earth and water. Fire atoms are the most active, earth, the least. All of the atoms have the same weight and the same amount of matter, but they vary in size or shape. When the atoms join together in harmonious unity, they form various parts of the natural world. However, if the joined atoms begin to disagree and fight, illness or change occurs.

Atoms are closely related to health for Cavendish. Not only does sickness result from squabbling atoms, she also supposes that duration of life depends on how tightly the atoms are packed together. Vegetables are packed most loosely, animals more tightly, and humans tightest of all. A loose atomic structure, therefore, is undesirable. However, loose atoms do have their uses: loose fire and air atoms in the brain result in a nimble, creative mind (loose earth and water atoms cause dullness and sleepiness). Motion determines which atoms will be where, and how tightly they are packed --she compares motion to a shepherd, and atoms to sheep. Atoms also cause human diseases, such as consumption, and human emotions,such as melancholy.

Again, unity and harmony are the keys to happiness. A healthy atom dances, while Motion directs the steps. Cavendish's system is a cooperative, unified system, where dissention causes illness, earthquakes, and death. Considering the political and religious upheaval in England during this time, her insistence on unity seems all the more wistful. She ends her series of poems with some speculation on motion, which she considers the life of all things, and infinity, which we've seen is dangerous ground.

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On Willis

Selections from James P.B. O'Connor,
Thomas Willis and the background to Cerebri Anatome
J R Soc Med. 2003 March; 96(3): 139–143. PMCID: PMC539424

HOW DID WILLIS INVESTIGATE THE BRAIN?

Willis recognized the importance of method in studying the brain. The first (and longest) chapter ofCerebri Anatome was devoted to an account on how best to analyse the brain and nerves, since previous anatomists were let down by ‘flawed techniques’, producing artifactual results. Several approaches were used in conjunction to prepare material for the lectures and for Cerebri Anatome. Work on the material was a collaborative effort between Willis, Richard Lower, Thomas Millington and Christopher Wren, who had all worked together in Oxford during the Commonwealth.

The practice of autopsy was commonplace by the mid-seventeenth century in England. Willis dissected bodies of deceased patients, adding information to the animal dissections that he performed13. He seems to have directed most of the dissection, performed by Lower in the back rooms of houses and inns. Wren and Millington were frequently present ‘to confer and reason about the uses of the parts’. The brain was approached from below and removed from the skull before being sliced from the base upwards, in contrast to traditional methods of in situ dissection. The specimens were then examined through a magnifying glass and drawn by Wren14.

Willis followed the Galenic tradition of describing parts of the body and then suggesting a use to account for their appearance. In Cerebri Anatome, Willis repeatedly cites the similarity in structure between man and animals and the differences in ‘uses’ as evidence of an immaterial God-given soul.

Cerebri Anatome refers to some rudimentary experimentation, although in 1660 the nature of an ‘experiment’ was not rigorously defined. Willis had formerly collaborated with Robert Boyle, whose discourses on the nature of experimental philosophy had been adopted by the Royal Society as the way of obtaining knowledge. Wren used microscopy to analyse brain specimens. Wren and Lower performed dye injections, and these were the basis for Willis's discovery of the flow of blood in the cerebral arteries. Most famously, injection studies on animals immediately after death demonstrated that blockage of just one of the four main cerebral arteries would not lead to apoplexy.

Willis backed up his morbid anatomy and experimental philosophy by recalling case histories from living patients. It was in this way that ‘the circle of Willis’, referring to the arterial supply at the base of the brain, was described (Figure 3). On other occasions, Willis embellished his empirical data with unsubstantiated speculation, incorporating theories on the compensation of matter and the action of the ‘spirits’. Medical practice in the latter half of the seventeenth century was still largely a mix of empiricism and theory, with no clear division between the two.

Figure 3

Christopher Wren's famous depiction of the base of the human brain as published in Cerebri Anatome [Reproduced by permission from Hughes JT, Thomas Willis 1621-1675: His Life and Works, RSM Press, 1991]

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BRAIN AND SOUL

The nature of the soul was intensely debated during the Restoration. The relation of man's immortal soul to the body and universe was questioned since new philosophies had thrown doubt on the number of components of the soul and their sites of operation. The answers had a profound bearing on the doctrine of the Resurrection, an issue that dominated theology in the second half of the seventeenth century. In England, natural philosophy grappled with William Harvey's claim that the soul was a property of the blood—a notion derived from Aristotle, who saw the heart as the prime mover. Continental philosophers held different views: van Helmont located the soul in the pylorus and Descartes favoured the pineal gland. Henry More doubted whether a soft, curd-like substance such as the brain could allow for higher faculties4.

In his earlier work in Oxford, Willis had modified the theories of Aristotelian elements, the Paracelsian concept of active particles, and a version of Gassendi's atomism. He created a system composed of five elements (spirits, sulphur and salt which were active, as well as earth and water which bound the others together), from which all matter was derived15. Although Willis rejected the Galenic doctrine of the four humours, he did little more than change the emphasis, still concentrating on imbalances and the non-naturals.

In chapter ten of Cerebri Anatome Willis described a three-component soul. Like Harvey and the Paduan school, he argued that a vital soul, the flamma vitalis, acted within the blood. A sensitive soul arose from the vital soul, formed by the procreation of spirits in a ‘double fountain’ of arteries supplying the cerebrum and cerebellum in a parallel neural circulation of spiritus. Both vital and sensitive souls were, according to Willis, to be found in man and beast alike. They were responsible for basic biological functions such as sensation and motion, as well as some higher functions including knowledge and simple reasoning. In addition, man alone had an immortal soul for higher thought, will and judgment. Though immaterial it operated on the brain. Willis claimed that the ‘rational soul variously moves the sensitive’, using it as a vehicle9. His view of the functioning body, and the anatomy of the brain and nervous system, was formed by his understanding of the nature of the soul.