The Brain

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of ideas about the human brain. Since time immemorial people have puzzled over the brain and its functions. In the 5th century BC the Greek physician Hippocrates confidently asserted:”Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, grieves and tears.” This might suggest that people have never doubted the importance of the brain, but for Aristotle the heart was the ruler of the body and the seat of the soul. Only in the 17th century, with new scientific advances, did the true importance of the brain begin to be appreciated. In 1669 the Danish anatomist, Nicolaus Steno, still lamented that, “the brain, the masterpiece of creation, is almost unknown to us.”How far have our perceptions of how the brain works and what it symbolises changed over the centuries? And, in amongst the matter or our little grey cells, are we still searching for our souls?

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Vivian Nutton 5 episodes
  Professor of the History of Medicine at University College London
• Jonathan Sawday 6 episodes
  Professor of English Studies at the University of Strathclyde
• Marina Wallace No other episodes
  Professor at the University of the Arts, London, Central St Martin's College of Art and Design

Related episodes

• Neuroscience in the 20th century
  
  24 Dec, 1998 610 Medicine and health
• Neuroscience
  
  13 Nov, 2008 610 Medicine and health
• The Heart
  
  1 Jun, 2006 610 Medicine and health
• The Brain and Consciousness
  
  19 Nov, 1998 150 Psychology
• Consciousness
  
  25 Nov, 1999 120 Epistemology
• Anatomy
  
  14 Feb, 2002 610 Medicine and health
• The Eye
  
  27 Feb, 2014 610 Medicine and health
• Imagination and Consciousness
  
  29 Jun, 2000 120 Epistemology
• Imagination
  
  28 Nov, 2002 150 Psychology
• Dreams
  
  4 Mar, 2004 150 Psychology
• The Infant Brain
  
  4 Mar, 2010 150 Psychology
• The Mind/Body Problem
  
  13 Jan, 2005 120 Epistemology
• The Soul
  
  6 Jun, 2002 120 Epistemology
• The Nervous System
  
  10 Feb, 2011 610 Medicine and health
• Empiricism
  
  10 Jun, 2004 190 Modern Western Philosophy
• Inspiration and Genius
  
  15 Jun, 2000 150 Psychology
• Perception and the Senses
  
  28 Apr, 2005 150 Psychology
• Common Sense Philosophy
  
  21 Jun, 2007 100 Philosophy
• Animal Experiments and Rights
  
  18 Mar, 1999 170 Ethics
• Socrates
  
  27 Sep, 2007 180 Ancient, medieval, and Eastern philosophy

---

Programme ID: b00b54yx

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00b54yx

Auto-category: 610.9 (History of Medicine)