Willis

“Just as the biological psychiatry of the 20th century refuted Freud’s principles, Thomas Willis overthrew the mediaeval concepts about brain function 350 years ago. Willis’s works, particularly Cerebri anatome, had a great influence in Europe and contributed to the weakening of the prevailing Galenian movement. . . . . Willis rejected Cartesian ideas and recognized the cerebral cortex, not the ventricles, as the substrate of cognition. He recognized the brain as an alembic in which brain disturbances are caused by distillation problems (chemical disorders). . . . His multidisciplinary research done for clinical purposes set a precedent for current translational research” (Arraez-Aybar, et al.). As an anatomist, Willis replaced technique of previous anatomists of extracting brain slices with removal of entire brain intact from cadavers and slicing it from bottom up; this permitted study of a less deformed organ. “Although Willis regarded Galen and Hippocrates as the founding fathers of medicine, he held the view that the Classical anatomists not only lacked sufficient anatomical detail but that they were also affected by a flawed, pagan-based belief system” (Arraez-Aybar, et al., citing Dewhurst [II]).