Thomas Willis and the background to Cerebri Anatome.

Abstract

In 1664 Thomas Willis (1621-1675) published a text on the brain and nerves that was to be deeply influential for the next two centuries. Initially, Cerebri Anatome had little impact on English medical practice, though it enhanced Willis's reputation to the extent that he was able to become a prosperous London physician1. Primitive descriptions of the arterial anastomosis at the base of the brain already existed in 1664. Willis improved on these accounts, and made the first attempt to attribute a function to the anatomy that he described. In the eighteenth century his description of the brain became accepted as definitive, appearing in the Bibliotheca Anatomica of 1774-1777 for the first time as the famous ‘circle of Willis’. Modern historical scholarship has highlighted the contribution that Willis made to neuroanatomy, which had been previously eclipsed by contemporaries such as Thomas Browne2. Although his description of the anatomy of the brain remains important for contemporary neurological science, Willis's understanding of the brain was very different from that of modern scientific thought. Willis wrote Cerebri Anatome while Professor of Natural Philosophy in Oxford, where he used the anatomy of the brain as a tool to investigate the nature of the soul. He wrote at a time when England was in great political and religious turmoil, following the Civil War and the execution of Charles I, and his work reflects his allegiances during this turbulent period. In this paper, I discuss the dependence of Willis's description of anatomy upon his concept of the human soul. By considering Cerebri Anatome as a product of the life that Willis led, it is possible to understand his anatomical descriptions as a reflection of beliefs and practices in the mid-seventeenth century.