Embodiments of Will

From the fifth century BCE onwards, Greek doctors and philosophers debated the ways in which the will could be translated into physical action. Aristotle and his followers believed that the heart was the controlling organ, working through sinews. Later anatomists, first in Alexandria in Egypt and later in the Roman world, continued to speculate for several centuries. Galen (129-ca. 216) established a new medical paradigm, insisting on the primacy of the brain mediating largely through nerves. The Aristotelian and Galenic theories continued to be debated in the Greek and Islamic worlds, and, in new Latin translations, in the later Western medieval universities. These debates were largely conducted without recourse to experiment. Even after Mondino de' Liuzzi had introduced the dissection of a corpse in his teaching at Bologna around 1318, the battle of the texts continued into the 17th century. Although Michael Frampton ranges widely in Embodiments of Will, he has left out much, including a recently (re)discovered treatise by Galen that considers in detail the relationship between the brain, the nerves, and bodily movements.