Article ID: CBB001212822

The Brain and the Unconscious Soul in Eighteenth-Century Nervous Physiology: Robert Whytt's “Sensorium Commune” (2013)

unapi

This article examines the work of eighteenth-century Scottish physician Robert Whytt. With a philosophical sensibility, Whytt produced a theory of the nerves that viewed the nervous system as an organic unity, one that continuously integrated man's vital motions and rational capacities. With Whytt, the human had become nervous through and through, that is, neurologically self-unified to the point that nervous illness itself became a contingency that folded back into the nervous norm. The article examines Whytt's writings along with some of the conceptual challenges surrounding the nature of the brain and nerves that historically converged in his work.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001212822/

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Authors & Contributors
Etchegaray, Claire
Jessica L. Wright
Bigotti, Fabrizio
Driggers, Edward Allen, Jr.
Keiser, Jess
Wright, Jessica
Concepts
Mind and body
Brain
Soul (philosophy)
Nervous system
Medicine
Physiology
Time Periods
18th century
17th century
19th century
Ancient
Enlightenment
Renaissance
Places
Scotland
Mediterranean region
Greece
France
Europe
Great Britain
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