Article ID: CBB328347072

The Historical Origins of the Vegetative State: Received Wisdom and the Utility of the Text (2017)

unapi

The persistent vegetative state (PVS) is one of the most iconic and misunderstood phrases in clinical neuroscience. Coined as a diagnostic category by Scottish neurosurgeon Bryan Jennett and American neurologist Fred Plum in 1972, the phrase “vegetative” first appeared in Aristotle’s treatise On the Soul (circa mid-fourth century BCE). Aristotle influenced neuroscientists of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Xavier Bichat and Walter Timme, and informed their conceptions of the vegetative nervous system. Plum credits Bichat and Timme in his use of the phrase, thus putting the ancient and modern in dialogue. In addition to exploring Aristotle’s definition of the “vegetative” in the original Greek, we put Aristotle in conversation with his contemporaries—Plato and the Hippocratics—to better apprehend theories of mind and consciousness in antiquity. Utilizing the discipline of reception studies in classics scholarship, we demonstrate the importance of etymology and historical origin when considering modern medical nosology.

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Authors & Contributors
Casper, Stephen T.
Karakis, Ioannis
Waclawik, Andrew J.
Shorvon, Simon
Rossor, Martin
Christopher J. Boes
Journals
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences
Taiwan shehui yanjiu jikan (Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies)
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Publishers
University of Rochester Press
Springer-Verlag
R.K. Hay
MIT Press
Cambridge University Press
Concepts
Neurology
Neurological diseases
Neurosciences
Neurosurgery; psychosurgery
Nervous system
Disease and diseases
People
Oppenheim, Hermann
Sahs, Adolph L.
Bouchet, Camille
Todd, Robert Bentley
Vogt, Oskar
Vogt, Cécile
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
Modern
Ancient
18th century
Places
Manitoba (Canada)
London (England)
Greece
Germany
France
Taiwan
Institutions
American Academy of Neurology (AAN)
Queen Square, London
National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery
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