Thomas Willis

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Thomas Willis

Thomas Willis (born January 27, 1621 in Great Bedwyn , Wiltshire near Oxford , † November 11, 1675 in London ) was an English doctor and is considered to be one of the founders of the anatomy of the nervous system , from which he also drew conclusions about mental illnesses . He was a co-founder of the Royal Society of London . Its multidisciplinary research for clinical purposes sets a precedent for current translational research

Life

Willis studied medicine in Oxford from 1636 , then took part in the English Civil War on the side of the royalists and in 1646 became a general practitioner in Oxford. As a reward for his royalism , he was appointed Professor of Natural History in 1660 . In 1666 he moved to London , where he researched to the end and ran a large practice as a doctor. He died of pneumonia at the age of 54 .

Services

Among other things, Willis discovered the arterial ring named after him ( Circulus arteriosus cerebri ) for the blood supply to the brain and described the restless legs syndrome for the first time .

With his work Cerebri Anatome , published in 1664, he provided a detailed description of the brain and nerves for the first time , the work was illustrated by Christopher Wren . Willis not only coined the term neurology , but also laid the foundation for the centuries of neurosis research a. began with George Cheyne (1641–1743), Robert Whytt (1714–1766) and William Cullen (1710–1790) in England, cf. Cape. Cultural and psychiatric historical aspects . The moral treatment of William Battie (1703–1776) and William Tuke (1732–1822) was also influenced by the tension created by the somatic knowledge. In addition, Willis introduced many terms in the fields of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neuropathology, such as: B. the concept of the reflex response , the cortical function, the brain localization and the internal secretion. He is the first to describe myasthenia gravis and earned merit in the observation of dementia , epilepsy and schizoaffective moods. He also introduced the numbering of the cranial nerves that is still valid today . Other important structures that Willis first described are: corpus striatum , thalamus opticus , pons and corpus mamillare .

In his book A Plain and Easy Method for Preserving those that are Well from the Infection of the Plague , and for Curing such as are Infected, printed in London in 1666, he warns against excessive alcohol consumption, but recommends moderate drinking , as did the medieval health teachings before him .

Cultural and psychiatric historical aspects

According to the terms from the founding years of the Royal Society , Willis is shaped by the physical and socio-moral ideas of his time. Willis was a contemporary of John Locke (1632–1704) and Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689) and prepared the public discussions on “madness” and “English Malady”, which u. a. by Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733), Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) and Daniel Defoe (1660-1731). Sydenham was also a member of the Royal Society. At that time, insanity was definitely a political issue and of national public interest, as this topic made itself felt in clubs, in magazines, in tea and coffee house discussions, on the street and in medical consultation hours ( consultation hours psychiatry ). Here it was customary for the voice of the people, the “common voice” or the “public spirit” or “common sense” to be given high priority. Anthony Shaftesbury (1671–1713) and the Scottish School took up this "common sense" and the reflective educational activity of subjectivity, which focuses on inwardness . Willis built these views into his psychological concept of "nerve spirits" (spiritus animales). External mechanical movements should play a role as well as imagination. The common sense ("sensus communis") lies in the middle of the brain. The nervous system is enthusiastic because of the "nerve spirits" and the "corporeal soul" and thus capable of psychological sensations. To this end he introduces the title of "psycheology".

This neurological-psychological system displaced the earlier humoral-chemical explanations. In particular, the functional syndromes were thus explained by Willis as forms of insanity in which no material damage was visible. Only the nerve spirits that can be recognized by their effects are damaged here. Any psychological, moral, social and political phenomena could be viewed as "sick" or "abnormal".

Willis represented the view, which had been new up to then and which was previously only expressed by Charles Le Pois in 1618, that hysteria was not a disease of the uterus, but a brain disease. The aforementioned Willis' theory of diseases (nerve spirits) is mainly applied to hysteria. Together with Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689) and Francis Glisson (1596–1677), this system of nerve sprites is also extended to hypochondria . Hysteria mostly affects women, except when they work hard, while hysteria affects men, especially if they tend to be sedentary. Dörner explains that the descriptions of the illness relate to the visible bourgeois public, especially to those in commercial or other offices or in academic or literary professions.

Fonts

Pathologiae Cerebri et Nervosi Generis Specimen
  • Cerebri anatome: cui accessit nervorum descriptio et usus . 1664
  • Pathologiae Cerebri et Nervosi Generis Specimen . 1667
  • De urinis dissertatio epistolica. Traj. ad Rhen. 1670
  • De Anima Brutorum . 1672
  • Pharmaceutice rationalis. Sive Diatriba de medicamentorum operationibus in humano corpore. Volume 1, 1674/1675, scan from Google Books
  • Pharmaceutice rationalis sive diatriba de medicamentorum operationibus in humano corpore . [Sl]; Hagae-Comitis: Leers, 1677. Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf
  • Clarissimi Viri Thomae Willis, Medicinae Doctoris, Naturalis Philosophiae Professoris Oxoniensis… Opera Omnia: Cum Elenchis Rerum Et Indicibus necessariis, ut & multis Figuris aeneis . 1681 Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf

literature

  • K. Dewhurst: Thomas Willis as a Physician . Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1964.
  • HR Isler: Thomas Willis. A pioneer of modern medicine, 1621–1675 . Scientific publishing company, Stuttgart 1965.
  • JT Hughes, Thomas Willis (1621-1675): His Life and Work . Royal Society of Medicine, London 1991.
  • M. Simonazzi: Thomas Willis e il sistema nervoso , in Id., La malattia inglese. La melanconia nella tradizione filosofica e medica dell'Inghilterra moderna . Il Mulino, Bologna 2004, pp. 185-152.
  • Wolf-Dieter Müller-Jahncke : Willis, Thomas. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1499.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Luis-Alfonso Arráez-Aybar, Pedro Navia-Álvarez, Talia Fuentes-Redondo, José-L. Bueno-López: Thomas Willis, a pioneer in translational research in anatomy (on the 350th anniversary of Cerebri anatome) . In: Journal of Anatomy . tape 226 , no. 3 , 2015, p. 289-300 , doi : 10.1111 / joa.12273 , PMID 25688933 (English).
  2. ↑ a b c Ackerknecht, Erwin H .: Brief history of psychiatry. 3rd edition, Enke, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-432-80043-6 , page 32.
  3. ↑ a b c d Dörner, Klaus : Citizens and Irre . On the social history and sociology of science in psychiatry. [1969] Fischer Taschenbuch, Bücher des Wissens, Frankfurt / M 1975, ISBN 3-436-02101-6 ; (a)  Beginning and progress of neurosis research : pages 35, 55, 62, 78, 107; (b)  Teaching of the Nerve Spirits : pp. 34–36; (c)  Functional disorders : page 36; (d)  Hysteria : pp. 36-38; Pages 35–38, 78
personal data
SURNAME Willis, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English doctor and anatomist
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1621
PLACE OF BIRTH Great Bedwyn , Wiltshire
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1675
Place of death London