Harvey on the soul: A unique episode in the history of psychophysiological thought

✍ Scribed by C. E. McMahon

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1975
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 608 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-5061
• DOI: 10.1002/1520-6696(197507)11:3<276::aid-jhbs2300110307>3.0.co;2-v

✦ Synopsis

Since receiving a Doctorate in 1973, CAROL MCMAHON has been engaged in fulltime research on the history of psychosomatic medicine and psychophysiology. This N I M H supported project has involved a period of research at LondOn 's Well.com Institute and the libraries of Cambridge University.

The history of psychosomatic medicine divides into two eras. Prior to the seventeenth century, medicine was wholistic because the biological soul underlay pathogenesis. Cartesian dualism made psychosomatic events logically impossible, and led to the establishment of mechanistic physiopathology. Harvey's mechanistic conception of heart-as-pump was incompatible with the predualistic designation of heart as seat of the soul. By designating blood as seat of the soul, Harvey managed to preserve the psychosomatic approach in his own system of medicine.