Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1139

SAMUEL THOMAS VON SOEMMERRING (1755-1830) Über den Saft. Bei Philipp Krüll 1811 207 pp., 6 fold. plates. 19.5 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 1130

In this first German edition of an essay submitted for a prize competition at Amsterdam in 1810, Soemmerring has discussed the origin and function of the cerebrospinal fluid in health and disease. He includes such wide ranging conditions as epilepsy, headache, neuritis, depression, hydrophobia, facial pain, smallpox, apoplexy, arthritis, tuberculosis, venereal disease, and many others. He erroneously believed that the cerebrospinal fluid was absorbed by the lymphatics and that nerve impulses resulted from movements of the fluid. He "regressed to the medieval theory of ventricular function when he contended in 1796 that fluid in the brain ventricles could be animated and was the immediate organ of the soul, the "sensorium commune" (Edwin Clarke and Kenneth Dewhurst, An illustrated history of brain function. Oxford, 1972. p. 85).

Gift of John Martin, M.D.