The Ancient Greek discovery of the nervous system: Alcmaeon, Praxagoras and Herophilus

Abstract

The aim of this historical overview is to show that the theories of Alcmaeon of Croton formed an important part of a developing conception of the brain and the nervous system. The vital contributions of Praxagoras of Kos, who suggested the existence of what we now call "neurons", and Herophilus of Chalcedon, who distinguished between sensory and motor nerves and demonstrated the existence of the nervous system by dissection, also established the foundation principles of neuroscience, but their importance is sometimes forgotten. We trace the discovery of the nervous system through an investigation of these three thinkers. Combining astounding philosophical concepts with sharp observation, they conceived and demonstrated the existence of a nervous system by the third century BCE. This discovery is central not only to neuroscience, but also to all of medicine and to our concept of the human organism: it articulated the connection between the mind, the brain, and the body.

Keywords: Alcmaeon; Ancient Greek; Herophilus; Nervous system; Praxagoras.