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Robert L. Martensen. The Brain Takes Shape: An Early History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. xvii + 247 pp. 111. $49.95 (0-19-515172-0).
The subject of this book is the emergence of what the author calls the "cerebral body." Robert Martensen maintains that the notion that full personhood is dependent on the integrity of the solid portions of the brain is of relatively recent provenance: he dates its inception to the turbulent context of mid- to late seventeenth-century England. This would make the cerebral body the product of the same epoch in which the foundations of modern natural philosophy were laid. There was indeed a notable overlap in personnel between those involved in formulating new ideas of the relation of mind and brain and the founders of the Royal Society of London. Both developments were, moreover, caught up in the social and political upheaval that convulsed England during this period. There was a "crisis of the body" as well as a crisis of...