The Brain and the Unconscious Soul in Eighteenth-Century Nervous Physiology: Robert Whytt’s Sensorium Commune

This article examines the work of eighteenth-century Scottish physician Robert Whytt. With a philosophical sensibility, Whytt produced a theory of the nerves that viewed the nervous system as an organic unity, one that continuously integrated man’s vital motions and rational capacities. With Whytt, the human had become “nervous” through and through, that is, neurologically self-unified to the point that nervous illness itself became a contingency that folded back into the nervous norm. The article examines Whytt’s writings along with some of the conceptual challenges surrounding the nature of the brain and nerves that historically converged in his work.

Duke Scholars

Author Nima Bassiri Literature