Emanuel Swedenborg: A Neuroscientist Before His Time

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was a famous Swedish religious thinker and mystic He also wrote extensively on brain function Many of his writings on the brain remained unpublished for 100 years or more, none had any effect on the development of neuro science Yet they contain many extraordinary insights that did not recur until late in the 19th century. He was particularly prescient about the functions of the cerebral cortex, the corpus callosum, and the pituitary gland This article reviews Swedenborg's ideas on the brain in the context of 18th century knowledge and considers where they came from and why they were ignored NEUROSCIENTIST 3 142-147, 1997