Past Programs
Medical History - 2004
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Brains in Vats, Bottles and Banks: The Strange Life of the Disembodied Brain.
07/08/2004
This week, a strange and philosophical trip into science fiction and medical ethics. What is the life of a brain without a body? Popular culture has long toyed with the spectacle of the brain in a vat, and the question of whether our cerebral self could exist outside of our bodies. From body-snatching to the rise of the modern brain bank, and Britain's macabre organ retention scandal - join Natasha Mitchell and historian and philosopher of science, Dr Cathy Gere, for an out of body experience.
Thomas Willis: The Soul Made Flesh
08/05/2004
The physician Thomas Willis was the guy who placed the soul back into the body. In the 17th century, his extraordinary efforts to document the brain's anatomy and function came at a time when the heart was considered the seat of all sensory experience, the soul was an immaterial and immortal beast, and the brain was little more than an unimpressive "bowl of curds". But despite setting the agenda for 21st century neuroscience, the world's first neurologist remains unknown to most of us today. Award-winning science journalist Carl Zimmer joins Natasha Mitchell this week to put Willis firmly back on his heady pedestal.
The Anatomy of Melancholy
24/04/2004
Published in 1621, The Anatamomy of Melancholy is one of the great classics on the mind and its discontents. Today it reads as a curious treatise on depression with a strong satirical vein, but in its time it was an enormously influential work, inspiring the efforts of both Keats and Byron, amongst others. Samuel Johnson, it is reported, nominated it as the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise! This week, Sue Clark travels back in time to contemplate the legacy of the great tome's author, Oxford clergyman and scholar Robert Burton.
The transcript of this program will be available by Thursday 29 April 2004, but catch the Real Audio on the All In the Mind homepage after Saturday's broadcast.
Wandering Wombs and Animal Spirits: Ancient Greeks on the Psyche
13/03/2004
From wandering wombs to animal spirits, All in the Mind unearths some secrets of the psyche in Ancient Greece. The physicians Hippocrates and Galen lived nearly 5 centuries apart, but helped transform the way we think about the body and brain. No longer were physical and nervous diseases the work of the supernatural. Dr Julius Rocca explores the extraordinary anatomical explorations of the brain by Galen. But medical historian Helen King, author of Hippocrates Women: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece, presses for deep caution in the rereading of the Hippocratic texts. In recent centuries, she argues, they've been misused to justify unfounded medical diagnoses, like hysteria in women. [Part of Greek Imprints: Radio National's Olympic Odyssey all March! More on the Odyssey...]
Unwanted Memories: Freud's Unconscious Uncovered?
06/03/2004
Sigmund Freud proposed that we all suppress unwanted and painful memories and unearthing these discontents of our Unconscious became the basis of psychoanalysis. There's never been a biological explanation for his idea, but recent research from Stanford University and the University of Oregon suggests there is a brain mechanism that acts to block unwanted memories. Could the much maligned Freud have been on the right track after all? This week on All in the Mind, Sue Clark speaks to the lead researcher.
