Willis
NAME:
Willis, Thomas
ACHIEVEMENTS:
17th century advances in neuroanatomy and clinical medicine
NICKNAME/ALIAS:
None
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
27 January 1621, Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire, England
DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH AND AGE AT DEATH:
11 November 1675, London, England. Aged 54
DISCIPLINE:
Physician
FIELD:
Medicine
LANGUAGE:
English
PARENTS:
Father: Thomas Willis|
Mother: Rachel Howell
SIBLINGS:
None
SPOUSE:
- Mary Fell
- Elizabeth Calley
CHILDREN:
4 survived infancy
EDUCATION:
Sylvester's Academy, Oxford
Christ Church, Oxford University
MAJOR WORK:
(1664) "Anatomy of the Brain, with a Description of the Nerves and Their Function"
LIFE AND TIMES:
Willis was awarded a medical degree at Oxford in December 1646. Earlier that year, during the Civil War between the Puritan Cromwellians and the Catholic Royalists, Oxford had surrendered to Cromwell’s army and Willis was probably given a degree to prevent any new Puritan academics from exercising discrimination against him. He continued his studies, which included lectures in anatomy and medicine from <taught by> Petty*, and set up a medical practice from his rooms in Christ Church.
Willis also turned up on market day in the small towns around Oxford to compete with quacks in offering his medical services to the public. His practise was very small at the beginning and he had time to conduct scientific research in his rooms and to attend the meetings at Wadham College, presided over by <a pal of> Wilkins*, at which mathematicians, medical men and those interested in natural science met to discuss scientific research and conducting the new “experiments.”
Those interested in anatomy carried out post mortems and in December 1650 Willis and Petty became involved in a bizarre episode of resuscitation. A young woman called Ann Green had been hanged for murder and pronounced dead after half an hour. Her body was taken to Willis's lodgings for dissection. When Willis and Petty arrived the coffin had been opened, signs of life detected and an attempt made to end Green's life by stamping on her chest. Willis and Petty revived her, after which she became famous and was pardoned.
Petty left Oxford in 1651 and Willis became Oxford's leading medical scientist. He married, moved into his own home in 1657 and built up a large clinical practice while still conducting his medical and scientific research.
In 1658 he published his first major work containing observations based on his own clinical experience and experiments, and in which he detailed many of the medicines he prescribed.
In the section on fermentation he attempted to understand the biological chemistry of the body; in that on fevers he distinguished several different types of fever. His work is evidence for the fact that malaria existed in England in the seventeenth century and his account of epidemics in 1657-58 has been called the first systematic piece of epidemiology written in England. His description of camp fever has been recognized as the first clear record of typhus fever in England, and he gave the first modern account of puerperal fever.
In 1660 the monarchy was restored and many Puritan faculty were removed from their posts. Willis became professor of natural philosophy and from this position promoted the new way of learning through observation and experiment rather than through study of classical texts.
He was now the most successful practising doctor in Oxford and in 1667 moved to London where there was a larger medical and scientific community which included many of his friends such as the scientist <a pal of> Boyle* and <a pal of> Wren*. He established a thriving and fashionable medical practise in Westminster where he also treated the poor free, and continued to undertake his scientific research in his own laboratory.
In 1664 he published the work for which he is famous, "Anatomy of the Brain, with a Description of the Nerves and Their Function"), with an acknowledgement for Wren's assistance in the preface and drawings. The work was the most up to date publication on the anatomy of the nervous system and remained the standard textbook for well over a hundred years.
In it, Willis described the anatomy of the brain, the spinal cord and that of the peripheral and autonomic nervous systems. Before Willis, the connection of the brain to the peripheral nervous system was unclear. After Willis, anatomical drawings of the nervous system began to be accurate. He provided valuable original information on the cranial nerves, the spinal cord and its blood supply, and the autonomic nervous system. He discovered the eleventh cranial nerve (the spinal accessory nerve) responsible for motor stimulation of major neck muscles. He also gave the first accurate illustration of the union and branching of the cerebral arteries at the base of brain, now known as the Circle of Willis.
In 1649 Descartes published a treatise on the first experiments in human reflex action. Willis included a description of the reflex action in his book but although his theory was clearer than that of <influenced by> Descartes*, Willis mistakenly believed that the nerve impulse was transmitted to and from the brain.
In 1667 he produced a treatise describing cases of nervous diseases, in which he was the first to define epilepsy as a distinct entity. He also gave an important description of the clinical signs of asthma. He also went against current thinking by suggesting that hysteria and hypochondria are both disorders of the brain. In 1672 he described the function of brain and its disorders and gave the first ever description of an ear disease which has remained an important diagnostic tool. Willis also gave the first description of myasthenia gravis, a disease in which muscular fatigue is followed by progressive paralysis.
His publications brought Willis great fame at home and abroad. He died probably of tuberculosis
ASSESSMENT: Willis was gave an account of the nervous system which was the most complete and accurate of its time.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Knew instrument-maker <knew> Hooke*
ONELINER: Thomas Willis, pioneer in brain studies
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Hughes, J. Trevor, Thomas Willis, His Life and Work, Royal Society of Medicine Services Ltd., London, 1991