O My Soul يا نفس

يا نفس قد أزف الرحيل *** وأظلك الخطب الجليل

فـتأهــبي يـا نـفـس, لا *** يلعب بك الأمــل الطـــويــل

فـلـتـنـزلـن بـمنزل *** ينسى الخليل به الخليل

O my soul, indeed departure has drawn near
And a great matter is shading over you (i.e. death)

So prepare yourself O’ soul and do not allow
Long hopes to fool or deceive you

You will surely be placed in a position
Where even friends will forget each other (i.e. grave)

-Abul ‘Atahiyah

Holding Back The Years

Artist: Simply Red

A Machine To Weigh The Soul

Newly discovered papers have shed light on a fascinating episode in the history of neuroscience: Weighing brain activity with the balance

The story of the early Italian neuroscientist Dr Angelo Mosso and his ‘human circulation balance’ is an old one – I remember reading about it as a student, in the introductory bit of a textbook on fMRI – but until now, the exact details were murky.

In the new paper, Italian neuroscientists Sandrone and colleagues report that they’ve unearthed Mosso’s original manuscripts from an archive in Milan.

Mosso worked in the late 19th century, an era that was – in retrospect – right at the dawn of modern neuroscience. A major question at that time was the relationship between brain function and blood flow.

His early work included studies of the blood pressure in the brains of individuals with skull defects. His most ambitious project, however, was his balance – or as he sometimes called it, according to his daughter, his ‘metal cradle’ or ‘machine to weigh the soul’.

Here’s his own 1884 drawing of the contraption:

It was in essence just a large balance. A volunteer lay on a table, their head on one side of the scale’s pivot and their feet on the other. It was carefully adjusted so that the two sides were perfectly balanced.

The theory was that if mental activity caused increased brain blood flow, it ought to increase the weight of the head relative to the rest of the body, so that side of the balance would fall.

Mosso claimed that this, indeed, occurred – starting to read a newspaper caused the brain to get weightier, while a difficult book of philosophy was even more effective, presumably because it required more mental effort to understand.

Matters were rather complex, however, because Mosso had realized that in order to obtain valid results, it was necessary to correct for things such as head movement, breathing, and pulse. These physiological artifacts still causeendless problems for neuroscientists to this day.

To measure and eliminate these sources of noise, Mosso build his balance to include a series of sphygmographs – pressure monitors (complex machines in their own right) – to record blood-flow in the hand, the foot, and also chest movements during breathing. The whole thing was connected to a pen that made a trace on a sheet of paper stuck to a rotating, clockwork drum – thus plotting the data as a graph.

But did it really work? It’s plausible, but Sandrone et al are noncommittal:

Overall, despite Mosso’s keen awareness of the number of artifacts that might arise from this procedure, together with his extensive efforts to quantify possible confounding variables, it is not clear whether the ‘Mosso method’ could realistically and sensibly discriminate between the signal (real brain blood flow changes) and the noise.

While it’s certainly true that local brain activity does alter local blood flow (this is the basis of fMRI and other modern neuroimaging methods), it’s hard to say whether this would affect the overall weight of the head. Even if it did, the effect might be too small to detect with any technology available in Mosso’s time.

Either way, it was an amazing endeavor. The public at the time were sold on the idea – so much so, that they sound almost 21st century in their hopes…

On 1 December 1908, a French newspaper reported that numerous people ‘were passionate about the experiments of Professor Angelo Mosso’ and enthusiastically believed that this device ‘would soon fully explain the physiology of the human brain’ and lead to new treatments for neurological and mental illnesses.

Source: Discover Magazine

A Dialogue Between The Soul and The Body

Image from: Star Trek, Lazarus battles anti-matter self.

SOUL

O who shall, from this dungeon, raise

A soul enslav'd so many ways?

With bolts of bones, that fetter'd stands

In feet, and manacled in hands;

Here blinded with an eye, and there

Deaf with the drumming of an ear;

A soul hung up, as 'twere, in chains

Of nerves, and arteries, and veins;

Tortur'd, besides each other part,

In a vain head, and double heart.

BODY

O who shall me deliver whole

From bonds of this tyrannic soul?

Which, stretch'd upright, impales me so

That mine own precipice I go;

And warms and moves this needless frame,

(A fever could but do the same)

And, wanting where its spite to try,

Has made me live to let me die.

A body that could never rest,

Since this ill spirit it possest.

SOUL

What magic could me thus confine

Within another's grief to pine?

Where whatsoever it complain,

I feel, that cannot feel, the pain;

And all my care itself employs;

That to preserve which me destroys;

Constrain'd not only to endure

Diseases, but, what's worse, the cure;

And ready oft the port to gain,

Am shipwreck'd into health again.

BODY

But physic yet could never reach

The maladies thou me dost teach;

Whom first the cramp of hope does tear,

And then the palsy shakes of fear;

The pestilence of love does heat,

Or hatred's hidden ulcer eat;

Joy's cheerful madness does perplex,

Or sorrow's other madness vex;

Which knowledge forces me to know,

And memory will not forego.

What but a soul could have the wit

To build me up for sin so fit?

So architects do square and hew

Green trees that in the forest grew.

Poem by Andrew Marvell

(1621 - 1678)

A Creed

There is a destiny that makes us brothers:

None goes his way alone:

All that we send into the lives of others

Comes back into our own.

I care not what his temples or his creeds,

One thing holds firm and fast --

That into his fateful heap of days and deeds

The soul of a man is cast.

Poem by Edwin Markham

(1852 - 1940)