The Neurosciences in Averroes’ “Principles of Medicine”

One of the fundamental advances of the transition of the Middle Ages to the Renaissance was the rediscovery of the Greek philosophers. Among the greatest representatives of this epoch we find the Cordovan doctor and philosopher Averroes (Ibn Rushd) who, with his commentaries on the works of Aristotle, brought a new philosophical vision to Western Europe. His contribution to medicine has been overshadowed to some extent by this great work of philosophy. Our intention is to evaluate, in the context of the neurosciences, the vision of health and sickness that he left us in his book “The Book of the Principles of Medicine. The organisation of the Kulliyat is based on Aristotelian concepts. Averroes regarded the nervous system not as single entity but rather as a complex of various elements. The anatomy of the nervous system is studied in two parts: the encephalus and the periphery. Both the encephalic nervous system and the sensory organs are regarded as heterogeneous organs. Averroes structures the anatomical order without taking into account the local movements of the living body. The mission of the senses is to maintain contact between external reality and the structure of the organism. This requires an external process, a point of union and an internal process. The ultimate goal is the preservation of health in a balanced disposition and the cure of disease in the organism in disequilibrium.