The cerebellum, the earthworm and the freshwater crayfish: an unpublished fable of Jean de La Fontaine?

摘要

We discussed in previous columns the presence of seahorses, silkworms, hippos, rams, shells, and spiders in the head (Olry, 1991; Olry and Martinoli, 1995, Olry & Haines, 2001a, 2001b). However odd it may seem, some ancient anatomists also described an earthworm and a freshwater crayfish in the central nervous system.The Latin term vermis, meaning worm, is at the root of at least 40 French words (Auge, 1933), many of them belonging to medical terminology (Gladstone, 1990): vermetoid, vermicidal, vermicide, vermicular, vermiculation, vermiculous, vermiform (appendix), vermifugal, vermifuge, vermin, verminal, verminous, vermiphobia, vermography, etc. The first cerebral formations to have been compared with worms were the current choroid plexus of the lateral ventricles, which Mondino dei Luzzi called vermis in 1478, and Walther Hermenius Ryff Hirnwurm (brain worm) in 1541. In the early first millenary, Rufus of Ephesus had already applied the Greek term koroeides (choroid) to the cerebellum, in what could be regarded as the very first attempt to establish an outline of anatomical terminology (Olry, 1989).