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47-514: The term lends its name to the cortical homunculus , an image of a person with the size of the body parts distorted to represent how much area of the cerebral cortex of the brain is devoted to it. During medieval and early modern times, it was thought that homunculus, an artificial humanlike being, could be created through alchemy. The homunculus first appears by name in alchemical writings attributed to Paracelsus (1493–1541). De natura rerum (1537) outlines his method for creating homunculi: That

94-492: A mutilated anthroparion ". The Greek word "anthroparion" is similar to "homunculus" – a diminutive form of "person". Zosimos subsequently encounters other anthroparia in his dream but there is no mention of the creation of artificial life . In his commentary, Jung equates the homunculus with the Philosopher's Stone , and the "inner person" in parallel with Christ . In Islamic alchemy , takwin ( Arabic : تكوين )

141-473: A priest and allowed him to be raised in a monastic community. However, he eventually decided against the priesthood. As a young man, he moved to Paris, where he became the associate of Charles Nodier , one of the leading literary lights of the Romantic movement , which was then emerging on the continent. Nodier's interest in the occult transferred to Pitois. Pitois became a journalist and wrote largely under

188-663: A thought experiment, and went so far as to envision an imaginary world in which the homunculi lived, which he referred to as "if". He and his colleagues went on to experiment with electrical stimulation of different brain areas of patients undergoing open brain surgery to control epilepsy, and were thus able to produce the topographical brain maps and their corresponding homunculi. More recent studies have improved this understanding of somatotopic arrangement using techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Penfield referred to his creations as "grotesque creatures" due to their strange-looking proportions. For example,

235-503: A vessel shaped like the animal and combining the animal's bodily fluids within it, then placing the vessel at the center of a model of a celestial sphere as heat is applied to it. Some of the alchemists believed that these methods originated somewhere in India or Southeast Asia. The homunculus continued to appear in alchemical writings after Paracelsus' time. The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz (1616) for example, concludes with

282-419: Is a distorted representation of the human body , based on a neurological "map" of the areas and portions of the human brain dedicated to processing motor functions , and/ or sensory functions , for different parts of the body. Nerve fibres —conducting somatosensory information from all over the body—terminate in various areas of the parietal lobe in the cerebral cortex , forming a representational map of

329-491: Is also commonly called "the little man inside the brain". This scientific model is known as the cortical homunculus . In medical science, the term homunculus is sometimes applied to certain fetus -like ovarian cystic teratomae . These will sometimes contain hair, sebaceous material and in some cases cartilaginous or bony structures. In a recent article published in the peer-reviewed journal Leonardo "The Missing Female Homunculus” by Haven Wright and Preston Foerder revisits

376-410: Is commonly used today in scientific disciplines such as psychology as a teaching or memory tool to describe the distorted scale model of a human drawn or sculpted to reflect the relative space human body parts occupy on the somatosensory cortex (the sensory homunculus ) and the motor cortex (the motor homunculus ). Both the motor and sensory homunculi usually appear as small men superimposed over

423-483: Is embodied and inborn in them, and they need learn it from no one." Comparisons have been made with several similar concepts in the writings of earlier alchemists. Although the actual word "homunculus" was never used, Carl Jung believed that the concept first appeared in the Visions of Zosimos , written in the third century AD. In the visions, Zosimos encounters a priest who changes into "the opposite of himself, into

470-427: Is located in the precentral gyrus , and handles signals coming from the premotor area of the frontal lobes . A sensory homunculus represents a map of brain areas dedicated to sensory processing for different anatomical divisions of the body. The primary sensory cortex is located in the postcentral gyrus , and handles signals coming from the thalamus . The thalamus itself receives corresponding signals from

517-416: Is one example; Jean-Baptiste Pitois 's The History and Practice of Magic makes a direct comparison to the mandragora in one excerpt: Would you like to make a Mandragora, as powerful as the homunculus (little man in a bottle) so praised by Paracelsus ? Then find a root of the plant called bryony . Take it out of the ground on a Monday (the day of the moon), a little time after the vernal equinox . Cut off

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564-714: Is reputed to have created ten homunculi with the ability to foresee the future, which von Kufstein kept in glass containers at his Masonic lodge in Vienna . Dr. Emil Besetzny's Masonic handbook, Die Sphinx , devoted an entire chapter to the wahrsagenden Geister (scrying ghosts). These are reputed to have been seen by several people, including local dignitaries. References to the homunculus do not appear prior to sixteenth-century alchemical writings but alchemists may have been influenced by earlier folk traditions. The mandragora , known in German as Alreona , Alraun or Alraune

611-474: Is seen as more of a magical phenomenon in the story, however, rather than necessarily having a symbolic meaning. Homunculi appear in fantasy based television, film, and games in a manner consistent with literature. Examples can be found in numerous media, such as the podcast Hello From The Magic Tavern , the films Homunculus (1916), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), Dr. Who episode The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1977),

658-510: Is that of a distorted human body, with disproportionately huge hands, lips, and face. In the sensory homunculus, below the areas handling sensation for the teeth, gums, jaw, tongue, and pharynx lies an area for intra-abdominal sensation. At the very top end of the primary sensory cortex, beyond the area for the toes, it has traditionally been believed that the sensory neural networks for the genitals occur. However, more recent research has suggested that there may be two different cortical areas for

705-730: The French army in Algiers from 1843–44 and wrote several historical texts. His most important were the History of the Terrors (1853) and the multi-volume Heroes of Christianity (1853–1857). A hint of what was to come appeared in 1844 with his Stories of the Marvelous from All Times and Lands . Pitois had read about occultism and developed a strong anticlerical stance. During his life, many Eastern texts had been translated into French, as had

752-517: The Genesis creation narrative 's claim that it was "in Adam " that all had sinned: the whole of humanity was already contained in his loins during the original sin . The spermists' theory also failed to explain why children tend to resemble their mothers as well as their fathers, though some spermists suggested that the growing homunculus assimilated maternal characteristics from the womb. The homunculus

799-420: The brain stem and spinal cord . Along the length of the primary motor and sensory cortices, the areas specializing in different parts of the body are arranged in an orderly manner, although ordered differently than one might expect. The toes are represented at the top of the cerebral hemisphere (or more accurately, "the upper end," since the cortex curls inwards and down at the top), and then as one moves down

846-447: The golem of Jewish folklore . Though the specifics outlining the creation of the golem and homunculus are very different, the concepts both metaphorically relate man to the divine, in his construction of life in his own image. Preformationism is the formerly popular theory that animals developed from miniature versions of themselves. Sperm cells were believed to contain complete preformed individuals called " animalcules ". Development

893-468: The motor cortex functions in terms of overall movements as coordinated groups of individual motions. The sensorimotor homunculi can also be represented as 3-D figures (such as the sensory homunculus sculpted by Sharon Price-James shown from different angles below), which can make it easier for laymen to understand the ratios between the levels of motor or sensory innervation of different body regions. However, these 3-D models do not illustrate which areas of

940-464: The Arcanum of human blood, and be nourished for up to forty weeks, and be kept in the even heat of the horse's womb, a living human child grows therefrom, with all its members like another child, which is born of a woman, but much smaller. The fully grown homunculus was supposedly greatly skilled in "art" and can create giants, dwarves, and other marvels, as "Through art they are born, and therefore art

987-504: The British children's writers Mary Norton and Rumer Godden used homunculus motifs in their work, expressing various post-war anxieties about refugees, persecution of minorities in war, and the adaptation of these minorities to a "big" world. W. Somerset Maugham 's 1908 novel The Magician utilises the concept of the homunculus as an important plot element. David H. Keller 's short story "A Twentieth-Century Homunculus" (1930) describes

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1034-518: The artist and first author Haven Wright, based on the current research available. Jean-Baptiste Pitois Jean-Baptiste Pitois , also known as Jean-Baptiste or Paul Christian (1811–1877), was a French author, known for The History and Practice of Magic , first published in France in 1870. Jean-Baptiste Pitois was born May 15, 1811, in Remiremont , France. His family wanted him to become

1081-430: The body, but instead may find its brightest state as it passes through the material plane, is central to the character. William Makepeace Thackeray wrote under the pen name of Homunculus. The homunculus legend, Frankenstein and Faust have continued to influence works in the twentieth and twenty-first century. The theme has been used not only in fantasy literature , but also to illuminate social topics. For instance,

1128-412: The body, so the homunculus has correspondingly large lips, hands, feet, and genitals. The motor homunculus is very similar to the sensory homunculus, but differs in several ways. Specifically, the motor homunculus has a portion for the tongue most lateral while the sensory homunculus has an area for genitalia most medial and an area for visceral organs most lateral. Well known in the field of neurology, this

1175-408: The body. Findings from the 2010s and early 2020s began to call for a revision of the traditional "homunculus" model and a new interpretation of the internal body map (likely less simplistic and graphic), and research is ongoing in this field. A motor homunculus represents a map of brain areas dedicated to motor processing for different anatomical divisions of the body. The primary motor cortex

1222-411: The brain are associated with which parts of the body. In a 2021 article by Haven Wright and Preston Foerder published in the peer-reviewed journal Leonardo entitled "The Missing Female Homunculus", the authors revisit the history of the homunculus, shed light on current research in neuroscience on the female brain, and reveal what they believe to be the first sculpture of the female homunculus, done by

1269-445: The brain, and vice versa. The amount of cortex devoted to any given body region is not proportional to that body region's surface area or volume, but rather to how richly innervated that region is. Areas of the body with more complex and/or more numerous sensory or motor connections are represented as larger in the homunculus, while those with less complex and/or less numerous connections are represented as smaller. The resulting image

1316-431: The creation of a male and female form identified as Homunculi duo . The allegorical text suggests to the reader that the ultimate goal of alchemy is not chrysopoeia , but it is instead the artificial generation of humans. Here, the creation of homunculi symbolically represents spiritual regeneration and Christian soteriology . In 1775, Count Johann Ferdinand von Kufstein, together with Abbé Geloni, an Italian cleric,

1363-554: The creation of homunculi on an industrial scale by a pair of misogynists . Likewise, Sven Delblanc 's The Homunculus: A Magic Tale (1965) addresses alleged misogyny and the Cold War industrial-military complexes of the Soviet Union and NATO . In German children's author Cornelia Funke 's book, Dragon Rider , the protagonists meet and are aided by a homunculus created by an alchemist. The homunculus, and alchemy broadly,

1410-460: The data set Penfield collected from his brain surgery patients. Rather than the sharp delineation between different body areas shown in the drawings, there is actually significant overlap between neighboring regions. The simplification suggests that lesions of the motor cortex will give rise to specific deficits in specific muscles. However, this is a misconception , as lesions produce deficits in groups of synergistic muscles. This finding suggests that

1457-432: The ends of the root and bury it at night in some country churchyard in a dead man's grave. For 30 days, water it with cow's milk in which three bats have been drowned. When the 31st day arrives, take out the root in the middle of the night and dry it in an oven heated with branches of verbena ; then wrap it up in a piece of a dead man's winding-sheet and carry it with you everywhere. The homunculus has also been compared to

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1504-400: The first to differentiate between sensory and motor function and to map the two across the brain separately, resulting in two different homunculi. In addition, their drawings and later drawings derived from theirs became perhaps the most famous conceptual maps in modern neuroscience because they compellingly illustrated the data at a single glance. Penfield first conceived of his homunculi as

1551-476: The genitals, possibly differentiated by one dealing with erogenous stimulation and the other dealing with non-erogenous stimulation. Wilder Penfield and his co-investigators Edwin Boldrey and Theodore Rasmussen are considered to be the originators of the sensory and motor homunculi. They were not the first scientists to attempt to objectify human brain function by means of a homunculus. However, they were

1598-405: The hemisphere, progressively higher parts of the body are represented, assuming a body that is faceless and has arms raised. Going further down the cortex, the different areas of the face are represented, in approximately top-to-bottom order, rather than bottom-to-top as before. The homunculus is split in half, with motor and sensory representations for the left side of the body on the right side of

1645-462: The history of the Homunculus, sheds light on current research in neuroscience on the female brain, and reveals what they believe to be the first sculpture of the female Homunculus, done by the artist and first author Haven Wright, based on the current research available. Homunculi can be found in centuries worth of literature. These fictions are primarily centred around imaginative speculations on

1692-400: The inspiration for Victor Frankenstein. German playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 's Faust, Part Two (1832) famously features an alchemically-created homunculus. Here, the character of Homunculus embodies the quest of a pure spirit to be born into a mortal form, contrasting Faust's desire to shed his mortal body to become pure spirit. The alchemical idea that the soul is not imprisoned in

1739-1500: The made-for-television movie Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973) and its theatrical remake (2011), Being John Malkovich (1999), Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone (2001), Shane Acker's 9 (2009), Philipp Humm's The Last Faust (2019), Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things (film) (2023), television shows (such as Bloodfeast , American Dad , Rick and Morty (season 2, episode 1) (2015), Smiling Friends (season 1, episode 5) (season 2, episode 5), and The Big Bang Theory (season 3, episode 3), played by Johnny Galecki ), fantasy role-playing games (such as Dungeons & Dragons ), video games (such as Ragnarok Online , Valkyrie Profile , Shadow of Memories , The Legend of Heroes series, Cabals: Magic & Battle Cards , Genshin Impact , Bayonetta 3 , and Master Detective Archives: Rain Code ), books (such as The Secret Series and Sword of Destiny or Seventy-Two Letters by Ted Chiang), graphic novels (such as Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense ) and manga (such as Akihabara Dennō Gumi , Homunculus , Stone Ocean , Fullmetal Alchemist , Sorcerous Stabber Orphen , Fate/Zero , and Gosick ). Cortical homunculus A cortical homunculus (from Latin homunculus  'little man, miniature human' )

1786-410: The mysteries of conception. It was later pointed out that if the sperm was a homunculus, identical in all but size to an adult, then the homunculus may have sperm of its own. This led to a reductio ad absurdum with a chain of homunculi " all the way down ", an idea also known as the homunculus fallacy . This was not necessarily considered by spermists a fatal objection, however, as it neatly explained

1833-607: The occult, explaining each element, and provided a history of occult practice in the West from ancient times. Pitois wrote one additional book, The History of the War with Prussia and of the Two Sieges of Paris, 1870–71 (1872–73). His health declined through the 1870s, and he died at Lyon on July 12, 1877. He left behind a still-unpublished work on astrology that reportedly contains numerous allusions to contemporary events as proof of

1880-650: The pen name Paul Christian . He co-wrote Historic Paris: Walks in the Streets of Paris (1837–1840), which was his first book, with Nodier. It was followed by his Studies of the Paris Revolution (1839). That same year he was appointed librarian of the Ministry of Public Education . Working with Nodier through the mass of uncatalogued material opened up a new level of interest in the occult, although it did not manifest for years. Meanwhile, he took his turn in

1927-740: The quest for artificial life associated with Paracelsian alchemy. One of the very earliest literary references occurs in Thomas Browne 's Religio Medici (1643), in which the author states: I am not of Paracelsus minde that boldly delivers a receipt to make a man without conjunction, ... The fable of the alchemically-created homunculus may have been central in Mary Shelley 's novel Frankenstein (1818). Professor Radu Florescu suggests that Johann Konrad Dippel , an alchemist born in Castle Frankenstein, might have been

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1974-427: The sensory nerves arriving from the hands terminate over large areas of the brain, resulting in the hands of the homunculus being correspondingly large. In contrast, the nerves emanating from the torso or arms cover a much smaller area, thus the torso and arms of the homunculus look comparatively small and weak. Penfield's homunculi are usually shown as 2-D diagrams. This is an oversimplification, as it cannot fully show

2021-415: The sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed cucurbit for forty days with the highest degree of putrefaction in a horse's womb ["venter equinus", meaning "warm, fermenting horse dung"], or at least so long that it comes to life and moves itself, and stirs, which is easily observed. After this time, it will look somewhat like a man, but transparent, without a body. If, after this, it be fed wisely with

2068-455: The top of precentral or postcentral gyri for motor and sensory cortices, respectively. The homunculus is oriented with feet medial and shoulders lateral on top of both the precentral and the postcentral gyrus (for both motor and sensory). The man's head is depicted upside down in relation to the rest of the body such that the forehead is closest to the shoulders. The lips, hands, feet and sex organs have more sensory neurons than other parts of

2115-479: The works of Emanuel Swedenborg . In 1859 Pitois turned his attention to writing Historie de la Magie, du monde Surnaturel et de la fatalité à travers les Temps et les Peuples (1870) (trs: History of Magic, the Supernatural World and Fate, through Times and Peoples). Carefully written so as not to offend his largely Catholic audience, it immediately became popular public reading. It surveyed the whole of

2162-580: Was a goal of certain Muslim alchemists, and is frequently found in writings of the Jabirian corpus . In the alchemical context, takwin refers to the artificial creation of life, spanning the full range of the chain of being , from minerals to prophets, imitating the function of the demiurge . One set of instructions for creating animal life found within the Jabirian Kitab al-Tajmi involves finding

2209-441: Was therefore a matter of enlarging this into a fully formed being. The term homunculus was later used in the discussion of conception and birth. Nicolas Hartsoeker postulated the existence of animalcules in the semen of humans and other animals. This was the beginning of spermists' theory, which held that the sperm was in fact a "little man" that was placed inside a woman for growth into a child, an effective explanation for many of

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