A 17th-century physician decided the soul lives in the stomach

mind & bodyWellcome Collection17th century · Brussels, Belgium

A 17th-century physician decided the soul lives in the stomach

the gist

In the early 1600s, the Flemish physician Jan Baptist van Helmont spent a day working with poisonous wolfsbane and later felt that he was thinking not in his head but in his midriff. It convinced him that emotions and imagination live in the stomach, not the heart or brain. The prevailing doctrine had placed reason in the brain, feeling in the chest and basic bodily functions in the liver and digestive organs, and Descartes and Thomas Willis were then moving the soul into the head. Van Helmont argued that the stomach was home to a 'sensitive soul' that mediates between body and spirit, an idea that sounds odd but anticipates modern research on how the gut and brain communicate.

so what

Scientists now know the gut has its own nervous system of hundreds of millions of neurons, and gut bacteria influence mood. Van Helmont's view was wrong in its details, but it was right that digestion shapes feeling.

fun fact

Van Helmont is credited with coining the word 'gas' and discovered that carbon dioxide differs from air.

Wellcome Collection · CC BY 4.0

source: Wellcome Collection ↗

historyWikipediaclassic1336–1565 · Karnataka, India

Hampi was once one of the world's largest cities, until its Vijayanagara capital was destroyed in 1565

the gist

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.

how it works

The city was built around a fortified core with temples, markets and water structures along the river, supplied by an extensive network of roads and waterworks. When the empire fell, the city was not rebuilt, so its stone monuments were left standing.

so what

Hampi shows how quickly a great city can vanish after a military defeat, and how a ruined capital can remain sacred. Its ruins give historians a view of medieval South Asia that few other sites can match.

fun fact

The name Hampi comes from Pampa, an old name for the Tungabhadra River.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · text CC BY-SA 4.0

Image: Wikimedia Commons

source: Wikipedia ↗

2 min

politicsshortCNA2:01

False allegations about Singapore’s hand in Indonesia’s markets and a made-up meeting

from CNA

CNA Verify has found close to 400 posts pushing falsehoods tying Singapore to Indonesia’s stock market rout and to a secret meeting that never took place. Together, they drew nearly 12 million views, and some were circulated by accounts that appeared to be working in concert, across multiple social media platforms.

Here’s how the disinformation campaign targeting Singapore was uncovered.

on YouTube: CNA ↗