![]() ![]() ![]() The position of the head, shoulders, knees and toes in the cortex were laid out somatotopically, meaning they were presented in the same order in the brain as they appear on the body. In 1950 neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield and a colleague published a depiction of a homunculus that wrapped around the somatosensory cortex and illustrated where the brain processed touch for specific body parts. Despite the stiff competition from popular culture, neuroscience textbooks have succeeded better than any other medium in defining the contemporary meaning of homunculus. The recipe was no more useful than the ones for turning base metals into gold, but the term has survived through the centuries, making its way into literature ( Faust), television ( Doctor Who) and even video games ( Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow). Paracelsus, the German-Swiss physician and alchemist, asserted in the sixteenth century that he knew how to create a “little man”-or homunculus-by placing human semen in a sealed vessel packed with horse manure that was then nurtured with blood to gestate. ![]()
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