Cover; Contents; List of Figures; Introduction: The Heart of the Matter; 1. Humours to Hormones: Emotion and the Heart in History; 2. Hunter's Heart: Pathological Anatomy and the Science of Disease; 3. Knowing the Heart: From Morbid Anatomy to New Technologies; 4. Angina Pectoris and the Arnold Family; 5. 'Heart Latham' and Nineteenth-Century Medical Practice; 6. The Heart of Harriet Martineau; 7. Emotions and the Brain: Rethinking the Mind-Body Relationship; Conclusion: The Matter of the Heart; Notes; Indicative Bibliography; Index
Summary
The heart is the most symbolic organ of the human body. Across cultures it is seen as the site of emotions, as well as the origin of life. We feel emotions in the heart, from the heart-stopping sensation of romantic love to the crushing sensation of despair. And yet since the nineteenth century the heart has been redefined in medical terms as a pump, an organ responsible for the circulation of the blood. Emotions have been removed from the heart as an active site of influence and towards the brain. It is the brain that is the organ most commonly associated with emotion in the modern West. So w
