The Heartstrings

In Charles Dickens’ novel Barnaby Rudge (1841), he says that:

"there are strings in the human heart that had better not be vibrated”

This concludes Dickens' idea that the physical heart is the source of intense emotions and heartbreak, and poses the question as to why the heart was first seen as the centre of emotion?

Both the anatomical heart and the symbolic, emotional heart play an essential role in the medical history of heartbreak. Exploring the significance of the "heartstrings" allows us to consider both the history and classification of the heart, through medical advancement at the hands of individuals such as Galen, Vesalius and Harvey, and the social history of the heart as a metaphor for love and affection.

Galen was the first leading figure to commit to dedicated research into the identification and classification of the human body through dissection. When examining the human body in relation to his work On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body (170 AD) the heart is viewed in relation to Hippocrates’ theory of the four humours, adapting them to Galenic medical practices. His studies concluded that “The heart is, as it were, the hearthstone and source of the innate heat by which the animal is governed”, finding it the closest organ to the soul and heat source.

These findings echoed those of Greek philosopher Aristotle, who concluded the heart is the source of blood in the body and thus the source of heat. Galen contradicted Aristotle however, who had stated that the heart is the most vital organ and source of blood, by placing the heart as secondary to the liver as the most vital organ, as he believed the liver was the source of blood for the body.

A shift in anatomical research was led by Vesalius, who led the revolution of anatomical practices by advocating for hands-on dissection rather than relying on observation. Unlike Galen, Vesalius dissected human bodies, not animals, thus produced accurate and detailed accounts of the human body that rivalled previous studies.

Aside from configuring new ideas of the body, in Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (1543), his findings challenged Galen’s widely followed study of the heart and blood flow, arguing the liver did not produce blood and that blood was diffused through the heart. Vesalius’ anatomical practices have been carried from the 16th century into our modern-day practices, where the influence of hands-on anatomical teaching and observation is widely practiced.

William Harvey acts as a further example of the importance of medical revisionism through his work on the circulation of the body. Writing On the Circulation of the Blood in 1628, Harvey concluded that the body pumped blood through veins instead of producing it through the liver, as Galen theorised. This reinforced the work of Vesalius and encouraged a change in attitudes to dissection and contemporary medical practices, paving the way for new technological procedures such as the first human heart transplant by Dr. Christiaan Barnard in 1967.

The history of the heart is extensive, evolving through dissections, breakthroughs, and recurring revision of medical knowledge, transforming modern society into an age where heart transplants and procedures are carried out daily.

The experience of heartbreak provides a timeline for this change, locating the heart as the centre and physical home of emotion. In particular, the heartstrings were once seen as the physical origin of heartbreak, grief or loss through a metaphorical ideal that originated from 15th century medicine that the heartstrings guided emotions to the heart, and eventually were classified according to medical knowledge as the Chordae Tendineae that function as connection between the papillary muscle to the tricuspid valve, maintaining correct blood flow and ample heart condition.

This Cabinet aims to uncover the bodily impact of heartbreak and the relationship between emotions and the material body.