Figure 1. Eiffel Tower from the first day hereIn the first four days I have been in Paris, I had seen the Eiffel Tower four times. Even as a person from the state of Texas who was born in Canada and spent much of his early life in China studying in Georgia (I guess I am a globetrotter) and has no idea of how a Parisian lives, I could see how Parisians got tired of the Eiffel Tower real quick. After these first four days, whenever a friend exclaimed that the Eiffel Tower was in sight, I found myself muttering “so what”. I was tired of the Eiffel, and could not see any reason why tourists found it so beautiful and a “must-see” attraction.
After the fire of excitement for the Eiffel had dimmed, however, I desperately searched inside myself to try to regain the excitement. After, no one really wants to be a TRUE Parisian, with the high cost of living and low wages and whatnot. There was no way I was going to stop being amazed by this city and drudge through my days here in Paris, especially when I had paid so much financially. I would be doing a disservice to myself.
And that was when it hit me. What if my favorite subject, neuroscience, could tie in with the Eiffel Tower? But how? The Eiffel Tower was constructed by engineers and not neuroscientists, after all (thank goodness, it probably would have been an atrocity had neuroscientists designed it). I found something really fascinating when I started searching, as there are famous French scientists, mathematicians, and engineers’ names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower. One of these people’s names is Marie François Xavier Bichat, a scientist who discovered 21 elementary tissues from which organs of the human body were composed without a microscope. More importantly, Bichat theorized that the organic life was regulated through the ganglionic nervous system, a collection of small independent “brains” in the chest cavity (Finger, 2001). He also showed how the heart supports the function of the brain by stimulating cerebral tissues to “movement” through blood flow (Normandin, 2005 ). Bichat’s contributions to neuroscience were significant, and after a bit of digging around it is clear that he deserves to have his name engraved on the Eiffel Tower. Another great aspect of this is that I am now more interested in the Eiffel Tower than I was after my fifth day here (refer to Figure 2 if you are skeptical)!
References:
Finger, S. (2001). Origins of Neuroscience: A History of Explorations Into Brain Function. Oxford University Press. pp. 266–. ISBN 978-0-19-514694-3.
Normandin, S. (2005). Visions ofVitalism: Medicine, Philosophy and the Soul in Nineteenth Century France. Department of History, McGill University.