Conditioned Reflex Was Known In 17th Century

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29130, 16 February 1960, Page 9

Conditioned Reflex Was Known In 17th Century

{By XAVIER AIZPURU]

f an archbishop and took up resit dence in Toledo, Mendo entered - a monastery in order to remain r near him. But his allergy to work - and his refusal to take anything i seriously led to so much punish- . ment and penance that he finally , decided to cast off his monk’s ’ robe. r In Scene 11, Act 111, of the 1 play, Mendo tells his mother about his experiences in the monastery. f He relates how St. Hdefonso punt ished him at times by ordering • him to eat his meals on the floor > surrounded by a crowd of starv- ' > ing cats fighting for his meagre . ration. Every meal led to a regu- ; lar battle with the cats, who, ' > with fangs bared and claws un- [ sheathed, appeared from all corners of the monastery. t But there is a remedy for every- ’ thing. Mendo decided to catch i the cats, put them into a bag i and teach them a good lesson. . ! Once the cats were out of sight t in the bag, he stimulated a fit ( of coughing followed by a shower . I of blows on the back with a ■ stick. Then he coughed again, ■ t and again he hit the bag. ■ 1 He repeated this strange pro- : ' cess several times, and each time ’ a cough accompanied the beating. ; ■ After a few days Mendo was : ■ able to eat his meals in peace. 1 He merely had to cough in order ’ • to send the cats running away, ■ yowling with pain as though they c had actually been beaten. ' This is how Mendo related the episode to his mother: Mother, I will tell you how • 1 punished those beasts J So that I could feed in peace r When I was eating on all fours. , Having by a clever trick ' Placed them tn a bag, I carried them , One dark night into the yard. J There I coughed ceaselessly, > Beating them all the while with my ' stick. ‘ Their frightful, piteous cries , ’ Were like the very voice of Lucifer. ■ I let them rest awhile. r Then, once again, 1 coughed, , And once again my stick began to flay. 1 At last, 1 merely had to cough > And they would cry pitifully. 1

r It’s not very often that a play , —and a 17th Century play at that —becomes the theme of a scien- ' title paper. However, Professor t Jaime H. Arjona, of the Univeri sity of Connecticut in the United States, has recently drawn attention to a work by Lope de Vega, “The Chaplain of the Virgin,” > which contains the first literary • reference to a case of conditioned ■ reflex. 1 This rather unusual piece of . news was reported in important scientific journals, such as “The ; American Physiologist,” because ! the example quoted by Lope de Vega is not merely a chance reference to the automatic reactions j of the nervous system, but the , detailed description of a typical t case history. The “Famous Comedy of St ’ Hdefonso. Chaplain of the Virgin” was written by Lope de Vega . between 1619 and 1622 and then • published in 1623. The play relates several episodes from the life of i this saint who is known throughout the Catholic world, and especially in Spain, for his devotion to the Virgin and his talent 1 as a theologist. Lope de Vega : takes a few liberties with the 1 chronology of events, but the play • contains many passages of great j literary beauty as well as some 1 of the poet’s best sonnets and ! songs. In the course of the action. we see St. Hdefonso as a student, ’ and later as the archbishop of Toledo, admired and honoured by . all for his virtues. From his student days, St. Ilde- ' fonso has as a servant and companion a character called Mendo i who shows little inclination either for religion or the ascetic life ’ led by his master. • Mendo obviously would have been much more at home in the service of a king’s musketeer or any other gentleman of fashion I leading a gay life. The aus- ■ tere atmosphere of the university • cloister and the monastery . weighed upon him like a leaden pall. When St. Hdefonso became

Since then, at the slighest cough, They would make off As fast as they could run. Three centuries later, the great Russian physiologist, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, began his experiments on conditioned reflexes which were to make medical history, opening new paths in endocrinological research and in the study of the psychology of behaviour. It is strange to reflect that the observations of a 17th r?ntury Spanish poet provided advance literary evidence in support of these theories. But then poetry, after all, is a subtle and mysterious form of science. (UNESCO).