Homunculus
A homunculus (Latin for "little person") is a representation of a small human being. Popularized in sixteenth-century alchemy and nineteenth-century fiction, it has historically referred to the creation of a miniature, fully formed human. The concept has roots in preformationism, a formerly-popular theory that organisms develop from miniature versions of themselves, as well as earlier folklore and alchemic traditions.
Alchemy
The homunculus first appears by name in alchemical writings attributed to Paracelsus (1493–1541). De natura rerum (1537) outlines his method for creating homunculi.
The homunculus continued to appear in alchemical writings after Paracelsus' time. The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz (1616) for example, concludes with the creation of a male and female form identified as Homunculi duo. The allegorical text suggests to the reader that the ultimate goal of alchemy is not chrysopoeia, but it is instead the artificial generation of humans. Here, the creation of homunculi symbolically represents spiritual regeneration and the Christian doctrine of salvation.
The homunculus has also been compared to the golem of Jewish folklore. Though the specifics outlining the creation of the golem and homunculus are very different, the concepts both metaphorically relate man to the divine, in his construction of life in his own image.
Frankenstein
The fable of the alchemically-created homunculus may have been central in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein (1818). Professor Radu Florescu suggests that Johann Conrad Dippel, an alchemist born in Castle Frankenstein, might have been the inspiration for Victor Frankenstein. German playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part Two (1832) famously features an alchemically-created homunculus. [1]
Cortical homunculus
A cortical homunculus is a distorted representation of the human body, based on a neurological "map" of the areas and proportions of the human brain dedicated to processing motor functions, or sensory functions, for different parts of the body. The word homunculus is Latin for "little man", and was a term used in alchemy and folklore long before scientific literature began using it. A cortical homunculus, or "cortex man", illustrates the concept of a representation of the body lying within the brain. Nerve fibres from the spinal cord terminate in various areas of the parietal lobe in the cerebral cortex, which forms a representational map of the body. [2]