The Vesalian School of Anatomy in Renaissance Padua

John Martin
1973 Books at Iowa  
When we trace the steadily swelling currents of medical thought over some thirty centuries, from the shadowy beginnings in the Greek era, which we now look upon as a fascinating mixture of myth and truth, to our modern sophisticated techniques in medicine and our hundreds of richly-endowed libraries, where can we say, "This was the century, this was the year, this was the school" where one great change was made which brought us to our present refinements? What man or school was the key to the
more » ... most terrifying acceleration of knowledge in the biological sciences which has occurred within living memory? As in most progressive movements in human endeavor, there has been one main current, one great stream, moving inexorably, receiving small and large tributaries, swelling only imperceptibly with gifts from small rivulets, but quickening speed when a major stream, drain ing vast new areas, suddenly floods into the main channel. Cross cur rents and back eddies add new riches to the onward flow. Thus we owe our great medical heritage to the accumulated gifts of hosts of nameless, unsung scholars no less than to the more familiar accom plishments of the better known, more often praised, medical giants. Just as all present-day therapeutics are based ultimately upon a knowledge of the structure of the human body, so, from earliest times until well into the seventeenth century, the fabric of medical history depends upon anatomy for its framework. The Greek Alcmaeon dis sected animals as early as the sixth century B.C., this being most like ly the earliest record of such investigation, though in all probability he was not the first to do so. For the next three or four centuries the "Hippocratic School" was more interested in the treatment of disease than in anatomy as a special pursuit; yet this era did produce lasting records, both accurate and faulty, of information gained from the examination of butchered animals, wounded men, and dead human remains. [4] Aristotle and his school ( ca. 350 B.C.) were interested in the broad field of biology, but they did expound anatomy, often erroneously, together with physiology, and the Aristotelian influence was felt for two millenia thereafter. When Alexander's empire collapsed in 323 B.C., the center of learning shifted from Athens to Alexandria, where two of the greatest investigators and teachers of pre-Christian times, Herophilus and Erasistratus (ca. 300-250 B.C.), studied anatomy and left records of original discoveries, particularly in neurological anato my, their records having been later collected and forwarded into the gathering stream by Galen of Pergamum (130-200 A.D.) . Of Galen much has been written. In fact, as one reads the story of medical growth up to 1600 or even later, one grows a bit weary of Galen. Alert, peripatetic, wealthy, well educated, self-confident, ob viously brilliant and gifted, Galen was interested in the total knowl edge of anatomy, physiology, and therapeutics of his time. He not only assembled what he considered important from earlier times but also added much new material of his own, a mixture of anatomy and physiology, which was highly original and often surprisingly correct. Yet it was often riddled with faults and confused by a lack of respect for nomenclature. So positive were his prononuncements, so attractive and persuasive were his solutions to old problems, so didactic, so allinclusive were his prolific writings, that this "Prince of Physicians" hypnotized centuries of men well into the Renaissance, and unfortu nately his errors were perpetuated by even later writers. It was only because of the force of a few fresh minds throwing their independent thought into the stream, often at personal sacrifice, that the old Ga lenic rules and tenets were gradually replaced by a solid working knowledge of anatomy and physiology. In the later days of the Roman Empire and throughout the "Dark Ages" of Europe, there was little or no interest in science in any form in the Christian world. But certain authorities, such as Aristotle, Cel sus, Oribasius, Paul of Aegina, and also Galen, were the forces which loosely bridged this era, and whose writings were translated into Syriac and Arabic. From these translations came the copy work of the Moslems. Dissection and pictorial representation of animal ob jects being forbidden by the Moslem religion, anatomy could hardly hope to develop beyond its static state during an era of Moslem supremacy in the perimeters of the Mediterranean. The first stirrings of a renaissance, of a rising out of the murk of the Arabic influence and the bonds of Galen, came early in the four teenth century in Italy, when it became possible for physicians legally to perform human dissections. Such dissections, usually of a body of
doi:10.17077/0006-7474.1348 fatcat:m7chd3mb75bpphlftd7dvw6jfi