Category: Anatomy
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Between Vesalius and the CAT scan
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden Scribe: noun. A person who copies documents, especially a person who made handwritten copies before the invention of printing.— Dictionary.com The first reliable anatomic drawings based on human dissections may have been those of Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519). Later, Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564), born in Brussels as Andries van Wesel and having taken a…
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What’s inside us?: Socio-cultural themes in anatomical naming
Frazer A. TessemaChicago, Illinois, United States Anatomical terms often read as Latin or Greek gibberish whose main purpose is to be obscure trivia in the first-year medical school ritual called anatomy class. But a surprising trend emerges through the English translations of these archaic names: many parts of the human body are named not for…
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Dr. Auzoux and his papier-mâché anatomical models
The teaching of anatomy has often been impeded by legal restrictions on dissection or by a shortage of cadavers. As drawings or paintings are generally inadequate for the purpose of instruction, some anatomists have resorted to using three-dimensional models made of materials such as wax, wood, or rubber.1-4 Thus in the early part of the…
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Sir Robert Carswell, illustrious medical illustrator
Paris during the greater part of the nineteenth century was the mecca of medicine, home of great surgeons and great physicians. Doctors from all over the world flocked to its hospitals to learn from its famous professors and study pathology in their amply supplied dissecting rooms. Among these students was a Scottish physician named Robert…
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The Dutch anatomy lessons
JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom The Hellenistic anatomist Herophilus (c. 330–c. 260 BC) and the physiologist Erasistratus (c. 325–c. 250 BC) were granted limited permission to dissect executed criminals with consent of the first Ptolemaic Pharaohs. This practice, essential for anatomical study, was then suppressed by ancient Greek taboos regarding purity, death, and cutting the…
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Gerard Blasius (1627–1682)
Gerard Blaes (Blasius) was a Dutch physician and anatomist, famous for his work on the spinal cord and for one of his students discovering the parotid (Stensen’s) duct. As a young man he had lived and studied in Copenhagen, where his father was architect to the king of Denmark. When his father died, his family returned…
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Antonio Benivieni, early anatomist and pathologist
The Florentine Antonio Benivieni dissected corpses and recorded his findings some seventy years before Andreas Vesalius and even more so before Batista Morgagni. Yet though he has been called the “founder of pathology,” he never achieved the fame and recognition accorded to his distinguished successors. He was the eldest of five sons in an ancient…
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The wax models of Clemente Susini (1752–1814)
Clemente Susini is remembered for creating what is probably the most extensive collection of anatomical wax works in the world. He first studied sculpture in Florence, but in 1773 became an apprentice there at the museum of natural history in a workshop recently established to produce wax models for teaching anatomy. Within a few years…