Tag: Dissection
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“A conspicuous place in the annals of murder”: The anatomy murders of Burke and Hare
Matthew TurnerHershey, Pennsylvania, United States In 1828 Scotland, two men committed a series of crimes that would earn them, as a contemporary newspaper described, “a conspicuous place in the annals of murder.”1 To both contemporaries and modern audiences, the gruesome story of Burke and Hare is “an endless source of morbid fascination.”1 For centuries, Western…
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Reclamation
Natalie Perlov Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States “Tell them you love them.” Photo by Neil Moralee on Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. Like many people, my first experience with death was losing a grandparent. I remember my parents organizing my late grandfather’s affairs, noting our religious practice of having as few people as possible touch the…
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The fainting medical student
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Abandoned. Painting by James Tissot, c.1881–2. Via Bridgeman Images on Fine Art America. Public domain. “Fall backward if you faint, and not across the patient.”1 – Surgeon Sir Lancelot Sprat, in the film Doctor in the House The squeamishness of the beginning medical student or intern during the dissection…
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Handmaidens of anatomy
Elisabeth BranderSt. Louis, Missouri, United States Some of the most well-known images in the history of anatomy are the woodcut écorché figures that appear in Andreas Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica, published in 1543. Rather than lying inert on a dissection table, they stride boldly through a pastoral landscape as if still alive, showing their…
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The year gross anatomy faced the scalpel
Michael Denham New York, New York, United States An instructor uses Complete Anatomy, a virtual anatomy software, to illustrate sections of the chest. By Michael Denham. As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, anatomy departments across the United States struggled to develop contingency plans to continue training the country’s future physicians. Would this…
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Dr. Auzoux and his papier-mâché anatomical models
Portrait of Thomas Louis Jerome Auzoux. Credit: Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) 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…
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The Dutch anatomy lessons
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp. 1632. Rembrandt van Rijn. Mauritshuis. 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,…
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Antonio Benivieni, early anatomist and pathologist
De abditis, or Concerning some hidden and remarkable cases of diseases and cures. 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…
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Opening the left ventricle
This image is from Henry W. Cattell’s 1905 Post-mortem pathology; a manual of post-mortem examinations and the interpretations to be drawn therefrom; a practical treatise for students and practioners. It shows the approach for opening the left ventricle after the heart is removed from the body. Page from Postmortem pathology; a manual of the technic…