Tag: Leonardo da Vinci
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Signs of diseases in art
Chris ClarkExeter, United Kingdom “Every human being tells a story even if he never speaks.”1 Two paintings hang next to each other in the sumptuous Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome: The Rest on the flight to Egypt and Penitent Magdalen. Both are early works by Caravaggio, and these two diverse biblical women appear to have…
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Nature telling her secrets: the Kepler–Descartes connection
Ronald Fishman Chicago, Illinois, United States Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) Nature tells us one secret in terms of another, and she may refuse to disclose one secret until another has been laid bare. – T.S. Kuhn1 In 1604, Johannes Kepler solved the problem of how light is refracted within the eye to produce an image on the…
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The curious tale of Leonardo Da Vinci and the spherical uterus
John MassieParkville, Victoria, Australia Leonardo Da Vinci had one of the greatest minds in history. Accomplished in so many fields of both the arts and science, he challenged contemporary thinking, and was one of the early Renaissance artists to use dissection of corpses in order to understand the human form. His anatomical drawings reveal a…
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Matters of the heart
Chris ArthurDundee, Scotland Among the most impressive of Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical studies are his drawings of the human heart. Beside one of them he has written: “How could you describe this heart in words without filling a whole book?” Since then, scores of books have been written about this most crucial of organs. We…
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In pursuit of a new anatomy
Roseanne F. ZhaoChicago, Illinois, United States The Brabantian physician and anatomist, Andreas Vesalius, is widely celebrated for breaking with Galenic tradition to revolutionize the study of anatomy, changing the practice of medicine, surgery, and education in the process. Born in 1514 in Brussels, Belgium (at that time, part of the Holy Roman Empire) to a…
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Leonardo’s heart
Larry ZaroffPalo Alto, California, United States The surgeon comes to the operating room at seven a.m. for her eight o’clock mitral valve repair. A warm-up. Before any heart operation she always checks the elephants in the room. At that early hour, alone with her elephants, she feels closely connected to them, her better hands. An…
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Leonardo’s anatomical studies: From ancient imaginations to meticulous observations
Julia KingNew York, United States Leonardo da Vinci was a “Renaissance man” in the truest sense, contributing his inexhaustible talent to many fields, including anatomy. In a time when medicine was still rudimentary and dissection was viewed with disdain, Leonardo plowed through with his keen intellectual curiosity and honed draughtsman skills. His work on anatomy…
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Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist
Applying himself to the study of anatomy, “Leonardo composed a book annotated in pen and ink in which he did meticulous drawings in red chalk of bodies he had dissected himself. He showed all the bone structure, adding in order all the nerves and covering them with muscles: the first attached to the skeleton, the…