Hildegard’s ideas on these subjects are set out in the fourth vision
of the _Liber Divinorum Operum_, which is devoted to a description of
man’s body according to the macrocosmic scheme. This setting makes her
account by no means easy to read, while it increases the difficulty of
tracing the origin of her views.
The list of works containing anatomical descriptions available to a
German writer in the early Middle Ages is not long. Avicenna was hardly
yet accessible, and only such scraps of Galen as appear in Constantine
and the Salernitans. The available works may be enumerated thus:
(_a_) The short _Anatomia porci_ of Copho of Salerno, dating from
about 1085.[95]
(_b_) An anonymous Salernitan anatomy,[96] written about 1100 and
largely based on Copho and Constantine.
(_c_) The _Liber de humana natura_ of Constantine the African,
written probably between 1070 and 1085 at Monte Cassino.[97]
(_d_) Constantine’s _De communibus medico cognitu necessariis locis_,
written about the same time as the above.[98] This work is in
four books, of which the second, third, and fourth are devoted
to anatomy and physiology.
(_e_) Here may be placed also Constantine’s translation of the
_Viaticum_ of Isaac Judeus. Both these latter works of
Constantine are long and technical, and designed for the use of
the trained physician.
In addition to these there was in the Middle Ages a definite anatomic
tradition, which expressed itself constantly in:
(_f_) A series of five anatomical diagrams representing respectively
the arteries, veins, bones, nerves, and muscles[99] (see Plate
XXXIII, opposite page 92 of the present volume). These diagrams
were copied in the most servile fashion for centuries, and
something very like them has remained in use to this day in
Tibet.[100] The versions, whether in Persia or England, in
Germany or Italy, were remarkably uniform.
(_g_) In several MSS. there has been found attached to these
remarkable diagrams a short text describing the five systems,
arteries, veins, nerves, bones, and muscles. This text,
however, purporting to be from Galen, has little relation to
the figures, which it does not really explain, and it should
therefore be regarded as a separate work.[101]
[Illustration: From WIESBADEN CODEX B fo. 22 r