[Illustration: DISSECTION BY BERENGARIO, 1535]
Giacomo Berengario, Jacobus Berengarius Carpensis, also known as Carpus,
was born in the small town of Carpi, in the Duchy of Modena, in the year
1470. His father, who was a surgeon, directed his studies, and for a
time he was placed under the instruction of the learned Aldus Manutius.
Graduating in medicine from the University of Bologna, Berengario became
noted for his skill in surgery and anatomy. He taught these branches in
Pavia, and was a member of the Bologna faculty from 1502 to 1527. Then
he practiced for a time in Rome, where he amassed a fortune by the
treatment of the victims of syphilis. The last twenty years of his life
were spent in Ferrara, where he died in 1550. Berengario was one of the
restorers of anatomy. His first dissection is said to have been made in
the house of Albert Pion, Seigneur de Carpi. This demonstration was
given publicly upon the body of a pig. Soon the anatomist turned his
attention to human subjects, of which it is said that more than a
hundred passed beneath his scalpel.
Berengario’s later years are said by Brambilla to have been made
miserable by the machinations of the agents of the Inquisition, who
objected to some of his opinions regarding the organs of generation. He
was unjustly accused of dissecting living men—an accusation which arose
from his statement that the surgeon should observe the anatomy of the
living body whenever it was opened by wounds or accidents.
[Illustration: SKELETON BY BERENGARIO, 1523]
Berengario determined to improve Mondino’s book by making corrections in
the text, and by adding suitable illustrations. No illustrations were to
be found in the early editions of Mondino, and those which were added by
later editors of the work were untrue to nature. To Berengario must be
given the credit of furnishing some of the first anatomical
illustrations that were published, and that were made from actual human
dissections. These appeared in his “Commentaries of Carpus upon the
Anatomy of Mundinus”, (_Carpi Commentaria super_ _Anatomia Mundini_),
which was published at Bologna in 1521. The volume contains twenty-one
plates which were cut in wood. They have been credited to the celebrated
artist, Hugo da Carpi. While the drawing is somewhat coarse, the
illustrations are true to nature and show a distinct advance over
preceding pictures of this class. Berengario states that his plates will
be of value not only to physicians and surgeons but also to artists (_et
istae figurae etiam juvant pictores in lineandis membris_). Some of his
figures are schematic; for example, those showing the abdominal muscles.
So much better are his illustrations than those of his predecessors that
it may fairly be claimed that Berengario was the first author to produce
an illustrated anatomy.
[Illustration: MUSCLES BY BERENGARIO, 1521]
Berengario also wrote a “Short Introduction to the Anatomy of the Human
Body”, _Isagogae Breves in Anatomiam Humani Corporis_; and a work on
Fracture of the Skull.
He was the first anatomist who described the basilar part of the
occipital bone, the sphenoidal sinus and the tympanic membrane.
Meryon[8] credits him with the “first correct description of the great
omentum (gastrocolic) and transverse mesocolon; of the caecal appendix
vermiformis, of the valvulae conniventes of the intestines; of the
relative proportions of the thorax and pelvis in man and woman; of the
flexor-brevis-pollicis; of the vesiculae seminales; of the separate
cartilages of the larynx; of the membranous pellicle in front of the
retina (attributed to Albinus); of the tricuspid valve, between the
right auricle and ventricle of the heart; of the semilunar valves at the
commencement of the pulmonary artery; of the inosculation between the
epigastric and mammary arteries, and an imperfect account of the cochlea
of the ear”. He was the first of the mediaeval anatomists to deviate
from the Galenic teaching in regard to the structure of the heart. He
diplomatically states that in the human subject the foramina in the
cardiac septum are seen only with great difficulty (_sed in homine cum
maxima difficultate videnter_).
[Illustration: MUSCLES BY BERENGARIO, 1521]