The first anatomical treatise containing an account of the lesser, or
pulmonary circulation, was the monumental work, _De Re Anatomica, libri
xv._, written by Realdus Columbus and sumptuously published at Venice in
the year 1559. This, however, was not the first printed account of the
lesser circulation. Six years prior to the publication of the book of
Columbus, the unfortunate Servetus, in a theological treatise, described
correctly the course of the blood in its transit through the lungs.
Tried for heresy, Servetus was burned, together with all obtainable
copies of his book. Although it had been printed, the work was
suppressed; hence it follows that Columbus was the first to publish the
great discovery. Of the life of this anatomist we know but little. Born
at Cremona, a small Milanese village, the year of his birth is unknown.
He died in 1559, while his book was being printed. A few copies were
finished before his demise, since a copy belonging to the late Dr.
George Jackson Fisher, of Sing Sing, N.Y., contains the author’s own
dedication to Pope Paul IV., while in other exemplars, the dedication
has been written by the two sons of Columbus, and is addressed to “_Pio
IIII., Pont. Max_”. This prelate, on the death of Paul IV., on August
18, 1559, became the head of the Church.
Some writers have held that the discovery of the lesser circulation was
not made by Columbus independently of Servetus, but that a copy of the
book of Servetus had drifted into Italy and had been read by Columbus.
There is no direct evidence to support this view. When Vesalius was
called to Madrid as physician to Charles the Fifth, Columbus, in 1544,
succeeded him in the University of Padua; two years later he filled the
anatomical chair at Pisa, and in 1546, Pope Paul IV. called him to Rome.
Here he spent the later years of his life, engaged in teaching anatomy
and in writing his book. For forty years Columbus pursued his anatomical
studies, and in that period he dissected an unusually large number of
bodies. Fourteen subjects passed under his scalpel in a single year.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF COLUMBUS’S ANATOMY
(Reduced one-half)]
Columbus frequently made experiments upon living animals. He was the
first to use dogs for such purposes, preferring them to swine. Book
XIIII. of the work of Columbus is upon the subject of vivisection, _De
viva sectione_. In this he tells us how to employ living dogs in
demonstrating the movements of the heart and brain, the action of the
lungs, etc. Columbus was the first anatomist who demonstrated
experimentally that the blood passes from the lungs into the pulmonary
veins. “When the heart dilates”, says Columbus, “it draws natural blood
from the vena cava into the right ventricle, and prepared blood from the
pulmonary vein into the left; the valves being so disposed that they
collapse and permit its ingress; but when the heart contracts, they
become tense, and close the apertures, so that nothing can return by the
way it came. The valves of the aorta and pulmonary artery opening, on
the contrary, at the same moment, give passage to the spirituous blood
for distribution to the body at large, and to the natural blood for
transference to the lungs”.
Like Servetus, Columbus held to the idea of “spiritus”. Harvey was the
first physiologist who recognized the circulation as purely a movement
of blood. All before him assumed the existence of a mixture of air and
blood. Columbus, pupil and prosector of Vesalius, like his great master,
denied the existence of foramina in the cardiac septum.