With not much greater justice has the cultivation of anatomical

knowledge been ascribed to Hippocrates, who, because he is

universally allowed to be the father of medicine, has also

been thought to be the creator of the science of anatomy.

Of the seven individuals of the family of the Heracleidae

who bore this celebrated name, the second, who was the

son of Heraclides and Phenarita, and grandson of the first

Hippocrates, was indeed distinguished as a physician of great

observation and experience, and the first who appreciated

the value of studying accurately the phenomena, effects

and terminations of disease. It does not appear, however,

notwithstanding the vague and general panegyrics of J. Riolan,

Bartholin, D. le Clerc, and A. Portal, that the anatomical

knowledge of this illustrious person was either accurate or

profound. Of the works ascribed to Hippocrates, five only are

genuine. Most of them were written either by subsequent

authors of the same name, or by one or other of the numerous

impostors who took advantage of the zealous munificence of

the Ptolemies, by fabricating works under that illustrious

name. Of the few which are genuine, there is none expressly

devoted to anatomy; and of his knowledge on this subject

the only proofs are to be found in the exposition of

his physiological opinions, and his medical or surgical

instructions. From these it appears that Hippocrates had some

accurate notions on osteology, but that of the structure of the

human body in general his ideas were at once superficial and

erroneous. In his book on injuries of the head, and in that on

fractures, he shows that he knew the sutures of the cranium

and the relative situation of the bones, and that he had some

notion of the shape of the bones in general and of their mutual

connexions. Of the muscles, of the soft parts in general, and

of the internal organs, his ideas are confused, indistinct and

erroneous. The term fleps he seems, in imitation of the

colloquial Greek, to have used generally to signify a blood-vessel,

without being aware of the distinction of vein and artery;

and the term arteria, or air-holder, is restricted to the

windpipe. He appears to have been unaware of the existence

of the nervous chords; and the term nerve is used by him,

as by Grecian authors in general, to signify a sinew or

tendon. On other points his views are so much combined with

peculiar physiological doctrines, that it is impossible to

assign them the character of anatomical facts; and even the

works in which these doctrines are contained are with little

probability to be ascribed to the second Hippocrates. If,

however, we overlook this difficulty, and admit what is contained

in the genuine Hippocratic writings to represent at least the

sum of knowledge possessed by Hippocrates and his immediate

descendants, we find that he represents the brain as a gland,

from which exudes a viscid fluid; that the heart is muscular

and of pyramidal shape, and has two ventricles separated by a

partition, the fountains of life--and two auricles, receptacles

of air; that the lungs consist of five ash-coloured lobes,

the substance of which is cellular and spongy, naturally

dry, but refreshed by the air; and that the kidneys are

glands, but possess an attractive faculty, by virtue of which

the moisture of the drink is separated and descends into the

bladder. He distinguishes the bowels into colon and rectum

(o

***Many errors here***

The knowledge possessed by the second Eippochrates was transmitted

in various degrees of purity to the descendants and pupils,

cheifly of the familys of the Eerachleidae, who succeeded

him. Several of these, with feelings of grateful affection,

appear to have studied to preserve the written memorpy of his

instructions, and in this manner to have contributed to form

part of that collection of treatises which have long been

known to hee learned world under the general name of the

Hippocratic writings. Though composed, like the genuine

remains of the physician of Cos, in the Ionian dialect, all

of them differ from these in being more diffuse in style, more

elaborate in form, and in studying to invest their anatomical

and medical matter with the fanciful ornaments of the Platonic

philosophy. Hippocrates had the merit of early recognizing

the value of facts apart from opinions, and of those facts

especially which lead to general results; and in the few genuine

writings which are now extant it is easy to perceive that he

has recourse to the simplest language, expresses himself in

terms which, though short and pithy, are always precise and

perspicuous, and is averse to the introduction of philosophical

dogmas. Of the greater part of the writings collected

under his name, on the contrary the general character is

verboseness, prolixity and a great tendency to speculative

opinions. For these reasons, as well as for others derived

from internal evidence, while the Aphorisms, the Epidemics and

the works above mentioned, bear distinct marks of being the

genuine remains of Hippocrates, it is impossible to regard the

book Peri fusios anthropou as entirely the composition

of that physician; and it appears more reasonable to view

it as the work of some one of the numerous disciples to whom

the author had communicated the results of his observation,

which they unwisely attempted to combine with the philosophy

of the Platonic school and their own mysterious opinions.

Polybus.

Among those who aimed at this distinction, the most fortunate

in the preservation of his name is Polybus, the son-in-law of

the physician of Cos. This person, who must not be confounded

with the monarch of Corinth, immortalized by Sophocles in the

tragic story of Oedipus, is represented as a recluse, severed

from the world and its enjoyments, and devoting himself to

the study of anatomy and physiology, and to the composition of

works on these subjects. To him has been ascribed the whole

of the book on the Nature of the Child and most of that On

Man; both physiological treatises interspersed with anatomical

sketches. His anatomical information, with which we are

specially concerned, appears to have been rude and inaccurate,

like that of his preceptor. He represents the large vessels

of the body as consisting of four pairs; the first proceeding

from the head by the back of the neck and spinal cord to the

hips, lower extremities and outer ankle; the second, consisting

of the jugular vessels (ai sfagitides), proceeding to the

loins, thighs, hams and inner ankle; the third proceeding from

the temples by the neck to the scapula and lungs, and thence

by mutual intercrossings to the spleen and left kidney, and

the liver and right kidney, and finally to the rectum; and the

fourth from the fore-part of the neck to the upper extremities,

the fore-part of the trunk, and the organs of generation.

This specimen of the anatomical knowledge of one of the most

illustrious of the Hippocratic disciples differs not essentially

from that of Syennesis, the physician of Cyprus, and Diogenes,

the philosopher of Apollonia, two authors for the preservation

of whose opinions we are indebted to Aristotle. They may be

admitted as representing the state of anatomical knowledge

among the most enlightened men at that time, and they only

show how rude and erroneous were their ideas on the structure

of the animal body. It may indeed, without injustice, be

said that the anatomy of the Hippocratic school is not only

erroneous, but fanciful and imaginary in often substituting

mere supposition and assertion for what ought to be matter of

fact. From this censure it is impossible to exempt even the

name of Plato himself, for whom some notices in the Timaeus on

the structure of the animal body, as taught by Hippocrates and

Polybus, have procured a place in the history of the science.

Aristotle.

Amidst the general obscurity in which the early history of

anatomy is involved, only two leading facts may be admitted

with certainty. The first is, that previous to the time of

Aristotle there was no accurate knowledge of anatomy; and

the second, that all that was known was derived from the

dissection of the lower animals only. By the appearance

of Aristotle this species of knowledge, which was hitherto

acquired in a desultory and irregular manner, began to be

cultivated systematically and with a definite object; and

among the services which the philosopher of Stagira rendered

to mankind, one of the greatest and most substantial is,

that he was the founder of Comparative Anatomy, and was the

first to apply its facts to the elucidation of zoology. The

works of this ardent and original naturalist show that his

zootomical knowledge was extensive and often accurate; and

from several of his descriptions it is impossible to doubt

that they were derived from frequent personal dissection.

Aristotle, who was born 384 years before the Christian era,

or in the first year of the 99th Olympiad, was at the age of

thirty-nine requested by Philip to undertake the education

of his son Alexander. During this period it is said he

composed several works on anatomy, which, however, are now

lost. The military expedition of his royal pupil into Asia,

by laying open the animal stores of that vast and little-known

continent, furnished Aristotle with the means of extending

his knowledge, not only of the animal tribes, but of their

structure, and of communicating more accurate and distinct

notions than were yet accessible to the world. A sum of 800

talents, and the concurrent aid of numerous intelligent

assistants in Greece and Asia, were intended to facilitate

his researches in composing a system of zoological knowledge;

but it has been observed that the number of instances in

which he was thus compelled to trust to the testimony of

other observers led him to commit errors in description

which personal observation might have enabled him to avoid.

The first three books of the History of Animals, a

treatise consisting of ten books, and the four books on the

Parts of Animals, constitute the great monument of the

Aristotelian Anatomy. From these we find that Aristotle

was the first who corrected the erroneous statements of

Polybus, Syennesis and Diogenes regarding the blood-vessels,

which they made, as we have seen, to arise from the head and

brain. These he represents to be two in number, placed before

the spinal column, the larger on the right, the smaller on

the left, which, he also remarks, is by some called aorta

(aorte), the first time we observe that this epithet

occurs in the history. Both he represents to arise from the

heart, the larger from the largest upper cavity, the smaller

or aorta from the middle cavity, but in a different manner

and forming a narrower canal. He also distinguishes the

thick, firm and more tendinous structure of the aorta from

the thin and membranous structure of vein. In describing

the distribution of the latter, however, he confounds the

vena cava and pulmonary artery, and, as might be expected,

he confounds the ramifications of the former with those of

the arterial tubes in general. While he represents the lung

to be liberally supplied with blood, he describes the brain

as an organ almost destitute of this fluid. His account

of the distribution of the aorta is wonderfully correct.

Though he does not notice the coeliac, and remarks that the

aorta sends no direct branches to the liver and spleen, he

had observed the mesenteric, the renal and the common iliac

arteries. It is nevertheless singular that though he remarks

particularly that the renal branches of the aorta go to the

substance and not the pelvis (koilia) of the kidney, he

appears to mistake the ureters for branches of the aorta.

Of the nerves (neura) he appears to have the most confused

notions. Making them arise from the heart, which he says

has nerves (tendons) in its largest cavity, he represents the

aorta to be a nervous or tendinous vein (neuroder fleps.)

By and by, afterwards saying that all the articulated bones

are connected by nerves, he makes them the same as ligaments.

He distinguishes the windpipe or air-holder (arteria) from

the oesophagus, because it is placed before the latter, because

food or drink passing into it causes distressing cough and

suffocation, and because there is no passage from the lung to the

stomach. He knew the situation and use of the epiglottis, seems

to have had some indistinct notions of the larynx, represents

the windpipe to be necessary to convey air to and from the

lungs, and appears to have a tolerable understanding of the

structure of the lungs. He repeatedly represents the heart,

the shape and site of which he describes accurately, to be the

origin of the blood-vessels, in opposition to those who made

them descend from the head; yet, though he represents it as

full of blood and the source and fountain of that fluid, and

even speaks of the blood flowing from the heart to the veins,

and thence to every part of the body, he says nothing of the

circular motion of the blood. The diaphragm he distinguishes

by the name diazoma, and upozoma. With the liver

and spleen, and the whole alimentary canal, he seems well

acquainted. The several parts of the quadruple stomach of

the ruminating animals are distinguished and named; and he

even traces the relations between the teeth and the several

forms of stomach, and the length or brevity, the simplicity or

complication of the intestinal tube. Upon the same principles

distinguishes the jejunum (e nestis), or the empty portion

of the small intestines in animals (to enteron lepton),

the caecum (tuflon ti kai ogkodes), the colon

(to kolon), and the sigmoid flexure (stenoteron kai

eligmenon.) The modern epithet of rectum is the literal

translation of his description of the straight progress

(euthu) of the bowel to the anus (proktos.) He knew the

nasal cavities and the passage from the tympanal cavity of

the ear to the palate, afterwards described by B. Eustachius.

He distinguishes as ``partes similares'' those structures,

such as bone, cartilage, vessels, sinews, blood, lymph, fat,

flesh, which, not confined to one locality, but distributed

throughout the body generally, we now term the tissues or

textures, whilst he applies the term ``partes dissimilares''

to the regions of the head, neck, trunk and extremities.

Next to Aristotle occur the names of Diocles of Carystus

and Praxagoras of Cos, the last of the family of the

Asclepiadae. The latter is remarkable for being the first

who distinguished the arteries from the veins, and the

author of the opinion that the former were air-vessels.

Alexandrian school.

Hitherto anatomical inquiry was confined to the examination

of the bodies of brute animals. We have, indeed, no

testimony of the human body being submitted to examination

previous to the time of Erasistratus and Herophilus; and

it is vain to look for authentic facts on this point before

the foundation of the Ptolemaic dynasty of sovereigns in

Egypt. This event, which, as is generally known, succeeded

the death of Alexander, 320 years before the Christian era,

collected into one spot the scattered embers of literature and

science, which were beginning to languish in Greece under

a weak and distracted government and an unsettled state of

society. The children of her divided states, whom domestic

discord and the uncertainties of war rendered unhappy at

home, wandered into Egypt, and found, under the fostering

hand of the Alexandrian monarchs, the means of cultivating

the sciences, and repaying with interest to the country of

Thoth and Osiris the benefits which had been conferred on

the infancy of Greece by Thales and Pythagoras. Alexandria

became in this manner the repository of all the learning and

knowledge of the civilized world; and while other nations were

sinking under the effects of internal animosities and mutual

dissensions, or ravaging the earth with the evils of war,

the Egyptian Greeks kept alive the sacred flame of science,

and preserved mankind from relapsing into their original

barbarism. These happy effects are to be ascribed in an eminent

degree to the enlightened government and liberal opinions of

Ptolemy Soter, and his immediate successors Philadelphus and

Euergetes. The two latter princes, whose authority was equalled

only by the zeal with which they patronized science and its

professors, were the first who enabled physicians to dissect

the human body, and prevented the prejudices of ignorance

and superstition from compromising the welfare of the human

race. To this happy circumstance Herophilus and Erasistratus

are indebted for the distinction of being known to posterity as

the first anatomists who dissected and described the parts of

the human body. Both these physicians flourished under Ptolemy

Soter, and probably Ptolemy Philadelphus, and were indeed the

principal supports of what has been named in medical history

the Alexandrian School, to which their reputation seems to

have attracted numerous pupils. But though the concurrent

testimony of antiquity assigns to these physicians the merit

of dissecting the human body, time, which wages endless war

with the vanity and ambition of man, has dealt hardly with

the monuments of their labours. As the works of neither

have been preserved, great uncertainty prevails as to the

respective merits of these ancient anatomists; and all that is

now known of their anatomical researches is obtained from the

occasional notices of Galen, Oribasius and some other writers.

Erasistratus.

From these it appears that Erasistratus recognized the

valves of the heart. and distinguished them by the names of

tricuspid and sigmoid; that he studied particularly the

shape and structure of the brain, and its divisions, and

cavities, and membranes, and likened the convolutions to

the folds of the jejunum; that he first formed a distinct

idea of the nature of the nerves, which he made issue from

the brain; and that he discovered lymphatic vessels in the

mesentery, first in brute animals, and afterwards, it is

said, in man. He appears also to have distinguished

the nerves into those of sensation and those of motion.

Herophilus.

Of Herophilus it is said that he had extensive anatomical

knowledge, acquired by dissecting not only brutes but human

bodies. Of these he probably dissected more than any

of his predecessors or contemporaries. Devoted to the

assiduous cultivation of anatomy, he appears, to have studied

with particular attention those parts which were least

understood. He recognized the nature of the pulmonary

artery, which he denominates arterious vein; he knew the

vessels of the mesentery, and showed that they did not go

to the vena portae, but to certain glandular bodies;

and he first applied the name of twelve-inch or duodenum

(dodekadaktulos) to that part of the alimentary canal

which is next to the stomach. Like Erasistratus, he appears

to have studied carefully the configuration of the brain; and

though, like him, he distinguishes the nerves into those

of sensation and those of voluntary motion, he adds to them

the ligaments and tendons. A tolerable description of the

liver by this anatomist is preserved in the writings of

Galen. He first applied the name of choroid or vascular

membrane to that which is found in the cerebral ventricles;

he knew the straight venous sinus which still bears his name;

and to him the linear furrow at the bottom of the fourth

ventricle is indebted for its name of calamus scriptorius.

The celebrity of these two great anatomists appears to have

thrown into the shade for a long period the names of all other

inquirers; for, among their numerous and rather celebrated

successors in the Alexandrian school, it is impossible to

recognize a name which is entitled to distinction in the

history of anatomy. In a chasm so wide it is not uninteresting

to find, in one who combined the characters of the greatest

orator and philosopher of Rome, the most distinct traces of

attention to anatomical knowledge. Cicero, in his treatise

De A'atura Deorum, in a short sketch of physiology, such

as it was taught by Aristotle and his disciples, introduces

various anatomical notices, from which the classical

reader may form some idea of the state of anatomy at that

time. The Roman orator appears to have formed a pretty

distinct idea of the shape and connexions of the windpipe

and lungs; and though he informs his readers that he knows

the alimentary canal, he omits the details through motives of

delicacy. In imitation of Aristotle, he talks of the blood

being conveyed by the veins (venae), that is, blood-vessels,

through the body at large; and, like Praxagoras, of the air

inhaled by the lungs being conveyed through the arteries.

Aretaeus, though chiefly known as a medical author, makes

some observations on the lung and the pleura, maintains

the glandular structure of the kidney, and describes the

anastomoses or communications of the capillary extremities

of the vena cava with those of the portal vein.

Celsus.

The most valuable depository of the anatomical knowledge of

these times is the work of Celsus, one of the most judicious

medical authors of antiquity. He left, indeed, no express

anatomical treatise; but from the introductions to the 4th

and 8th books of his work, De Medicina, with incidental

remarks in the 7th, the modern reader may form very just

ideas of his anatomical attainments. From these it appears

that Celsus was well acquainted with the windpipe and lungs

and the heart; with the difference between the windpipe

and oesophagus (stomachus), which leads to the stomach

(ventriculus); and with the shape, situation and relations

of the diaphragm. He enumerates also the principal facts

relating to the situation of the liver, the spleen, the

kidneys and the stomach. He appears, however, to have been

unaware of the distinction of duodenum or twelve-inch

bowel, already admitted by Herophilus, and represents the

stomach as directly connected by means of the pylorus

with the jejunum or upper part of the small intestine.

The 7th and 8th books, which are devoted to the consideration

of those diseases which are treated by manual operation,

contain sundry anatomical notices necessary to explain the

nature of the diseases or mode of treatment. Of these,

indeed, the merit is unequal; and it is not wonderful that

the ignorance of the day prevented Celsus from understanding

rightly the mechanism of the pathology of hernia. He appears,

however, to have formed a tolerably just idea of the mode of

cutting into the urinary bladder; and even his obstetrical

instructions show that his knowledge of the uterus, vagina

and appendages was not contemptible. It is in osteology,

however, that the information of Celsus is chiefly conspicuous.

He enumerates the sutures and several of the holes of the

cranium, and describes at great length the superior and inferior

maxillary bones and the teeth. With a good deal of care he

describes the vertebrae and the ribs, and gives very briefly

the situation and shape of the scapula, humerus, radius and

ulna, and even of the carpal and metacarpal bones, and then

of the different bones of the pelvis and lower extremities.

He had formed a just idea of the articular connexions, and

is desirous to impress the fact that none is formed without

cartilage. From his mention of many minute holes (multa et

tenuia foramina) in the recess of the nasal cavities, it is

evident that he was acquainted with the perforated plate of

the ethmoid bone; and from saying that the straight part of

the auditory canal becomes flexuous and terminates in numerous

minute cavities (multa et tenuia foramina diducitur), it

is inferred by Portal that he knew the semicircular canals.

Though the writings of Celsus show that he cultivated anatomical

knowledge, it does not appear that the science was much studied

by the Romans; and there is reason to believe that, after the

decay of the school of Alexandria, it languished in neglect and

obscurity. It is at least certain that the appearance of

Marinus during the reign of Nero is mentioned by authors

as an era remarkable for anatomical inquiry, and that this

person is distinguished by Galen as the restorer of a branch

of knowledge which had been before him suffered to fall into

undeserved neglect. From Galen also we learn that Marinus

gave an accurate account of the muscles, that he studied

particularly the glands, and that he discovered those of the

mesentery. He fixed the number of nerves at seven; he observed

the palatine nerves, which he rated as the fourth pair;

and described as the fifth the auditory and facial, which

he regards as one pair, and the hypoglossal as the sixth.

Rufus.

Not long after Marinus appeared Rufus (or Ruffus) of

Ephesus, a Greek physician, who in the reign of Trajan was

much attached to physiology, and as a means of cultivating

this science studied Comparative Anatomy and made sundry

experiments on living animals. Of the anatomical writings

of this author there remains only a list or catalogue of

names of different regions and parts of the animal body. He

appears, however, to have directed attention particularly

to the tortuous course of the uterine vessels, and to have

recognized even at this early period the Fallopian tube. He

distinguishes the nerves into those of sensation and those of

motion. He knew the recurrent nerve. His name is further

associated with the ancient experiment of compressing in

the situation of the carotid arteries the pneumogastric

nerve, and thereby inducing insensibility and loss of voice.

Galen.

Of all the authors of antiquity, however, none possesses so

just a claim to the title of anatomist as Claudius Galenus,

the celebrated physician of Pergamum, who was born about the

130th year of the Christian era, and lived under the reigns of

Hadrian, the Antonines, Commodus and Severus. He was trained

by his father Nicon (whose memory he embalms as an eminent

mathematician, architect and astronomer) in all the learning

of the day, and initiated particularly into the mysteries of

the Aristotelian philosophy. In an order somewhat whimsical

he afterwards studied philosophy successively in the schools

of the Stoics, the Academics, the Peripatetics and the

Epicureans. When he was seventeen years of age, his father,

he informs us, was admonished by a dream to devote his son

to the study of medicine; but it was fully two years after

that Galen entered on this pursuit, under the auspices of

an instructor whose name he has thought proper to conceal.

Shortly after he betook himself to the study of anatomy under

Satyrus, a pupil of Quintus, and of medicine under Stratonicus,

a Hippocratic physician, and Aeschrion, an empiric. He had

scarcely attained the age of twenty when he had occasion to

deplore the loss of the first and most affectionate guide of

his studies; and soon after he proceeded to Smyrna to obtain

the anatomical instructions of Pelops, who, though mystified

by some of the errors of Hippocrates, is commemorated by his

pupil as a skilful anatomist. After this he appears to have

visited various cities distinguished for philosophical or

medical teachers; and, finally, to have gone to Alexandria

with the view of cultivating more accurately and intimately

the study of anatomy under Heraclianus. Here he remained till

his twenty-eighth year, when he regarded himself as possessed

of all the knowledge then attainable through the medium of

teachers. He now returned to Pergamum to exercise the art

which he had so anxiously studied, and received, in his

twenty-ninth year, an unequivocal testimony of the confidence

which his fellow-citizens reposed in his skill, by being

intrusted with the treatment of the wounded gladiators;

and in this capacity he is said to have treated wounds with

success which were fatal under former treatment. A seditious

tumult appears to have caused him to form the resolution

of quitting Pergamum and proceeding to Rome at the age of

thirty-two. Here, however, he remained only five years; and

returning once more to Pergamum, after travelling for some

time, finally settled in Rome as physician to the emperor

Commodus. The anatomical writings ascribed to Galen, which

are numerous, are to be viewed not merely as the result

of personal research and information, but as the common

depository of the anatomical knowledge of the day, and as

combining all that he had learnt from the several teachers

under whom he successively studied with whatever personal

investigation enabled him to acquire. It is on this account

not always easy to distinguish what Galen had himself

ascertained by personal research from that which was known

by other anatomists. This, however, though of moment to the

history of Galen as an anatomist, is of little consequence

to the science itself; and from the anatomical remains of

this author a pretty just idea may be formed both of the

progress and of the actual state of the science at that time.

The osteology of Galen is undoubtedly the most perfect of

the departments of the anatomy of the ancients. He names

and distinguishes the bones and sutures of the cranium nearly

in the same manner as at present. Thus, he notices the

quadrilateral shape of the parietal bones; he distinguishes the

squamous, the styloid, the mastoid and the petrous portions

of the temporal bones; and he remarks the peculiar situation

and shape of the sphenoid bone. Of the ethmoid, which he

omits at first, he afterwards speaks more at large in another

treatise. The malar he notices under the name of zygomatic

bone; and he describes at length the upper maxillary and

nasal bones, and the connexion of the former with the

sphenoid. He gives the first clear account of the number and

situation of the vertebrae, which he divides into cervical,

dorsal and lumbar, and distinguishes from the sacrum and

coccyx. Under the head Bones of the Thorax, he enumerates the

sternum, the ribs (ai pleurai), and the dorsal vertebrae,

the connexion of which with the former he designates as a

variety of diarthrosis. The description of the bones of the

extremities and their articulations concludes the treatise.

Though in myology Galen appears to less advantage than in

osteology, he nevertheless had carried this part of anatomical

knowledge to greater perfection than any of his predecessors.

He describes a frontal muscle, the six muscles of the eye

and a seventh proper to animals; a muscle to each ala nasi,

four muscles of the lips, the thin cutaneous muscle of the

neck, which he first termed platysma myoides or muscular

expansion, two muscles of the eyelids, and four pairs of

muscles of the lower jaw--the temporal to raise, the masseter

to draw to one side, and two depressors, corresponding to the

digastric and internal pterygoid muscles. After speaking of

the muscles which move the head and the scapula, he adverts

to those by which the windpipe is opened and shut, and the

intrinsic or proper muscles of the larynx and hyoid bone.

Then follow those of the tongue, pharynx and neck, those of

the upper extremities, the trunk and the lower extremities

successively; and in the course of this description he swerves

so little from the actual facts that most of the names by

which he distinguishes the principal muscles have been retained

by the best modern anatomists. It is chiefly in the minute

account of these organs, and especially in reference to the

minuter muscles, that he appears inferior to the moderns.

The angiological knowledge of Galen, though vitiated by

the erroneous physiology of the times and ignorance of the

separate uses of arteries and veins, exhibits, nevertheless,

some accurate facts which show the diligence of the author in

dissection. Though, in opposition to the opinions of Praxagoras

and Erasistratus, he proved that the arteries in the living

animal contain not air but blood, it does not appear to have

occurred to him to determine in what direction the blood flows,

or whether it was movable or stationary. Representing the left

ventricle of the heart as the common origin of all the arteries,

though he is misled by the pulmonary artery, he nevertheless

traces the distribution of the branches of the aorta with some

accuracy. The vena azygos also, and the jugular veins,

have contributed to add to the confusion of his description,

and to render his angiology the most imperfect of his works.

In neurology we find him to be the author of the dogma that

the brain is the origin of the nerves of sensation, and the

spinal cord of those of motion; and he distinguishes the

former from the latter by their greater softness or less

consistence. Though he admits only seven cerebral pairs, he

has the merit of distinguishing and tracing the distribution

of the greater part of both classes of nerves with great

accuracy. His description of the brain is derived from

dissection of the lower animals, and his distinctions of

the several parts of the organ have been retained by modern

anatomists. His mode of demonstrating this organ, which

indeed is clearly described, consists of five different

steps. In the first the bisecting membrane--i.e. the falx

(menigx dichotomousa)--and the connecting blood-vessels

are removed; and the dissector, commencing at the anterior

extremity of the great fissure, separates the hemispheres gently

as far as the torcular, and exposes a smooth surface (ten

choran tulode pos ousan), the mesolobe of the moderns,

or the middle band. In the second he exposes by successive

sections the ventricles, the choroid plexus and the middle

partition. The third exhibits the pineal body (soma

konoeides) or conarium, concealed by a membrane with numerous

veins, meaning that part of the plexus which is now known by

the name of velum interpositum, and a complete view of the

ventricles. The fourth unfolds the third ventricle (tis

alle trite koilia), the communication between the two

lateral ones, the arch-like body (soma psalidoeides)

fornix, and the passage from the third to the fourth

ventricle. In the fifth he gives an accurate description

of the relations of the third and fourth ventricle, of the

situation of the two pairs of eminences, nates (glouta)

and testes (didumia or orcheis), the scolecoid or

worm-like process, anterior and posterior, and lastly the

linear furrow, called by Herophilus calamus scriptorius.

In the account of the thoracic organs equal accuracy may be

recognized. He distinguishes the pleura by the name of

inclosing membrane (umen upezokos, membrana succingens),

and remarks its similitude in structure to that of the

peritoneum, and the covering which it affords to all the

organs. The pericardium also he describes as a membranous

sac with a circular basis corresponding to the base of

the heart and a conical apex; and after an account of the

tunics of the arteries and veins, he speaks shortly of the

lung, and more at length of the heart, which, however, he

takes somepains to prove not to be muscular, because it is

harder, its fibres are differently arranged, and its action

is incessant, whereas that of muscle alternates with the

state of rest; he gives a good account of the valves and of

the vessels; and notices especially the bony ring formed in

the heart of the horse, elephant and other large animals.

The description of the abdominal organs, and of the kidneys

and urinary apparatus, is still more minute, and in general

accurate. Our limits, however, do not permit us to give

any abstract of them; and it is sufficient in general to

say that Galen gives correct views of the arrangement of

the peritoneum and omentum, and distinguishes accurately the

several divisions of the alimentary canal and its component

tissues. In the liver, which he allows to receive an

envelope from the peritoneum, he admits, in imitation of

Erasistratus, a proper substance or parenchyma, interposed

between the vessels, and capable of removal by suitable

dissection. His description of the organs of generation

is rather brief, and is, like most of his anatomical

sketches, too much blended with physiological dogmas.

This short sketch may communicate some idea of the condition

of anatomical knowledge in the days of Galen, who indeed

is justly entitled to the character of rectifying and

digesting, if not of creating, the science of anatomy among the

ancients. Though evidently confined, perhaps entirely by

the circumstances of the times, to the dissection of brute

animals, so indefatigable and judicious was he in the mode of

acquiring knowledge, that many of his names and distinctions

are still retained with advantage in the writings of the

moderns. Galen was a practical anatomist, and not only

describes the organs of the animal body from actual

dissection, but gives ample instructions for the proper mode of

exposition. His language is in general clear, his style as

correct as in most of the authors of the same period, and

his manner is animated. Few passages in early science are

indeed so interesting as the description of the process for

demonstrating the brain and other internal organs which is

given by this patient and enthusiastic observer of nature.

To some it may appear absurd to speak of anything like good

anatomical description in an author who writes in the Greek

language, or anything like an interesting and correct manner

in a writer who flourished at a period when taste was depraved

or extinct and literature corrupted--when the philosophy of

Antoninus and the mild virtues of Aurelius could do little

to soften the iron sway of Lucius Verus and Commodus; but

the habit of faithful observation in Galen seems to have

been so powerful that in the description of material objects,

his genius invariably rises above the circumstances of his

age. Though not so directly connected with this subject,

it is nevertheless proper to mention that he appears to

have been the first anatomist who can be said, on authentic

grounds, to have attempted to discover the uses of organs

by vivisection and experiments on living animals. In this

manner he ascertained the position and demonstrated the action

of the heart; and he mentions two instances in which, in

consequence of disease or injury, he had an opportunity of

observing the motions of this organ in the human body. In

short, without eulogizing an ancient author at the expense of

critical justice, or commending his anatomical descriptions

as superior to those of the moderns, it must be admitted

that the anatomical writings of the physician of Pergamum

form a remarkable era in the history of the science; and

that by diligence in dissection and accuracy in description

he gave the science a degree of importance and stability

which it has retained through a lapse of many centuries.

The death of Galen, which took place at Pergamum in the

seventieth year of his age and the 200th of the Christian

era, may be regarded as the downfall of anatomy in ancient

times. After this period we recognize only two names of any

celebrity in the history of the science--those of Soranus and

Oribasius, with the more obscure ones of Meletius and Theophilus,

the latter the chief of the imperial guard of Heraclius.

Soranus, who was an Ephesian, and flourished under the

emperors Trajan and Hadrian, distinguished himself by his

researches on the female organs of generation. He appears

to have dissected the human subject; and this perhaps is one

reason why his descriptions of these parts are more copious

and more accurate than those of Galen, who derived his

knowledge from the bodies of the lower animals. He denies

the existence of the hymen, but describes accurately the

clitoris. Soranus the anatomist must be distinguished from

the physician of that name, who was also a native of Ephesus.

Oribasius.

Oribasius, who was born at Pergamum, is said to have been

at once the friend and physician of the emperor Julian, and

to have contributed to the elevation of that apostate to the

imperial throne. For this he appears to have suffered the

punishment of a temporary exile under Valens and Valentinian;

but was soon recalled, and lived in great honour till

the period of his death (387). By le Clerc, Oribasius is

regarded as a compiler; and indeed his anatomical writings

bear so close a correspondence with those of Galen that the

character is not altogether groundless. In various points,

nevertheless, he has rendered the Galenian anatomy more

accurate; and he has distinguished himself by a good account

of the salivary glands, which were overlooked by Galen.

To the same period generally is referred the Anatomical Introduction

of an anonymous author, first published in 1618 by Lauremberg, and

afterwards by C. Bernard. It is to be regarded as a compilation

formed on the model of Galen and Oribasius. The same character

is applicable to the treatises of Meletius and Theophilus.

The decline indicated by these languid efforts soon sank

into a state of total inactivity; and the unsettled state

of society during the latter ages of the Roman empire was

extremely unfavourable to the successful cultivation of

science. The sanguinary conflicts in which the southern

countries of Europe were repeatedly engaged with their northern

neighbours between the 2nd and 8th centuries tended gradually

to estrange their minds from scientific pursuits; and the

hordes of barbarians by which the Roman empire was latterly

overrun, while they urged them to the necessity of making

hostile resistance, and adopting means of self-defence,

introduced such habits of ignorance and barbarism, that science

was almost universally forgotten. While the art of healing

was professed only by some few ecclesiastics or by itinerant

practitioners, anatomy was utterly neglected; and no name

of anatomical celebrity occurs to diversify the long and

uninteresting period commonly distinguished as the dark ages.

Arabian Physicians.

Anatomical learning, thus neglected by European nations, is

believed to have received a temporary cultivation from the

Asiatics. Of these, several nomadic tribes, known to Europeans

under the general denomination of Arabs and Saracens, had

gradually coalesced under various leaders; and by their

habits of endurance, as well as of enthusiastic valour in

successive expeditions against the eastern division of the Roman

empire, had acquired such military reputation as to render

them formidable wherever they appeared. After a century and

a half of foreign warfare or internal animosity, under the

successive dynasties of the Omayyads and Abbasids, in which

the propagation of Islam was the pretext for the extinction

of learning and civilization, and the most remorseless system

of rapine and destruction, the Saracens began, under the

latter dynasty of princes, to recognize the value of science,

and especially of that which prolongs life, heals disease

and alleviates the pain of wounds and injuries. The caliph

Mansur combined with his official knowledge of Moslem law the

successful cultivation of astronomy; but to his grandson Mamun,

the seventh prince of the line of the Abbasids, belongs the

merit of undertaking to render his subjects philosophers and

physicians. By the directions of this prince the works of

the Greek and Roman authors were translated into Arabic;

and the favour and munificence with which literature and its

professors were patronized speedily raised a succession of

learned Arabians. The residue of the rival family of the

Omayyads, already settled in Spain, was prompted by motives

of rivalry or honourable ambition to adopt the same course;

and while the academy, hospitals and library of Bagdad bore

testimony to the zeal and liberality of the Abbasids, the

munificence of the Omayyads was not less conspicuous in

the literary institutions of Cordova, Seville and Toledo.

Notwithstanding the efforts of the Arabian princes, however,

and the diligence of the Arabian physicians, little was

done for anatomy, and the science made no substantial

acquisition. The Koran denounces as unclean the person

who touches a corpse; the rules of Islam forbid dissection;

and whatever their instructors taught was borrowed from the

Greeks. Abu-Bekr Al-Rasi, Abu-Ali Ibn-Sina, Abul-Qasim and

Abul Walid ibn Rushd, the Rhazes, Avicenna, Abulcasis and

Averroes of European authors, are their most celebrated names

in medicine; yet to none of these can the historian with

justice ascribe any anatomical merit. Rhazes has indeed

left descriptions of the eye, of the ear and its meatus,

and of the heart; and Avicenna, Abul-Qasim and Averroes give

anatomical descriptions of the parts of the human body. But

of these the general character is, that they are copies from

Galen, sometimes not very just, and in all instances mystified

with a large proportion of the fanciful and absurd imagery

and inflated style of the Arabian writers. The chief reason

of their obtaining a place in anatomical history is, that by

the influence which their medical authority enabled them to

exercise in the European schools, the nomenclature which they

employed was adopted by European anatomists, and continued

till the revival of ancient learning restored the original

nomenclature of the Greek physicians. Thus, the cervix,

or nape of the neck, is nucha; the oesophagus is meri;

the umbilical region is sumen or sumac; the abdomen is

myrach; the peritoneum is siphac; and the omentum, zirbus.

From the general character now given justice requires that

we except Abdallatif, the annalist of Egyptian affairs. This

author, who maintains that it is impossible to learn anatomy

from books, and that the authority of Galen must yield to

personal inspection, informs us that the Moslem doctors did

not neglect opportunities of studying the bones of the human

body in cemeteries; and that he himself, by once examining a

collection of bones in this manner, ascertained that the lower

jaw is formed of one piece; that the sacrum, though sometimes

composed of several, is most generally of one; and that Galen

is mistaken when he asserts that these bones are not single.

School of Bologna.

The era of Saracen learning extends to the 13th century; and

after this we begin to approach happier times. The university

of Bologna, which, as a school of literature and law, was

already celebrated in the 12th century, became, in the course

of the following one, not less distinguished for its medical

teachers. Though the misgovernment of the municipal rulers

of Bologna had disgusted both teachers and students, and given

rise to the foundation of similar institutions in Padua and

Naples,--and though the school of Salerno, in the territory

of the latter, was still in high repute,--it appears, from

the testimony of M. Sarti, that medicine was in the highest

esteem in Bologna, and that it was in such perfection as

to require a division of its professors into physicians,

surgeons, physicians for wounds, barber-surgeons, oculists

and even some others. Notwithstanding these indications

of refinement, however, anatomy was manifestly cultivated

rather as an appendage of surgery than a branch of medical

science; and according to the testimony of Guy de Chauliac,

the cultivation of anatomical knowledge was confined to

Roger of Parma, Roland, Jamerio, Bruno, and Lanfranc or

Lanfranchi of Milan; and this they borrowed chiefly from Galen.

Mondino.

In this state matters appear to have proceeded with the

medical school of Bologna till the commencement of the 14th

century, when the circumstance of possessing a teacher of

originality enabled this university to be the agent of as

great an improvement in medical science as she had already

effected in jurisprudence. This era, indeed, is distinguished

for the appearance of Mondino (Mundinus), under whose

zealous cultivation the science first began to rise from the

ashes in which it had been buried. This father of modern

anatomy, who taught in Bologna about the year 1315, quickly

drew the curiosity of the medical profession by well-ordered

demonstrations of the different parts of the human body. In

1315 he dissected and demonstrated the parts of the human body

in two female subjects; and in the course of the following

year he accomplished the same task on the person of a single

female. But while he seems to have had sufficient original

force of intellect to direct his own route, J. Riolan accuses

him of copying Galen; and it is certain that his descriptions

are corrupted by the barbarous leaven of the Arabian schools,

and his Latin defaced by the exotic nomenclature of Avicenna

and Rhazes. He died, according to G. Tiraboschi, in 1325.

Mondino divides the body into three cavities (ventres), the

upper containing the animal members, as the head, the lower

containing the natural members, and the middle containing the

spiritual members. He first describes the anatomy of the lower

cavity or the abdomen, then proceeds to the middle or thoracic

organs, and concludes with the upper, comprising the head and

its contents and appendages. His general manner is to notice

shortly the situation and shape or distribution of textures or

membranes, and then to mention the disorders to which they are

subject. The peritoneum he describes under the name of

siphac, in imitation of the Arabians, the omentum under that

of zirbus, and the mesentery or eucharus as distinct from

both. In speaking of the intestines he treats first of the

rectum, then the colon, the left or sigmoid flexure of

which, as well as the transverse arch and its connexion with

the stomach, he particularly remarks; then the caecum or

monoculus, after this the small intestines in general under

the heads of ileum and jejunum, and latterly the duodenum,

making in all six bowels. The liver and its vessels are

minutely, if not accurately, examined; and the cava, under

the name chilis, a corruption from the Greek koile,

is trcated at length, with the emulgents and kidneys. His

anatomy of the heart is wonderfully accurate; and it is a

remarkable fact, which seems to be omitted by all subsequent

authors, that his description contains the rudiments of the

circulation of the blood. ``Postea vero versus pulmonem est

aliud orificium venae arterialis, quae portat sanguinem ad

pulmonem a corde; quia cum pulmo deserviat cordi secundum modum

dictum, ut ei recompenset, cor ei transmittit sanguinem

per hanc venam, quae vocatur vena arterialis; est vena, quia

portat sanguinem, et arterialis, quia habet duas tunicas; et

habet duas tunicas, primo quia vadit ad membrum quod existit

in continuo motu, et secundo quia portat sanguinem valde

subtilem et cholericum.'' The merit of these distinctions,

however, he afterwards destroys by repeating the old assertion

that the left ventricle ought to contain spirit or air, which

it generates from the blood. His osteology of the skull is

erroneous. In his account of the cerebral membranes, though

short, he notices the principal characters of the dura mater.

He describes shortly the lateral ventricles, with their anterior

and posterior cornua, and the choroid plexus as a blood-red

substance like a long worm. He then speaks of the third or

middle ventricle, and one posterior, which seems to correspond

with the fourth; and describes the infundibulum under the

names of lacuna and emboton. In the base of the organ he

remarks, first, two mammillary caruncles, the optic nerves,

which he reckons the first pair; the oculomuscular, which he

accounts the second; the third, which appears to be sixth of the

moderns; the fourth; the fifth, evidently the seventh; a sixth,

the nervus vagus; and a seventh, which is the ninth of the

moderns. Notwithstanding the misrepresentations into which

this early anatomist was betrayed, his book is valuable, and has

been illustrated by the successive commentaries of Alessandro

Achillini, Jacopo Berengario and Johann Dryander (1500-1560).

Matthew de Gradibus, a native of Gradi, a town in Friuli,

near Milan, distinguished himself by composing a series of

treatises on the anatomy of various parts of the human body

(1480). He is the first who represents the ovaries of the

female in the correct light in which they were subsequently

regarded by Nicolas Steno or Stensen (1638-1687).

Objections similar to those already urged in speaking

of Mondino apply to another eminent anatomist of those

times. Gabriel de Zerbis, who flourished at Verona towards

the conclusion of the 15th century, is celebrated as the

author of a system in which he is obviously more anxious

to astonish his readers by the wonders of a verbose and

complicated style than to instruct by precise and faithful

description. In the vanity of his heart he assumed the title

of Medicus Theoricus; but though, like Mondino, he derived

his information from the dissection of the human subject,

he is not entitled to the merit either of describing truly

or of adding to the knowledge previously acquired. He is

superior to Mondina, however, in knowing the olfactory nerves.

Achillini.

Eminent in the history of the science, and more distinguished

than any of this age in the history of cerebral anatomy, Achillini

of Bologna (1463-1512), the pupil and commentator of Mondino,

appeared at the close of the 15th century. Though a follower

of the Arabian school, the assiduity with which he cultivated

anatomy has rescued his name from the inglorious obscurity

in which the Arabian doctors have in general slumbered. He

is known in the history of anatomical discovery as the first

who described the two tympanal bones, termed malleus and

incus. In 1503 he showed that the tarsus consists of seven

bones; he rediscovered the fornix and the infundibulum; and

he was fortunate enough to observe the course of the cerebral

cavities into the inferior cornua, and to remark peculiarities

to which the anatomists of a future age did not advert. He

mentions the orifices of the ducts, afterwards described by

Thomas Wharton (1610-1673). He knew the ileo-caecal valve;

and his description of the duodenum, ileum and colon shows

that he was better acquainted with the site and disposition of

these bowels than any of his predecessors or contemporaries.

Berenger.

Not long after, the science boasts of one of its most

distinguished founders. Berengario, commonly called Berenger

of Carpi, in the Modenese territory, flourished at Bologna

at the beginning of the 16th century. In the annals of

medicine his name will be remembered not only as the most

zealous and eminent in cultivating the anatomy of the human

body, but as the first physician who was fortunate enough

to calm the alarms of Europe, suffering under the ravages

of syphilis, then raging with uncontrollable virulence.

In the former character he surpassed both predecessors and

contemporaries; and it was long before the anatomists of the

following age could boast of equalling him. His assiduity

was indefatigable; and he declares that he dissected above one

hundred human bodies. He is the author of a compendium, of

several treatises which he names Introductions (Isagogae),

and of commentaries on the treatise of Mondino, in which

he not only rectifies the mistakes of that anatomist, but

gives minute and in general accurate anatomical descriptions.

He is the first who undertakes a systematic view of the

several textures of which the human body is composed; and

in a preliminary commentary he treats successively of the

anatomical characters and properties of fat, of membrane in

general (panniculus), of flesh, of nerve, of villus or fibre

(filum), of ligament, of sinew or tendon, and of muscle in

general. He then proceeds to describe with considerable

precision the muscles of the abdomen, and illustrates their

site and connexions by woodcuts which, though rude, are

spirited, and show that anatomical drawing was in that early age

beginning to be understood. In his account of the peritoneum

he admits only the intestinal division of that membrane, and

is at some pains to prove that Gentilis Fulgineus, who justly

admits the muscular division also, is in error. In his account

of the intestines he is the first who mentions the vermiform

process of the caecum; he remarks the yellow tint communicated

to the duodenum by the gall-bladder; and he recognizes the

opening of the common biliary duct into the duodenum (quidam

porus portans choleram.) In the account of the stomach he

describes the several tissues of which that organ is composed,

and which he represents to be three, and a fourth from the

peritoneum; and afterwards notices the rugae of its villous

surface. He is at considerable pains to explain the organs

of generation in both sexes, and gives a long account of the

anatomy of the foetus. He was the first who recognized the

larger proportional size of the chest in the male than in the

female, and conversely the greater capacity of the female

than of the male pelvis. In the larynx he discovered the two

arytenoid cartilages. He gives the first good description

of the thymus; distinguishes the oblique situation of the

heart; describes the pericardium, and maintains the uniform

presence of pericardial liquor. He then describes the

cavities of the heart; but perplexes himself, as did all

the anatomists of that age, about the spirit supposed to be

contained. The aorta he properly makes to arise from the left

ventricle; but confuses himself with the arteria venalis,

the pulmonary vein, and the vena arterialis, the pulmonary

artery. His account of the brain is better. He gives a minute

and clear account of the ventricles, remarks the corpus

striatum, and has the sagacity to perceive that the choroid

plexus consists of veins and arteries; he then describes the

middle or third ventricle, the infundibulum or lacuna of

Mondino, and the pituitary gland; and lastly, the passage

to the fourth ventricle, the conarium or pineal gland, and

the fourth or posterior ventricle itself, the relations of

which he had studied accurately. He rectifies the mistake

of Mondino as to the olfactory or first pair of nerves, gives

a good account of the optic and others, and is entitled to

the praise of originality in being the first observer who

contradicts the fiction of the wonderful net and indicates the

principal divisions of the carotid arteries. He enumerates

the tunics and humours of the eye, and gives an account of the

internal ear, in which he notices the malleus and incus.

French school.

Italy long retained the distinction of giving birth to the

first eminent anatomists in Europe, and the glory she acquired

in the names of Mondino, Achillini, Berenger and N. Massa,

was destined to become more conspicuous in the labours of R.

Columbus, G. Fallopius and Eustachius. While Italy, however,

was thus advancing the progress of science, the other nations

of Europe were either in profound ignorance or in the most

supine indifference to the brilliant career of their zealous

neighbours. The 16th century had commenced before France

began to acquire anatomical distinction in the names of Jacques

Dubois, Jean Fernel and Charles Etienne; and even these

celebrated teachers were less solicitous in the personal study

of the animal body than in the faithful explanation of the

anatomical writings of Galen. The infancy of the French school

had to contend with other difficulties. The small portion

of knowledge which had been hitherto diffused in the country

was so inadequate to eradicate the prejudices of ignorance,

that it was either difficult or absolutely impossible to

procure human bodies for the purposes of science; and we are

assured, on the testimony of A. Vesalius and other competent

authorities, that the practical part of anatomical instruction

was obtained entirely from the bodies of the lower animals.

The works of the Italian anatomists were unknown; and it is a

proof of the tardy communication of knowledge that, while the

structure of the human body had been taught in Italy for more

than a century by Mondino and his followers, these anatomists

are never mentioned by Etienne, who flourished long after.

Dubois.

Such was the aspect of the times at the appearance of Jacques

Dubois (1478-1555), who, under the Romanized name of Jacobus

Sylvius, according to the fashion of the day, has been fortunate

in acquiring a reputation to which his researches do not entitle

him. For the name of Dubois the history of anatomy, it is said,

is indebted to his inordinate love of money. At the instance

of his brother Francis, who was professor of eloquence in the

college of Tournay at Paris, he devoted himself to the study

of the learned languages and mathematics; but discovering that

these elegant accomplishments do not invariably reward their

cultivators with the goods of fortune, Dubois betook himself to

medicine. After the acquisition of a medical degree in

the university of Montpellier, at the ripe age of fifty-one

Dubois returned to Paris to resume a course of anatomical

instruction. Here he taught anatomy to a numerous audience in

the college of Trinquet; and on the departure of Vidus Vidius

for Italy was appointed to succeed that physician as professor

of surgery to the Royal College. His character is easily

estimated. With greater coarseness in his manners and language

than even the rude state of society in his times can palliate,

with much varied learning and considerable eloquence, he was a

blind, indiscriminate and irrational admirer of Galen, and

interpreted the anatomical and physiological writings of

that author in preference to giving demonstrations from the

subject. Without talent for original research or discovery

himself, his envy and jealousy made him detest every one

who gave proofs of either. We are assured by Vesalius, who

was some time his pupil, that his manner of teaching was

calculated neither to advance the science nor to rectify the

mistakes of his predecessors. A human body was never seen in

the theatre of Dubois; the carcases of dogs and other animals

were the materials from which he taught; and so difficult even

was it to obtain human bones, that unless Vesalius and his

fellow-students had collected assiduously from the Innocents

and other cemeteries, they must have committed numerous

errors in acquiring the first principles. This assertion,

however, is contradicted by J. Riolan, and afterwards by K. P.

J. Sprengel and T. Lauth, the last of whom decidedly censures

Vesalius for this ungrateful treatment of his instructor.

It is certain that opportunities of inspecting the human body

were by no means so frequent as to facilitate the study of the

science. Though his mention of injections has led some to

suppose him the discoverer of that art, he appears to have

made no substantial addition to the information already

acquired; and the first acknowledged professor of anatomy to

the university of Paris appears in history as one who lived

without true honour and died without just celebrity. He

must not be confounded with Franciscus Sylvius (de le Boe),

who is mentioned by F. Ruysch and M. V. G. Malacarne as the

author of a particular method of demonstrating the brain.

Etienne.

Almost coeval may be placed Charles Etienne (1503-1564), a

younger brother of the celebrated printers, and son to Henry,

who Hellenized the family name by the classical appellation

of Stephen (Stefanos.) It is uncertain whether he taught

publicly. But his tranquillity was disturbed, and his pursuits

interrupted, by the oppressive persecutions in which their

religious opinions involved the family; and Charles Etienne

drew the last breath of a miserable life in a dungeon in

1564. Etienne, though sprung of a family whose classical

taste has been their principal glory, does not betray the same

servile imitation of the Galenian anatomy with which Dubois is

charged. He appears to have been the first to detect valves

in the orifice of the hepatic veins. He was ignorant,

however, of the researches of the Italian anatomists; and his

description of the brain is inferior to that given sixty years

before by Achillini. His comparison of the cerebral cavities

to the human ear has persuaded F. Portal that he knew the

inferior cornua, the hippocampus and its prolongations;

but this is no reason for giving him that honour to the

detriment of the reputation of Achillini, to whom, so far as

historical testimony goes, the first knowledge of this fact is

due. The researches of Etienne into the structure of the

nervous system are, however, neither useless nor inglorious;

and the circumstance of demonstrating a canal through the

entire length of the spinal cord, which had neither been

suspected by contemporaries nor noticed by successors

till J. B. Senac (1693-1770) made it known, is sufficient

to place him high in the rank of anatomical discoverers.

Vesalius.

The French anatomy of the 16th century was distinguished

by two circumstances unfavourable to the advancement of

the science --extravagant admiration of antiquity, with

excessive confidence in the writings of Galen, and the general

practice of dissecting principally the bodies of the lower

animals. Both these errors were much amended, if not entirely

removed, by the exertions of a young Fleming, whose appearance

forms a conspicuous era in the history of anatomy. Andreas

Vesalius (1514-1564), a native of Brussels, after acquiring at

Louvain the ordinary classical attainments of the day, began

at the age of fourteen to study anatomy under the auspices of

Dubois. Though the originality of his mind soon led him

to abandon the prejudices by which he was environed, and

take the most direct course for attaining a knowledge of

the structure of the human frame, he neither underrated the

Galenian anatomy nor was indolent in the dissection of brute

animals. The difficulties, however, with which the practical

pursuit of human anatomy was beset in France, and the dangers

with which he had to contend, made him look to Italy as a

suitable field for the cultivation of the science: and in

1536 we find him at Venice, at once pursuing the study of

human anatomy with the utmost zeal, and requested, ere he had

attained his twenty-second year, to demonstrate publicly in the

university of Padua. After remaining here about seven years,

Vesalius went by express invitation to Bologna, and shortly

afterwards to Pisa; and thus professor in three universities,

he appears to have carried on his anatomical investigations

and instructions alternately at Padua, Bologna and Pisa, in

the course of the same winter. It is on this account that

Vesalius, though a Fleming by birth and trained originally in

the French school, belongs, as an anatomist, to the Italian, and

may be viewed as the first of an illustrious line of teachers

by whom the anatomical reputation of that country was in the

course of the 16th century raised to the greatest eminence.

Vesalius is known as the first author of a comprehensive and

systematic view of human anatomy. The knowledge with which

his dissections had furnished him proved how many errors

were daily taught and learned under the broad mantle of

Galenian authority; and he perceived the necessity of a new

system of anatomical instruction, divested of the omissions

of ignorance and the misrepresentations of prejudice and

fancy. The early age at which he effected this object

has been to his biographers the theme of boundless

commendation; and we are told that he began at the age of

twenty-five to arrange the materials he had collected, and

accomplished his task ere he had completed his 28th year.

Soon after this period we find him invited as imperial

physician to the court of Charles V., where he was occupied

in the duties of practice and answering the various charges

which were unceasingly brought against him by the disciples of

Galen. After the abdication of Charles he continued at

court in great favour with his son Philip II. To this

he seems to have been led principally by the troublesome

controversies in which his anatomical writings had involved

him. It is painful to think, however, that even imperial

patronage bestowed on eminent talents does not ensure immunity

from popular prejudice; and the fate of Vesalius will be a

lasting example of the barbarism of the times, and of the

precarious tenure of the safety even of a great physician.

On the preliminary circumstances authors are not agreed;

but the most general account states that when Vesalius was

dissecting, with the consent of his kinsmen, the body of a

Spanish grandee, it was observed that the heart still gave some

feeble palpitations when divided by the knife. The immediate

effects of this outrage to human feelings were the denunciation

of the anatomist to the Inquisition; and Vesalius escaped the

severe treatment of that tribunal only by the influence of the

king, and by promising to perform a pilgrimage to the Holy

Land. He forthwith proceeded to Venice, from which he

sailed with the Venetian fleet, under James Malatesta, for

Cyprus. When he reached Jerusalem, he received from the

Venetian senate a message requesting him again to accept the

Paduan professorship, which had become vacant by the death of

his friend and pupil Fallopius. His destiny, however, which

pursued him fast, suffered him not again to breathe the Italian

air. After struggling for many days with the adverse winds

in the Ionian Sea, he was wrecked on the island of Zante,

where he quickly breathed his last in such penury that

unless a liberal goldsmith had defrayed the funeral charges,

his remains must have been devoured by beasts of prey. At

the time of his death he was scarcely fifty years of age.

To form a correct estimate of the character and merits of

Vesalius, we must not compare him, in the spirit of modern

perfection, with the anatomical authors either of later times

or of the present day. Whoever would frame a just idea of

this anatomist must imagine, not a bold innovator without

academical learning, not a genius coming from a foreign country,

unused to the forms and habits of Catholic Europe, nor a wild

reformer, blaming indiscriminately everything which accorded

not with his opinion; but a young student scarcely emancipated

from the authority of instructors, whose intellect was still

influenced by the doctrines with which it had been originally

imbued,--a scholar strictly trained in the opinions of the

time, living amidst men who venerated Galen as the oracle of

anatomy and the divinity of medicine,--exercising his reason

to estimate the soundness of the instructions then in use, and

proceeding, in the way least likely to offend authority and

wound prejudice, to rectify errors, and to establish on the

solid basis of observation the true elements of anatomical

science. Vesalius has been denominated the founder of human

anatomy; and though we have seen that in this career he was

preceded with honour by Mondino and Berenger, still the small

proportion of correct observation which their reverence for

Galen and Arabian doctrines allowed them to communicate,

will not in a material degree impair the original merits of

Vesalius. The errors which he rectified and the additions

which he made are so numerous, that it is impossible, in such

a sketch as the present, to communicate a just idea of them.

Besides the first good description of the sphenoid bone, he

showed that the sternum consists of three portions and the

sacrum of five or six; and described accurately the vestibule

in the interior of the temporal bone. He not only verified

the observation of Etienne on the valves of the hepatic

veins, but he described well the vena azygos, and discovered

the canal which passes in the foetus between the umbilical

vein and the vena cava, since named ductus venosus. He

described the omentum, and its connexions with the stomach,

the spleen and the colon; gave the first correct views of

the structure of the pylorus; remarked the small size of the

caecal appendix in man; gave the first good account of the

mediastinum and pleura and the fullest description of the

anatomy of the brain yet advanced. He appears, however, not

to have understood well the inferior recesses; and his account

of the nerves is confused by regarding the optic as the first

pair, the third as the fifth and the fifth as the seventh.

The labours of Vesalius were not limited to the immediate effect

produced by his own writings. His instructions and examples

produced a multitude of anatomical inquirers of different

characters and varied celebrity, by whom the science was

extended and rectified. Of these we cannot speak in detail;

but historical justice requires us to notice shortly those to

whose exertions the science of anatomy has been most indebted.

Eustachius.

The first that claims attention on this account is Bartolomeo

Eustachi of San Severino, near Salerno, who though greatly

less fortunate in reputation than his contemporary Vesalius,

divides with him the merit of creating the science of human

anatomy. He extended the knowledge of the internal ear by

rediscovering and describing correctly the tube which bears

his name; and if we admit that G. F. Ingrassias anticipated him

in the knowledge of the third bone of the tympanal cavity, the

stapes, he is still the first who described the internal and

anterior muscles of the malleus, as also the stapedius, and

the complicated figure of the cochlea. He is the first who

studied accurately the anatomy of the teeth, and the phenomena

of the first and second dentition. The work, however, which

demonstrates at once the great merit and the unhappy fate

of Eustachius is his Anatomical Engravings, which, though

completed in 1552, nine years after the impression of the

work of Vesalius, the author was unable to publish. First

communicated to the world in 1714 by G. M. Lancisi, afterwards

in 1744 by Cajetan Petrioli, again in 1744 by B. S. Albinus,

and subsequently at Bonn in 1790, the engravings show that

Eustachius had dissected with the greatest care and diligence,

and taken the utmost pains to give just views of the shape,

size and relative position of the organs of the human body.

The first seven plates illustrate the history of the kidneys

and some of the facts relating to the structure of the

ear. The eighth represents the heart, the ramifications of

the vena azygos, and the valve of the vena cava, named

from the author. In the seven subsequent plates is given a

succession of different views of the viscera of the chest and

abdomen. The seventeenth contains the brain and spinal

cord; and the eighteenth more accurate views of the origin,

course and distribution of the nerves than had been given

before. Fourteen plates are devoted to the muscles.

Eustachius did not confine his researches to the study of

relative anatomy. He investigated the intimate structure

of organs with assiduity and success. What was too minute

for unassisted vision he inspected by means of glasses.

Structure which could not be understood in the recent

state, he unfolded by maceration in different fluids, or

rendered more distinct by injection and exsiccation. The

facts unfolded in these figures are so important that it is

justly remarked by Lauth, that if the author himself had been

fortunate enough to publish them, anatomy would have attained

the perfection of the 18th century two centuries earlier at

least. Their seclusion for that period in the papal library

has given celebrity to many names which would have been known

only in the verification of the discoveries of Eustachius.

Columbus.

M. R. Columbus and G. Fallopius were pupils of Vesalius.

Columbus, as his immediate successor in Padua, and afterwards

professor at Rome, distinguished himself by rectifying

and improving the anatomy of the bones; by giving correct

accounts of the shape and cavities of the heart, of the

pulmonary artery and aorta and their valves, and tracing

the course of the blood from the right to the left side

of the heart; by a good description of the brain and its

vessels, and by correct understanding of the internal ear,

and the first good account of the ventricles of the larynx.

Fallopius.

Fallopius, who, after being professor at Pisa in 1548, and at

Padua in 1551, died at the age of forty, studied the general

anatomy of the bones; described better than heretofore the

the internal ear, especially the tympanum and its osseous

ring, the two fenestrae and their communication with the

vestibule and cochlea; and gave the first good account of

the stylo-mastoid hole and canal, of the ethmoid bone and

cells, and of the lacrymal passages. In myology he rectified

several mistakes of Vesalius. He also devoted attention

to the organs of generation in both sexes, and discovered

the utero-peritoneal canal which still bears his name.

Ingrassias.

Osteology nearly at the same time found an assiduous cultivator

in Giovanni Filippo Ingrassias ( 1545-1580), a learned Sicilian

physician, who, in a skilful commentary on the osteology

of Galen, corrected numerous mistakes. He gave the first

distinct account of the true configuration of the sphenoid

and ethmoid bones, and has the merit of first describing

(1546) the third bone of the tympanum, called stapes,

though this is also claimed by Eustachius and Fallopius.

Aranzi.

The anatomical descriptions of Vesalius underwent the

scrutiny of various inquirers. Those most distinguished

by the importance and accuracy of their researches, as

well as the temperate tone of their observations, were

Julius Caesar Aranzi (1530-1589), anatomical professor for

thirty-two years in the university of Bologna, and Constantio

Varoli, physician to Pope Gregory XIII. To the former we

are indebted for the first correct account of the anatomical

peculiarities of the foetus, and he was the first to show

that the muscles of the eye do not, as was falsely imagined,

arise from the dura mater but from the margin of the optic

hole. He also, after considering the anatomical relations

of the cavities of the heart, the valves and the great

vessels, corroborates the views of Columbus regarding the

course which the blood follows in passing from the right to

the left side of the heart. Aranzi is the first anatomist

who describes distinctly the inferior cornua of the ventricles

of the cerebrum, who recognizes the objects by which they are

distinguished, and who gives them the name by which they are

still known (hippocampus); and his account is more minute

and perspicuous than that of the authors of the subsequent

century. He speaks at large of the choroid plexus, and gives a

particular description of the fourth ventricle, under the name

of cistern of the cerebellum, as a discovery of his own.

Varollus.

Italy, though rich in anatomical talent, has probably few

greater names than that of Constantio Varoli (b. 1543) of

Bologna. Though he died at the early age of thirty-two, he

acquired a reputation not inferior to that of the most eminent

of his contemporaries. He is now known chiefly as the author

of an epistle, inscribed to Hieronymo Mercuriali, on the optic

nerves, in which he describes a new method of dissecting the

brain, and communicates many interesting particulars relating

to the anatomy of the organ. He observes the threefold

division of the inferior surface or base, defines the limits

of the anterior, middle and posterior eminences, as marked

by the compartments of the skull, and justly remarks that the

cerebral cavities are capacious, communicate with each other,

extending first backward and then forward, near the angle

of the pyramidal portion of the temporal bone, and that they

are folded on themselves, and finally lost above the middle

and inferior eminence of the brain. He appears to have been

aware that at this point they communicate with the exterior

or convoluted surface. He recognized the impropriety of the

term corpus callosum, seems to have known the communication

called afterwards foramen Monroianum, and describes the

hippocampus more minutely than had been previously done.

Among the anatomists of the Italian school, as a pupil of

Fallopius, Eustachius and U. Aldrovandus, is generally

enumerated Volcher Coiter (b. 1534) of Groningen. He

distinguished himself by accurate researches on the cartilages,

the bones and the nerves, recognized the value of morbid

anatomy, and made experiments on living animals to ascertain

the action of the heart and the influence of the brain.

The Frutefull and Necessary Briefo Worke of John Halle3

(1565) and The Englisheman's Treasure by Master Thomas Vicary

(1586),4 English works published at this time, are tolerable

compilations from former authors, much tinged by Galenian and

Arabian distinctions. A more valuable compendium than either is,

however, that of John Banister (1578), entitled The Historie of

Man, from the most approved Anathomistes in this Present Age.

Fabricius.

The celebrity of the anatomical school of Italy was worthily

maintained by Hieronymo Fabricio of Acquapendente, who,

in imitation of his master Fallopius, laboured to render

anatomical knowledge more precise by repeated dissections,

and to illustrate the obscure by researches on the structure

of animals in general. In this manner he investigated the

formation of the foetus, the structure of the oesophagus,

stomach and bowels, and the peculiarities of the eye, the

ear and the larynx. The discovery, however, on which his

surest claims to eminence rest is that of the membranous

folds, which he names valves, in the interior of veins.

Several of these folds had been observed by Fernel, Sylvius

and Vesalius; and in 1547 G. B. Canani observed those of

the vena azygos; but no one appears to have offered any

rational conjecture on their use, or to have traced them

through the venous system at large, until Fabricius in

1574, upon this hypothesis, demonstrated the presence of

these valvular folds in all the veins of the extremities.

Fabricius, though succeeded by his pupil Julius Casserius of

Placenza, may be regarded as the last of that illustrious

line of anatomical teachers by whom the science was so

successfully studied and taught in the universities of

Italy. The discoveries which each made, and the errors which

their successive labours rectified, tended gradually to give

anatomy the character of a useful as well as an accurate

science, and to pave the way for a discovery which, though

not anatomical but physiological, is so intimately connected

with correct knowledge of the shape and situation of parts,

that it exercised the most powerful influence on the future

progress of anatomical inquiry. This was the knowledge

of the circular motion of the blood--a fact which though

obscurely conjectured by Aristotle, Nemesius, Mondino and

Berenger, and partially taught by Servetus, Columbus, Andreas

Caesalpinus and Fabricius, it was nevertheless reserved

to William Harvey fully and satisfactorily to demonstrate.

Mondino believed that the blood proceeds from the heart

to the lungs through the vena arterialis or pulmonary

artery, and that the aorta conveys the spirit into the

blood through all parts of the body. This doctrine was

adopted with little modification by Berenger, who further

demonstrated the existence and operation of the tricuspid

valves in the right ventricle, and of the sigmoid valves at

the beginning of the pulmonary artery and aorta, and that

there were only two ventricles separated by a solid impervious

septum. These were afterwards described in greater detail by

Vesalius, who nevertheless appears not to have been aware

of the important use which might be made of this knowledge.

Servetus.

It was the Spaniard Michael Servet or Servetus (born in

1509, burnt in 1553) who in his treatise De Trinitatis

Erroribus, published at Haguenau in 1531, first

maintained the imperviousness of the septum, and the

transition of the blood by what he terms an unknown route, namely,

from the right ventricle by the vena arteriosa (pulmonary

artery) to the lungs, and thence into the arteria venosa or

pulmonary vein and left auricle and ventricle, from which, he adds

afterwards, it is conveyed by the aorta to all parts of the body.5

Though the leading outlines, not only of the pulmonary

or small but even of the great circulation, were sketched

thus early by one who, though a philosopher, was attached

to the church, it was only in his work De Re Anatomica,

published at Venice in 1559, that Columbus formally and

distinctly announced the circular course of the blood as

a discovery of his own; and maintained, in addition to the

imperviousness of the septum, the fact that the arteria

venalis (pulmonary vein) contains, not air, but blood

mixed with air brought from the lungs to the left ventricle

of the heart, to be distributed through the body at large.

Caesalpinus.

Soon after, views still more complete of the small or pulmonary

circulation were given by Andreas Caesalpinus (1519-1603)

of Arezzo, who not only maintained the analogy between the

structure of the arterious vein or pulmonary artery and the

aorta, and that between the venous artery or pulmonary veins

and veins in general, but was the first to remark the swelling

of veins below ligatures, and to infer from it a refluent

motion of blood in these vessels. The discoveries of Aranzi

and Eustachius in the vessels of the foetus tended at first

to perplex and afterwards to elucidate some of these notions.

Harvey.

At length it happened that, between the years 1598 and 1600,

a young Englishman, William Harvey, pursuing his anatomical

studies at Padua under Fabricius, learnt from that anatomist

the existance of the valves in the veins of the extremities,

and undertook to ascertain the use of these valves by

experimental inquiry. It is uncertain whether he learnt

from the writings of Caesalpinus the fact observed by that

author of the tumescence of a vein below the ligature, but he

could not fail to be aware, and indeed he shows that he was

aware, of the small circulation as taught by Servetus and

Columbus. Combining these facts already known, he, by a

series of well-executed experiments, demonstrated clearly

the existence, not only of the small, but of a general

circulation from the left side of the heart by the aorta

and its subdivisions, to the right side by the veins.

This memorable truth was first announced in the year 1619.

It is unnecessary here to consider the arguments and facts by

which Harvey defended his theory, or to notice the numerous

assaults to which he was exposed, and the controversies in

which his opponents wished to involve him. It is sufficient

to say that, after the temporary ebullitions of spleen and

envy had subsided, the doctrine of the circular motion of

the blood was admitted by all enlightened and unprejudiced

persons, and finally was universally adopted as affording

the most satisfactory explanation of many facts in anatomical

structure which were either misunderstood or entirely

overlooked. The inquiries to which the investigation of

the doctrine gave rise produced numerous researches on the

shape and structure of the heart and its divisions, of the

lungs, and of the blood-vessels and their distribution. Of

this description were the researches of Nicolas Steno on the

structure of the heart, the classical work of Richard Lower,

the dissertation of J. N. Pechlin, the treatise of Raymond

Vieussens, the work of Marcello Malpighi on the structure of

the lungs, several sketches in the writings of John Mayow,

and other treatises of less moment. Systematic treatises

of anatomy began to assume a more instructive form, and to

breathe a more philosophical spirit. The great work of Adrian

Spigelius, which appeared in 1627, two years after the death

of the author, contains indeed no proof that he was aware of

the valuable generalization of Harvey; but in the institutions

of Caspar Bartholinus, as republished and improved by his son

Thomas in 1651, the anatomical descriptions and explanations

are given with reference to the new doctrine. A still more

unequivocal proof of the progress of correct anatomical

knowledge was given in the lectures delivered by Peter

Dionis, at the Jardin Royal of Paris, in 1673 and the seven

following years, in which that intelligent surgeon gave most

accurate demonstrations of all the parts composing the human

frame, and especially of the heart, its auricles, ventricles

and valves, and the large vessels connected with it and the

lungs. These demonstrations, first published in 1690, were

so much esteemed that they passed through seven editions in

the space of thirty years, and were translated into English.

Aselli.

The progress of anatomical discovery continued in the mean-time

to advance. In the course of the 16th century Eustachius,

in studying minutely the structure of the vena azygos, had

recognized in the horse a white vessel full of watery fluid,

connected with the internal jugular vein, on the left side of

the vertebral column, corresponding accurately with the vessel

since named thoracic duct. Fallopius also described vessels

belonging to the liver distinct from arteries and veins; and

similar vessels appear to have been noticed by Nicolaus Massa

(1499-1569). The nature and properties of these vessels

were, however, entirely unknown. On the 23rd of July 1622

Gaspar Aselli, professor of anatomy at Pavia, while engaged

in demonstrating the recurrent nerves in a living dog, first

observed numerous white delicate filaments crossing the

mesentery in all directions; and though he took them at first

for nerves, the opaque white fluid which they shed quickly

convinced him that they were a new order of vessels. The

repetition of the experiment the following day showed that

these vessels were best seen in animals recently fed; and as

he traced them from the villous membrane of the intestines,

and observed the valves with which they were liberally

supplied, he inferred that they were genuine chyliferous

vessels. By confounding them with the lymphatics, he made

them proceed to the pancreas and liver--a mistake which

appears to have been first rectified by Francis de le Boe. The

discovery of Aselli was announced in 1627; and the following

year, by means of the zealous efforts of Nicolas Peiresc, a

liberal senator of Aix, the vessels were seen in the person

of a felon who had eaten copiously before execution, and

whose body was inspected an hour and a half after. In 1629

they were publicly demonstrated at Copenhagen by Simon Pauli,

and the same year the thoracic duct was observed by Jacques

Mentel (1599-1670) for the first time since it was described by

Eustachius. Five years after (1634), John Wesling, professor

of anatomy and surgery at Venice, gave the first delineation of

the lacteals from the human subject, and evinced more accurate

knowledge than his predecessors of the thoracic duct and the

lymphatics. Nathaniel Highmore6 in 1637 demonstrated

unequivocally the difference between the lacteals and the

mesenteric veins; and though some perplexity was occasioned

by the discovery of the pancreatic duct by Christopher

Wirsung, this mistake was corrected by Thomas Bartholinus;

and the discovery by Jean Pecquet in 1647 of the common trunk

of the lacteals and lymphatics, and of the course which the

chyle follows to reach the blood, may be regarded as the

last of the series of isolated facts by the generalization

of which the extent, distribution and uses of the most

important organs of the animal body were at length developed.

Joyliffe.

To complete the history of this part of anatomical science

one step yet remained--the distinction between the lacteals

and lymphatics, and the discovery of the termination of the

latter order of vessels. The honour of this discovery is

divided between George Joyliffe (1621--1658), an English

anatomist, and Olaus Rudbeck (1630-1702), a young Swede. The

former, according to the testimony of Francis Glisson and

Thomas Wharton, was aware of the distinct existence of the

lymphatics in 1650, and demonstrated them as such in 1652.

It is nevertheless doubtful whether he knew them much before

the latter period; and it is certain that Rudbeck observed

the lymphatics of the large intestines, and traced them to

glands, on the 27th of January 1651, after he had, in the

course of 1650, made various erroneous conjectures regarding

them, and, like others, attempted to trace them to the

liver. The following year he demonstrated them in presence

of Queen Christina, and traced them to the thoracic duct,

and the latter to the subclavian vein. Their course and

distribution were still more fully investigated by Thomas

Bartholinus, Wharton, J. Swammerdam and G. Blaes, the last two

of whom recognized the existence of valves; while Antony Nuck

of Leiden, by rectifying various errors of his predecessors,

and adding several new and valuable observations, rendered

this part of anatomy much more precise than formerly.

After this period anatomists began to study more minutely the

organs and textures. Francis Glisson7 distinguished himself

by a minute description of the liver (1654), and a clearer

account of the stomach and intestines, than had yet been

given. Thomas Wharton8 investigated the structure of

the glands with particular care; and though rather prone

to indulge in fanciful generalization, he developed some

interesting views of these organs; while Walter Charleton

(1619-1707), who appears to have been a person of great

genius, though addicted to hypothesis, made some good

remarks on the communication of the arteries with the veins,

the foetal circulation and the course of the lymphatics.

Willis.

But the circumstance which chiefly distinguished the history

of anatomy at the beginning of the 17th century was the

appearance of Thomas Willis9 (1621-1675), who rendered

himself eminent not only by good researches on the brain and

nerves, but by many judicious observations on the structure

of the lungs, the intestines, the blood-vessels and the

glands. His anatomy of the brain and nerves is so minute

and elaborate, and abounds so much in new information,

that the reader is struck by the immense chasm between the

vague and meagre notices of his predecessors and the ample

and correct descriptions of Willis. This excellent work,

however, is not the result of his own personal and unaided

exertions; and the character of Willis derives additional

lustre from the candid avowal of his obligations to Sir

Christopher Wren and Thomas Millington, and, above all, to

the diligent researches of his fellow-anatomist Richard Lower.

Willis was the first who numbered the cranial nerves in the

order in which they are now usually enumerated by anatomists.

His observation of the connexion of the eighth pair with the

slender nerve which issues from the beginning of the spinal

cord is known to all. He remarked the parallel lines of the

mesolobe, afterwards minutely described by Felix Vicq d'Azyr

(1748-1794). He seems to have recognized the communication

of the convoluted surface of the brain and that between

the lateral cavities beneath the fornix. He described the

corpora striata and optic thalami; the four orbicular

eminences, with the bridge, which he first named annular

protuberance; and the white mammillary eminences, behind the

infundibulum. In the cerebellum he remarks the arborescent

arrangement of the white and grey matter, and gives a good

account of the internal carotids, and the communications

which they make with the branches of the basilar artery.

Malpighi.

About the middle of the 17th century R. Hooke and Nehemiah

Grew employed the simple microscope in the minute examination

of plants and animals; and the Dutch philosopher A.

Leeuwenhoek with great acuteness examined microscopically

the solids and fluids of the body, recognized the presence

of scales in the cuticle, and discovered the corpuscles

in the blood and milk, and the spermatozoa in the seminal

fluid. The researches of Malpighi also tended greatly to

improve the knowledge of minute structure. He gave the first

distinct ideas on the organization of the lung, and the mode

in which the bronchial tubes and vessels terminate in that

organ. By the microscope he traced the transition of the

arteries into the veins, and saw the movements of the blood

corpuscles in the capillaries. He endeavoured to unfold, by

dissection and microscopic observation, the minute structure

of the brain. He studied the structure of bone, he traced

the formation and explained the structure of the teeth; and

his name is to this day associated with the discovery of

the deeper layer of the cuticle and the Malpighian bodies

in the spleen and kidney. In these difficult inquiries

the observations of Malpighi are in general faithful, and

he may be regarded as the founder of histological anatomy.

Nicolas Steno, or Stensen, described with accuracy (1660)

the lacrymal gland and passages, and rediscovered the parotid

duct. L. Bellini studied the structure of the kidneys,

and described the tongue and tonsils with some care; and

Charles Drelincourt laboured to investigate the changes

effected on the uterus by impregnation, and to elucidate the

formation of the foetus. The science might have derived still

greater advantages from the genius of Regnier de Graaf, who

investigated with accuracy the structure of the pancreas and

of the organs of generation in both sexes, had he not been

cut off at the early age of thirty-two. Lastly, Wepfer,

though more devoted to morbid anatomy, made, nevertheless,

some just observations on the anatomical disposition of

the cerebral vessels, the glandular structure of the liver,

and the termination of the common duct in the duodenum.

Ruysch.

The appearance of Frederic Ruysch, who was born in 1638,

became professor of anatomy at Amsterdam in 1665 and died in

that city in 1731, gave a new impulse to anatomical research,

and tended not only to give the science greater precision,

but to extend its limits in every direction. The talents

of Ruysch are said to have been developed by accident. To

repel the audacious and calumnious aspersions with which Louis

de Bils attacked de le Boe and van Horne, Ruysch published

his tract on the valves of the lymphatics, which completely

established his character as an anatomist of originality and

research. This, however, is the smallest of his services to the

science. The art of injecting, which had been originally

attempted by Eustachi and Varoli, and was afterwards rudely

practised by Glisson, Bellini and Willis, was at length carried

to greater perfection by de Graaf and Swammerdam, the former of

whom injected the spermatic vessels with mercury and variously

coloured liquors; while the latter, by employing melted wax with

other ingredients, made the first approach to the refinements

of modern anatomy. By improving this idea of using substances

which, though solid, may be rendered fluid at the period of

injecting, Ruysch carried this art to the highest perfection.

By the application of this happy contrivance he was enabled

to demonstrate the arrangement of minute vessels in the

interior of organs which had escaped the scrutiny of previous

anatomists. Scarcely a part of the human body eluded the

penetration of his syringe; and his discoveries were proportionally

great. His account of the valves of the lymphatics, of

the vessels of the lungs, and their minute structure; his

researches on the vascular structure of the skin, of the

bones, and their epiphyses, and their mode of growth and

union; his observations on the spleen, the glans penis, the

clitoris, and the womb impregnated and unimpregnated, were

but a limited part of his anatomical labours. He studied

the minute structure of the brain; he demonstrated the

organization of the choroid plexus; he described the state

of the hair when affected with Polish plait; he proved the

vascular structure of the teeth; he injected the dura mater,

the pleura, the pericardium and peritoneum; he unfolded the

minute structure of the conglomerate glands; he investigated

that of the synovial apparatus placed in the interior of the

joints; and he discovered several curious particulars relating

to the lacteals, the lymphatics and the lymphatic glands.

Meanwhile, H. Meibomius rediscovered (1670) the palpebral

glands, which were known to Casserius; Swammerdam studied

the action of the lungs, described the structure of the human

uterus, and made numerous valuable observations on the coeca

and pancreatoid organs of fishes; and Th. Kerckring laid the

foundation of a knowledge of the process of ossification.

John Conrad Brunner, in the course of experiments on the

pancreas, discovered (1687) the glands of the duodenum named

after him, and J. Conrad Peyer (1677-1681) described the

solitary and agminated glands of the intestinal canal. Leonard

Tassin, distinguished for original observation, rendered

the anatomical history of the brain more accurate than

heretofore, and gave particular accounts of the intestinal

tube, the pancreatic duct and the hepatic ligaments (1678).

Duverney.

That France might not be without participation in the glory of

advancing the progress of anatomical knowledge, the names of

Joseph Guichard Duverney and Vieussens are commemorated with

distinction. Duverney, born in 1648, and first introduced

into public life in 1676 in the Royal Academy of Sciences,

decorated with the honorary title of professor of anatomy to

the dauphin, and appointed in 1679 professor at the Jardin

Royal, distinguished himself by the first accurate account

of the organ of hearing, and by his dissections of several

animals at the academy supplied valuable materials for the

anatomical details of the natural history of animals published

by that learned body. He appears to have been the first who

demonstrated the fact that the cerebral sinuses open into the

jugular veins, and to have been aware that the former receives

the veins of the brain and are the venous receptacles of the

organ. He understood the cerebral cavities and their mode

of communication; distinguishes the posterior pillars of

the vault from the pedes hippocampi; recognizes the two

plates of the septum lucidum; and, what is still more

remarkable, he first indicates distinctly the discussation

of the anterior pyramids of the medulla oblongata--a fact

afterwards verified by the researches of Mistichelli, F.

P. du Petit and G.D. Santorini. He studied the ganglions

attentively, and gives the first distinct account of the

formation, connexions and distribution of the intercostal

nerves. It is interesting to remark that his statement that

the veins or sinuses of the spinal cord terminate in the

vena azygos was verified by the subsequent researches of

G. Dupuytren (1777-1835) and G. Breschet (1784-1845), which

showed that the vertebral veins communicate by means of the

intercostal and superior lumbar veins with the azygos and

hemi-azygos. His account of the structure of bones and of the

progress of ossification is valuable. He recognized the vascular

structure of the spleen, and described the excretory ducts of

the prostate gland, the verumontanum, and the anteprostates.

One of the circumstances which at this time tended

considerably to the improvement of anatomical science was the

attention with which Comparative Anatomy was beginning to be

cultivated. In ancient times, and at the revival of letters,

the dissection of the lower animals was substituted for

that of the human body; and the descriptions of the organs

of the latter were too often derived from the former. The

obloquy and contempt in which this abuse involved the study

of animal anatomy caused it to be neglected, or pursued with

indifference, for more than two centuries, during which

anatomists confined their descriptions, at least very much,

to the parts of the human body. At this period, however,

the prejudice against Comparative Anatomy began to subside;

and animal dissection, though not substituted for that of

the human body, was employed, as it ought always to have

been, to illustrate obscurities, to determine doubts and to

explain difficulties, and, in short, to enlarge and rectify

the knowledge of the structure of animal bodies generally.

For this revolution in its favour, Comparative Anatomy was in

a great measure indebted to the learned societies which were

established about this time in the different countries of

Europe. Among these, the Royal Society of London, embodied

by charter by Charles II. in 1662, and the Academy of Sciences

of Paris, founded in 1666 by J. B. Colbert, are undoubtedly

entitled to the first rank. Though later in establishment,

the latter institution was distinguished by making the first

great efforts in favour of Comparative Anatomy; and Claude

Perrault, Pecquet, Duverney and Jean Mery, by the dissections

of rare animals obtained from the royal menagerie, speedily

supplied valuable materials for the anatomical naturalist.

Collins.

In England, Nehemiah Grew, Edward Tyson10 and Samuel

Collins11 cultivated the same department with diligence and

success. Grew has left an interesting account of the

anatomical peculiarities of the intestinal canal in various

animals; Tyson, in the dissection of a porpoise, an opossum

and an orang outang, adduces some valuable illustrations

of the comparative differences between the structure of the

human body and that of the lower animals; Collins has the

merit of conceiving, and executing on an enlarged plan, a

comprehensive system, embodying all the information then extant

(1685). With the aid of Tyson and his own researches, which

were both extensive and accurate, he composed a system of

anatomical knowledge in which he not only gives ample and

accurate descriptions of the structure of the human body, and

the various morbid changes to which the organs are liable, but

illustrates the whole by accurate and interesting sketches of

the peculiarities of the lower animals. The matter of this

work is so excellent that it can only be ascribed to ignorance

that it has received so little attention. Though regarded

as a compilation, and though indeed much of the human anatomy

is derived from Vesalius, it has the advantage of the works

published on the continent at that time, that it embodies

most of the valuable facts derived from Malpighi, Willis and

Vieussens. The Comparative Anatomy is almost all original, the

result of personal research and dissection; and the pathological

observations, though occasionally tinged with the spirit of the

times, show the author to have been endowed with the powers

of observation and judicious reflexion in no ordinary degree.

About this time also we recognize the first attempts

to study the minute constitution of the tissues, by the

combination of the microscope and the effects of chemical

agents. Bone furnished the first instance in which this

method was put in use; and though Gagliardi, who undertook the

inquiry, had fallen into some mistakes which it required the

observation of Malpighi to rectify, this did not deter Clopton

Havers12 and Nesbitt,13 in England, and Courtial, H. L.

Duhamel-Dumonceau and Delasone, and afterwards Herissant,

in France, from resuming the same train of investigation.

The mistakes into which these anatomists fell belong to the

imperfect method of inquiry. The facts which they ascertained

have been verified by recent experiment, and constitute no

unessential part of our knowledge of the structure of bone.

Ten years after the publication of the work of Collins,

Ridley,14 another English anatomist, distinguished

himself by a monograph (1695) on the brain, which, though

not free from errors, contains, nevertheless, some valuable

observations. Ridley is the first who distinguishes by

name the restiform processes, or the posterior pyramidal

eminences. He recognized the figure of the four eminences

in the human subject; he remarked the mammillary bodies;

and he discovered the sinus which passes under his name.

Vieussens.

Raymond Vieussens, by the publication of his great work on

neurography in 1684, threw new light on the configuration

and structure of the brain, the spinal cord and the nerves;

and gave a description of the arrangement and distribution

of the latter more precise than heretofore. Of the formation

and connexions of the sympathetic nerve especially he

gave views which have been generally adopted by subsequent

anatomists. His new arrangement of the vessels, published in

1705, contains several curious opinions. His observations on

the structure of the heart, published in 1706, and enlarged

in 1715, exhibit the first correct views of the intimate

structure of an organ which afterwards was most fully

developed by the labours of G. M. Lancisi and J. B. Senac.

To the same period (1685-1697) belong the rival publications of

G. Bidloo15 and Wilham Cowper, the latter of whom, however,

stained a reputation otherwise good by publishing as his own the

engravings of the former. Cowper further distinguished himself

by a minute account of the urethral glands, already known to

Columbus and Mery; by a good description of the intestinal

glands, discovered by Brunner and Peyer; and by demonstrating

the communication of the arteries and veins of the mesentery.

The anatomical genius of Italy, which had slumbered since

the death of Malpighi, was destined once more to revive in

Lancisi, A. M. Valsalva, and his illustrious pupils G. D.

Santorini and J. B. Morgagni. Valsalva especially distinguished

himself by his description of the structure of the ear,

which, in possessing still greater precision and minuteness

than that of Duverney, is valuable in setting the example

of rendering anatomy altogether a science of description.

Santorini.

Santorini, who was professor at Venice, was no unworthy friend

of Valsalva and Morgagni. His anatomical observations, which

relate to the muscles of the face, the brain and several

of the nerves, the ducts of the lachrymal gland, the nose

and its cavities, the larynx, the viscera of the chest and

belly, and the organs of generation in the two sexes, furnish

beautiful models of essays, distinguished for perspicuity,

precision and novelty, above anything which had then

appeared. These observations, indeed, which bear the impress

of accurate observation and clear conception, may be safely

compared with any anatomical writings which have appeared

since. Those on the brain are particularly interesting.

Morgagni.

Morgagni, though chiefly known as a pathological anatomist,

did not neglect the healthy structure. His Adversaria, which

appeared between 1706 and 1719, and his Epistles, published in

1728, contain a series of observations to rectify the mistakes

of previous anatomists, and to determine the characters of

the healthy structure of many parts of the human body. Many

parts he describes anew, and indicates facts not previously

observed. All his remarks show how well he knew what true

anatomical description ought to be. In this respect, indeed, the

three anatomists now mentioned may be said to have anticipated

their contemporaries nearly a century; for, while other authors

were satisfied with giving loose and inaccurate or meagre

notices of parts, with much fanciful supposition, Valsalva,

Santorini and Morgagni laboured to determine with precision

the anatomical characters of the parts which they describe.

Winslow.

The same character is due to J. B. Winslow (1669-1760),

a native of Denmark, but, as pupil and successor of

Duverney, as well as a convert to Catholicism, naturalized

in France, and finally professor of anatomy at the Royal

Gardens. His exposition of the structure of the human body

is distinguished for being not only the first treatise of

descriptive anatomy, divested of physiological details and

hypothetical explanations foreign to the subject, but for

being a close description derived from actual objects, without

reference to the writings of previous anatomists. About the

same time W. Cheselden in London, the first Alexander Monro in

Edinburgh, and B. S. Albinus in Leiden, contributed by their

several treatises to render anatomy still more precise as a

descriptive science. The Osteographia of the first-mentioned

was of much use in directing attention to the study of

the skeleton and the morbid changes to which it is liable.

Albinus.

This work, however, magnificent as it was, was excelled by

that of Albinus, who in 1747 published engravings, executed

by Jan Wandelaar (1691-1759), of the bones and muscles, which

had never been surpassed in accuracy of outline or beauty of

execution. The several labours of Albinus, indeed, constitute

an important era in the history of the science. He was the

first who classified and exhibited the muscles in a proper

arrangement, and applied to them a nomenclature which is

still retained by the consent of the best anatomists. He

gives a luminous account of the arteries and veins of the

intestines, represents with singular fidelity and beauty the

bones of the foetus, inquires into the structure of the skin

and the cause of its colour in different races; represents

the changes incident to the womb in different periods of

pregnancy, and describes the relations of the thoracic duct

and the vena azygos with the contiguous parts. Besides

these large and magnificent works, illustrated by the most

beautiful engravings, six books of Academical Annotations

were the fruits of his long and assiduous cultivation of

anatomy. These contain valuable remarks on the second structure

and morbid deviations of numerous parts of the human body.

Haller.

Albinus found a worthy successor in his pupil Albert von Haller

(1708-1777), who, with a mind imbued with every department

of literature and science, directed his chief attention,

nevertheless, to the cultivation of anatomical and physiological

knowledge. Having undertaken at an early age (twenty-one) to

illustrate, with commentaries, the physiological prelections

of his preceptor H. Boerhaave, he devoted himself assiduously

to the perusal of every work which could tend to facilitate

his purpose; and, as he found numerous erroneous or imperfect

statements, and many deficiencies to supply, he undertook an

extensive course of dissection of human and animal bodies to

obtain the requisite information. During the seventeen years

he was professor at Gottingen, he dissected 400 bodies, and

inspected their organs with the utmost care. The result of

these assiduous labours appeared at intervals in the form of

dissertations by himself, or under the name of some one of

his pupils, finally published in a collected shape between

1746 and 1751 (Disputationes Anatomicae Selectiores), and

in eight numbers of most accurate and beautiful engravings,

representing the most important parts of the human body, e.g.

the diaphragm, the uterus, ovaries and vagina, the arteries

of the different regions and organs, with learned and critical

explanatory observations. He verified the observations that

in the foetus the testicles lie in the abdomen, and showed

that their descent into the scrotum may be complicated with the

formation of congenital hernia. Some years after, when he had

retired from his academical duties at Gottingen, he published

between 1757 and 1765 the large and elaborate work which, with

singular modesty, he styled Elements of Physiology. This

work, though professedly devoted to physiology, rendered,

nevertheless, the most essentially services to anatomy.

Haller, drawing an accurate line of distinction between the

two, gave the most clear, precise and complete descriptions

of the situation, position, figure, component parts and minute

structure of the different organs and their appendages. The

results of previous and coeval inquiry, obtained by extensive

reading, he sedulously verified by personal observation; and

though he never rejected facts stated on credible authorities,

he in all cases laboured to ascertain their real value by

experiment. The anatomical descriptions are on this account

not only the most valuable part of his work, but the most

valuable that had then or for a long time after appeared. It

is painful, nevertheless, to think that the very form in which

this work is composed, with copious and scrupulous reference to

authorities, made it be regarded as a compilation only; and

that the author was compelled to show, by a list of his personal

researches, that the most learned work ever given to the

physiologist was also the most abundant in original information.

With the researches of Haller it is proper to notice those of

his contemporaries, John Frederick Meckel, J. N. Lieberkuhn,

and his pupil John Godfrey Zinn. The first, who was professor

of anatomy at Berlin, described the Casserian ganglion, the

first pair of nerves and its distribution and that of the

facial nerves generally, and discovered the spheno-palatine

ganglion (1748-1751). He made some original and judicious

observations on the tissue of the skin and the mucous net

(1753-1757); and above all, he recognized the connexion of

the lymphatic vessels with the veins--a doctrine which, after

long neglect, was revived by Vincent Fohmann (1794-1837) and

Lippi. He also collected several valuable observations on the

morbid states of the heart and brain. Lieberkuhn published

in 1745 a dissertation on the villi and glands of the small

intestines. Zinn, who was professor of medicine at Gottingen,

published a classical treatise on the eye (1755), which

demonstrated at once the defects of previous inquiries, and

how much it was possible to elucidate, by accurate research

and precise description, the structure of one of the most

important organs of the human frame. It was republished

after his death by H. A. Wrisberg (1780). About the same

time J. Weitbrecht gave a copious and minute account of the

ligaments, and J. Lieutaud (1703-1780), who had already laboured

to rectify many errors in anatomy, described with care the

structure and relations of the heart and its cavities, and

rendered the anatomy of the bladder very precise, by describing

the triangular space and the mammillary eminence at its neck.

The study of the minute anatomy of the tissues, which had

originally been commenced by Leeuwenhoek, Malpighi and

Ruysch, began at this period to attract more general

attention. Karl August von Bergen had already demonstrated

(1732) the general distribution of cellular membrane, and

showed that it not only incloses every part of the animal

frame, but forms the basis of every organ--a doctrine

which was adopted and still more fully expanded (1757) by

his friend Haller, in opposition to what was asserted by

Albinus, who maintains that each part has a proper tissue.

W. Hunter.

William Hunter at the same time gave a clear and ingenious

statement of the difference between cellular membrane

and adipose tissue (1757), in which he maintained the

general distribution of the former, and represented it

as forming the serous membranes, and regulating their

physiological and pathological properties--doctrines which

were afterwards confirmed by his brother John Hunter.