CLAS 3239 | Ancient Medicine: The Classical Roots of the Medical Humanities: Early Printing Illustrations

Frontispiece of Andreas Vesalius' 'De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem' (Seven Books on the Structure of the Human Body). First published in 1543. Image from exhibition at The University of Missouri: Anatomical Illustration: Art Informing Science 1543-1950. See: https://library.missouri.edu/exhibits/anatomy/pre17th.htm Learning is fun.

Engraving on ivory laid paper by Andries Stock depicting an anatomical theatre in Leiden (Netherlands), 1616. Following the work of Vesalius, anatomical theatres became a popular mode of medical instruction in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Image from: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/51094

Vesalius: De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem. Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1555.

Illustration by the Spanish physician Juan Valverde de Amusco in 'Historia de la composición del cuerpo humano' (p. 64). Published in Rome, 1560. Valverde was heavily influenced by the work of Andreas Vesalius--to such an extent that Vesalius accused him of plagiarism. It can be observed, however, that Valverde improved upon Vesalius' depictions of the muscles of the eyes, nose, and larynx. The figure above (one of Valverde's most striking illustrations) holds his own skin in one hand and a knife in the other, recalling for some the pose of Saint Bartholomew in The Last Judgment (Michelangelo) of the Sistine Chapel.

Bartholin: Frontispiece of Thomas Bartholin, Anatomia, Ex Caspari Bartholini Parentis
Institutionibus... Ad Sanguinis Circulationem....The Hague: Adrian Vlacq, 1666.

Browne: Frontispiece of John Browne, Myographia Nova: Or, A Graphical Description of All of the Muscles in the Humane Body, As They Arise in Dissection....London: Thomas Milbourn, 1698.

Woodcut illustration by Leonhard Thurneysser in Quinta Essentia (1574). The illustration represents an alchemical understanding of the human body, relating the four humours to the four elements and twelve signs of the zodiac. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Detail of a woodcut made by Lorenz Fries (1532) depicting ancient herbalists and scholars of medicinal lore. This image portrays the Alexandrian physicians Herophilus and Erisistratus, who were pioneers of human dissection and vivisection in the first half of the third century BCE. For entire woodcut, see: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/common /7/70/Woodcut_depicting_ancient_herbalists_and_scholars_Wellcome_
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Frontispiece of Juan Valverde de Amusco's 'La anatomia del corpo umano', 1586 edition. This frontispiece shares many features with the 1560 version, including a depiction of a pig and a monkey, and human bodies apparently in the process of being dissected. One striking difference with the earlier version of Valverde's frontispiece is the skin that stretches over the top of the central cartouche, which serves as an allusion to Greek myth of Apollo and Marsyas. Marsyas was a satyr who engaged in a music contest with Apollo; his punishment for losing the contest was to be flayed whilst alive. The Roman poet Ovid offers an account of this myth in which Marsyas' organs remain vividly animated after Marsyas' organs have been removed, making this scene a fitting, albeit gruesome, nod to the work of medical inquiry through dissection.

Speigel: Plate "IIII" from De Formato Foetu.
Adriaan van den Spiegel. Adriani Spigelli Brvxellensis Equvistis... De Formato Foetv: Liber Singularis Aeneis Figvris Exornatus....
Frankfort: Matthæus Merianus, 1631.

Frontispiece illustration of operating theatre in Bartolomeo Eustachius' 'Tabulae Anatomicae'. Published in Amsterdam, 1722. Image from Anatomical Illustration: Art informing Science: an online exhibit at University of Missouri Library.

Eustachius: Illustration of kidneys: Bartolomeo Eustachius. Tabulae Anatomicae... Amsterdam: R. & G. Wetstenios, 1722.

Dissection scene from 'Fasiculus Medicinae, an eclectic collection of six medieval treatises on medicine. This collection, which originally existed only in two handwritten manuscripts, was first printed in 1491 in Latin and came out in numerous editions over the next 25 years. Johannes de Ketham, the German physician to whom the text is often attributed, was neither the author nor even the original compiler, but merely an owner of one of the manuscripts. De Ketham was a professor of medicine in Vienna and may have used the collection for the purposes of instructing his students. The ten woodcut illustrations in the collection had a great influence on medical illustrators for the next two and a half centuries. A copy of this text is currently in the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Frontispiece of Thomas Linacre's Latin version (Paris, S. de Colines, 1530) of the Galenic treatise 'Method of Healing". The frontispiece depicts some of the great doctors from Greek and Roman antiquity, including Hippocrates, Galen, Paul, Oribasius, Asclepiades, and Dioscorides. It also portrays the dissection of a human body, although the book itself does not at all deal with anatomy. Image from The Wellcome Library, London.

A popular image in early printed books, the "wound man" served to depict the possible wounds and injuries a physician could be called upon to treat. This depiction is a woodcut illustration from an early German translation of' 'Fasciculus Medicinae', a collection of medical texts on various topic including the treatments of wounds and injuries, herbal remedies, bloodletting, and urology.

Illustration by the surgeon Hans von Gersdorff from Feldtbůch der Wundartzney (Field Book for Wound Medicine, 1517) illustrating the major points for administering bloodletting. Image from Wikimedia Commons.