Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 18-19. (Budapest, 2000)
Pictures from the Past of the Healing Arts - Guide to the Exhibition
was Paracelsus (1493-1541) professor at the University of Basle, who was said to have publicly burned the books of both Galen and Avicenna to give an unfaltering form to his conviction that healing must be based on direct experience. England has also given a genius to medicine, namely William Harvey (1578-1657), who renewed physiology by discovering blood circulation. Though not a physician, Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), the great scientist of the Netherlands, made name for himself in the history of medicine by inventing microscope. 1. Rebirth of medicine in the 16th-17th centuries a) Vesalius and modern anatomy Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) (No.6), the founder of modern anatomy was son of a court pharmacist in Brussels. Even as a young boy he was interested in natural sciences, especially in anatomy. He had began his studies at the University of Louvain, where he learned Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Arabic, moved to the famous University of Paris to study medicine under Jacob Sylvius (1478-1555), the celebrated anatomist of his age. Jacob Sylvius was an enthusiastic believer in Galen and did not bother that Galen's anatomy had turned out to be in sharp contradiction to many contemporary observations. Vesalius left Paris and returned to Loųvain and then paid a visit to Brussels. In Loųvain he started his continual, and in the beginning, secret dissections. However, he was graduated as Doctor of Medicine at Padua in 1537. He was appointed professor of surgery and anatomy at the same university, so young as 24 years old. He worked with passionate energy and unfailing diligence. He completed the manuscript of his fundamental work on August 1 1542. The book, entitled De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (The Fabric of Human Body in Seven Books) (No. 7), was printed at the famous Oporinus printing house in Basle, 1543. This work of 663 folios and 300 woodcuts opened up a new era in the history of anatomy. Its significance is due to the fact that Vesalius cleared anatomy of the false, inaccurate and unreliable views of Galen, which were often based on analogies of animal-dissections. The illustrator of his book was probably Jan Stephan van Calcar (1499-1546), a Dutchman who belonged to the school of Tizian. For a long time the drawings were attributed to Tizian himself. This issue, that you can see in the case, was published in Nuremberg in 1551. In front of the book there is a wooden anatomical figure from the turn of the 17th— 18th centuries (No. 4). The two delicate ivory figures (No. 11) below, arc specially noteworthy: they are detachable figures and were used for demonstration in lecturing obstetrics. They were probably made by Stephan Zick (1639-1715), a famous master of ivory carving in Nuremberg. Though their anatomical structure represents pre-Vcsalian anatomical knowledge, according to their style they still belong to the middle of the 17th ccntury. In the background of the show-case you 35
