Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/515

ANATOMY 459 ANATOMY much of in books on the supposed opposition of science and religion. 'I'liere was no such decree, however, and tlic declaration that the development of anatomy was iiiterfere<l with by the ecclesiastical authorities is fomulod on nothing more substantial than a misunderstanding of the purport of a decree of I'opc Boniface Vlll. In the year i:{()() this Pone i.ssued the Hull "De Sepulturis". The title of the Hull runs as follows: " I'ereons cutting ip the bodies of the dead, barbarously cooking thcni in order that the bones being separated from the flesh may be carried for burial into their own countries are by the ver>' fact exconnnunicated." The only possible explanation of the misunderstanding that the Bill forbade dissection is that some one read only the first part of the title and considered that as one of the methods of preparing bones for study in anatomy was by boiling them in order to be able to remove the flesh from them eiusily, that this decree forbade such practices thereafter. The first authoritative liistory in which this inter- pretation of the Hull api>cared v!vs the "Histoire litl(5raire de la lrance , a work originally Lssued by the Honeilictines of Saint-Maur. but continued by the momlici-s of the Institute of France, and it is in one of the volumes of the continuation that the declaration with regard to the interniption of ana- tomical studies by dis,section is made. Not oidy the Hull itself did not forbid dissection, but a review of the history of anatomy just after its issuance shows that it was not misinterpreted so as to hamper anatomical progress. Within the decade after the date of the Hull, Mondino began to perform at Bologna the series of public dis.sections of human bodies on which w;us founded his text-book of anat- omy. This was to be the authority on this subject for the next two centuries in Europe. It is some- times said that Mondino dissected only a few bodies, but Guy de Chauliae, him.self a distinguished anatom- ist later in the fourteenth centurj-, declares that Mondino dissected human bodies a number of times (muUolies is his word). In i:U9 there is the record of a criminal prosecution for body-snatching at Bologna, and it is dear that a nunil)er of such events had happened before the criminal courts were ap- l>ealcd to in the matter. M this time, according to the statutes of the university, teachers of anatomy were bound to make a di.s.section if the students supplied the body. De Renzi says there was a rage for ilis-iection at this period ami many bodies were yearly stolen for the purpose. In Venice where there was no medical .school the authorities, in 1308, ordained that one di.ssection everj' year should be made for the benefit of phy.sicians of the city. In Hologna a regular allowance of wine was made by the municipality to the students and others who should be present at dis.sections, and every student was required to see at least one dissection of a human body during his medical course. Twenty students were to be present at the dissection of male, ami thirty at that of female subjects, the.se being rarer, ami manifestly a good opportunity for jx-rsonal inspection was provideil. ILcser in his History of Medicine" says that it is an error to think that Boniface's Hull forbade dis- section since the practice was carried on without let or hindrance under ecclcsia.stical authorities who universally presided over the universities of that day. Hipser tiuotes Corradi who, in his sketch of the teaching of anatomy in Italy during the Midille Ages, also denies that the Hull of the jiope mentioned hamixsrcd the progress of anatomical study or teach- ing in any way. Pagel in his sketch of the history of medicine at the end of the Middle .ges says that Hcrtucci who died in 1X47, and .Vrgelafa who died towards the end of the fourteenth century, were both in a position to make public demonstrations in di.s- section becau.se of the example that had been set by Mondino. They also performed regular dissections for purpo.ses of investigation ancl used human cada- vers rather than the bodies of animals as had been the ca.se before, (luy de Chauliae, the father of modern surgery, attended the di.s.sections at Hologna at the beginning of the fourteenth century and on his return to the .south of Krance encouraged the practice there. He was the surgeon to three p<ipes iluring the time the popes were at Avignon, yet in his book, written while he was a member of the papal household, he in.sists on the necessity for the dissection of human bodies if any definite progress in surgery is to be made, and he proposed to have the bodies of executed criminals given over to medical .schools and physicians for this purpo.se. This fact alone would seem to decide definitely that there was no papal regulation, real or supposed, forbidding the practice of human di.s.section at this time. Haas in his "Outlines of the History of Medicine" shows that dissections were not unusual in Italy, and were also known at other Kuropean universities. The bodies of criminaLs who hail been executeil were used for this pMr|X)se at Prague and aLso at Montpellier. Just before the beginning of the .sixteenth century there are two names worth mentioning in the liLstory of anatomy. They are those of Zerbi, who traced the olfactory nerves and ri(iii;iii/cd their function, and of Achilini, who first described the small bones of the ear, nientionetl the orifices of Wharton's ducts, and described .somewhat in detail the ileocecal valve and other hitherto not well-known portions of the intestines. .Vnother distinguished name is that of Bercnger of Carpi, who did most of his work at Bologna at the beginning of the sixteenth century. He declared that he had tli.ssected more than one hundred human bodies. In Berenger is to be found the first hint of modern anatomy. His commen- taries on Mondino's work show how much he added to that teacher's instruction. He was the first to mention the appendix, and also to indicate the site of the opening of the common bile duct into the intestine. He added much to the knowledge pre- viously held with regard to the organs of generation and pointed out the im|)ortant distinction between male and female, that the chest has greater capacity in the former and the pelvis in the latter. He discovered the arj'lenoid cartilages in the larynx ami gave the first good descrijition of the thymus gland. His di.s.secti(>iis of the eve and of the ear made anatomical knowledge of tfie.sc structures, also, much more definite. MoDEK>! -Xn'.vto.mv. — The time was evidently ripe for the coming of the great father of modern anatomy, Vesalius. He was a Fleming, educated originally at the University of Louvain, where he acquireil, besides his classical studies, a taste for scientific investigation. He went to Paris to .study under Dubois, better known by his Latin name of Sylvius. Though the Sylvian fi.ssure is named after him, Dubois did not accom- plish very much original work. The ilemonstrations were always made on dogs, but Vesalius eke<l out his knowledge by stuilving human bones from the cemeteries at Paris. Ironi Paris Vesalius went to Padua where he became profes,sor of anatomy when only twenty-one. After teaching at Padua for some years ho was invited to give courses in anatomy at Hologna which was then a papal city, .fter a time Pisa also CiUled him to a prt>fe.ssorship anil he seems to have lectured succes.slvely in each of these imi- versities for several years. .t the age of twenty- eight he had completeil his book " De Fabrica Cor- poris Humani" which w.as forever to remain a clas.sic of anatomical knowletlge. There were very few portions of the human body on which Vesalius did not throw new light. His new additions to anatomi- cal knowledge are so numerous that they cannot even