Why is andreas vesalius called the father of anatomy

The city of Alexandria, Egypt, founded by Alexander the Great and established by the mighty Ptolemaio Pharoahs, was home to many renowned philosophers and medical practitioners of that time.

Alexandria housed the largest book repository in the world, with approximately , scrolls, many of which were libraries of prominent philosophers. With a wealth of intellectual property residing in the libraries, it is little wonder why the famous Greek geographer, Strabo, termed the city as the 'greatest emporium in the world'. Of the Alexandrian texts, several were written by some of the finest anatomists of that time. Born in B.

Little is known about the early phases of Herophilus' life, other than the fact that he took flight to Alexandria at a youthful age, to commence his education. Herophilus was thought to have been under the tutelage and guidance of Praxagoras of Cos von Staden , who had made significant contributions to Aristotelian anatomy by differentiating arteries from veins.

He would subsequently continue his mentor's curiosity in the arterial pulse. A sketch of Herophilus redrawn from an original painting by Joseph F. Having learnt from Praxagoras, Herophilus began practicing medicine in the city of Alexandria during the reign of the first two Ptolemaio Pharoahs. Through his fervent interest in the subject, his discoveries led him to become an acclaimed medical practitioner. Apart from plying his trade, he penned down at least eleven treaties, which unfortunately, were lost during the course of history.

There was a great fire in the Alexandrian Library where his works were believed to be stored in A. Wills However, his anatomical knowledge has been passed down the generations, providing vital input towards understanding the brain, eye, liver, reproductive organs and nervous system.

Herophilus is recognized as the first person to perform systematic dissection of the human body predating even Andreas Vesalius, often regarded as the founder of modern human anatomy Prioreschi ; Wills despite the taboos that prevailed regarding desecration of the human body at that time Prioreschi Since the time of Plato, it was believed that the body harbors a soul which upon death "is imprisoned in the body" Tredennick In established universities such as Oxford University, human anatomy was not taught until ; in the statutes of the University drawn up in , one of the requirements for a license in surgery was that the person must have performed two anatomical dissections Chaplin Even then, dissection was perceived as a "violent impulse" associated with "disemberment of people" and interestingly, the 'Murder Act' of in England allowed for the bodies of those executed for committing murder to be dissected by surgeons in place of a public display of the executed criminal being hanged on a gibbet Sawday Herophilus was also the earliest person to carry out the first known autopsies for characterizing the course of disease Lassek ; Persaud He has made many phenomenal observations of the human body, some of which are listed below.

Alcmaeon of Croton was the first person to observe that arteries and veins in his animal dissections appeared dissimilar Khan et al.

However, Herophilus, who had earlier confirmed that the arteries had thicker walls than the veins in his human cadaveric dissections, maintained that the atria were parts of the heart although it was not universally accepted at that time Harris ; Khan et al.

It was again Herophilus who refuted his mentor's Praxagoras misconception that the pulse was not associated with the heart beat Smith It is suggested by Rufus in De anatomia partium hominis that both of them knew of the existence of "two kinds of nerves," that could either induce "voluntary motion" or are "capable of sensation" Rocca It was Herophilus who made the point that damage to motor nerves induced paralysis Persaud Herophilus named the meninges and ventricles in the brain, appreciated the division between cerebellum and cerebrum and recognized that the brain was the "seat of intellect" Rose and not a "cooling chamber" as propounded by Aristotle Wills He is also credited with describing the optic, oculomotor, motor division of the trigeminal, facial, vestibulococclear and hypoglossal nerves von Staden ; Wills Herophilus described the salivary glands and named the first part of the small intestine, duodenum von Staden He made the first accurate description of the liver and had extensive knowledge of its conformation Dobson ; McClusky et al.

He performed the first investigation of the pancreas Potter ; von Staden He showed that the uterus is a hollow organ and described the ovaries and uterine tubes.

He recognized that spermatozoa were produced by the testes and was the first to identify the prostate gland von Staden The life of Herophilus as an anatomist, as successful as it were, was not short of controversy. Later physicians such as Cornelius Celsus and Galen charged both Herophilus and his contemporary, Erasistratus, with performing vivisection on condemned criminals awarded to them by the rulers of Alexandria Magner Celsus, who did not witness the vivisections wrote years after the death of Herophilus Robinson that the criminals were dissected alive and "while they were yet breathing" Scarborough Tertullian, writing in the next century, called Herophilus a "butcher" and implied that he cut up living people Dobson Herophilus' achievements have had ramifications up till this day, in which his works as an anatomist during that era have left him to be lauded as the 'Vesalius of Antiquity' Magner Some of the terminologies attributed to him such as calamus scriptorius and torcula herophili are still in modern usage Wills His aphorism, "Wisdom is indemonstrable, art uncertain, strength powerless, wealth useless and speech impotent if health be absent" Dobson is a guiding principle in the management of diseases and development of health policies in prevailing times Folch et al.

Herophilus well deserves to be called the Father of Anatomy. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Journal List Anat Cell Biol v. Anat Cell Biol. Published online Dec Find articles by Noel Si-Yang Bay. Find articles by Boon-Huat Bay. Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Corresponding author. Corresponding author: Boon-Huat Bay.

Tel: ; Fax: , gs. Anatomy and Cell Biology. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Abstract One of the most stirring controversies in the history of Anatomy is that Herophilus, an ancient Greek anatomist and his younger contemporary, Erasistratus, were accused of performing vivisections of living humans. Keywords: Father of anatomy, Vivisection, Human body dissection, Controversy.

Introduction The city of Alexandria, Egypt, founded by Alexander the Great and established by the mighty Ptolemaio Pharoahs, was home to many renowned philosophers and medical practitioners of that time. Background Born in B. Open in a separate window. Anatomical Discoveries of the Human Body Herophilus is recognized as the first person to perform systematic dissection of the human body predating even Andreas Vesalius, often regarded as the founder of modern human anatomy Prioreschi ; Wills despite the taboos that prevailed regarding desecration of the human body at that time Prioreschi Cardiovascular system Alcmaeon of Croton was the first person to observe that arteries and veins in his animal dissections appeared dissimilar Khan et al.

Digestive system Herophilus described the salivary glands and named the first part of the small intestine, duodenum von Staden Controversy The life of Herophilus as an anatomist, as successful as it were, was not short of controversy. Conclusion Herophilus' achievements have had ramifications up till this day, in which his works as an anatomist during that era have left him to be lauded as the 'Vesalius of Antiquity' Magner References 1.

Da Vinci's anatomy. J Morphol Sci. Chaplin A. The history of medical education in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Proc R Soc Med. Dobson JF. Herophilus of Alexandria.

Infectious diseases, non-zero-sum thinking, and the developing world. By means of his text and illustrations, Vesalius sought to restore the art of anatomy to its rightful place as the foundation of medicine. With their daring use of a range of visual devices — from full-length posed figures to classical sculptures to paper pop-ups to illustrate the positions of the organs — both books are nothing less than works of art. Scholars have been unable to discover how many copies of the Fabrica or the Epitome were produced — but it is likely to have been between and copies, judging from other scientific books of the period.

The surviving copies are now scattered worldwide in public and private collections where they are considered rare and precious treasures that capture the essence of an era awakening to scientific endeavour. In addition, the Library has a unique hand-coloured copy of the Epitome once owned by the Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge, Alexander Macalister Everything about these books is designed to impress those who came into contact with them.

The wood blocks were cut in Italy and the books were printed in Basel which was then an important centre for printing. These were not text books aimed at students and nor were they made to be taken into the dissection theatre or to the bedsides of the sick or injured," said Kusukawa. Such books would have been purchased by learned medical colleagues to add to prized collections of weighty tomes of knowledge.

The Fabrica measures 43 cm by 27 cm and the Epitome is even larger at The illustrations are wood cuts. No-one knows for certain the identity of the artists whom Vesalius commissioned to produce the or so illustrations that feature in the Fabrica and Epitome — though past scholars have speculated that Vesalius worked with the Venetian painter Titian or one of his pupils. What is certain is that Vesalius must have collaborated closely with his artists and craftsman to translate his first-hand knowledge of the anatomy and morphology of the human body into drawings.

As a fusion of science and art, the illustrations reflect the artistic conventions of the Renaissance — for example in the stance of the human figures and the idyllic landscape backdrops in which they are posed. An ingenious use of paper cut-outs and pop-ups to show the positioning of the organs in the body was developed by Vesalius in partnership with the artists and craftspeople involved in the production of his books.

They are a neat solution to the problem of showing how the body is composed of layers and how its component parts work together. Decorated initial letters to the sections of and within the books are another notable feature. Each decorated letter tells a story relevant to the text: one shows grave robbing for corpses to dissect, another suggests how to boil a body in a cauldron, and yet another how to articulate a skeleton.

Vesalius means weasel and it was a name of which the great anatomist was proud. The illustration for the frontispiece of the Fabrica is topped by a coat of arms bearing three weasels and held aloft by a pair of chubby putti.

The Fabrica and Epitome continue to impress all who see them — and now for the first time they can be viewed online with an accompanying commentary highlighting some of their remarkable features and setting them in historical context. In her book Picturing the book of nature: image, text, and argument in sixteenth-century human anatomy and medical botany University of Chicago Press, Sachiko Kusukawa discusses some of the images that feature in the Fabrica and Epitome.

Inset images: a portrait of Vesalius in ; the multi-layered manikin in the Epitome ; an initial from the Fabrica Cambridge University Library. The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

For image rights, please see the credits associated with each individual image. Vesalius undertaking a dissection, in the hand-coloured frontispiece to his 'Epitome' Our Horizons email lets you know when the latest issue of the University of Cambridge's research magazine is available for you to read online.

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