An anatomical dissection by Jean Riolan the younger (1580-1657). Engraving by Crispijn de Passe, 1626.

Jean Riolan, Professor of Anatomy and Botany at the Faculté de Médecine in Paris and French court physician, is best known as a Galenist who did not accept Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood. He is seen here surrounded by other anatomists and physicians, such as his friend, Guy Patin, to whom his book, the Encheiridium anatomicum et pathologicum, first published in Paris in 1648, was dedicated. He was skilled in dissection and in the preface to his Anthropographia et osteologia he states that he had dissected more than one hundred bodies over the previous twenty-four winters. Flanking a display of surgical instruments, topped by a coat of arms, are Aesculapius and Hygieia