Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The lancet. [Nos 316-317]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![sometimes whole bodies, from the gallows. At the age of 28, he published a system of anatomy, illustrated with many noble ligures, in which he dissented from the common errors adopted by Galen, and by Silvius. He was afterwards under Fernelius and Andro- inachus, where he now and then had oppor- tunities of dissecting a human subject; af- terwards he returned to Lorrain, where he taught anatomy ; he was publicly invited to Padua by the magistrates, to teach anatomy and physic ; he taught, also, at Bologna and Pisa, by turns, making one course to last about three weeks : he was well supplied with bodies, by public order, from the exe- cutions. He went afterwards to the court of Charles V. ; but not being so well re- ceived by the emperor as he supposed he merited, he withdrew himself in a pet, and burnt all his papers. His dissenting from Galen gained him many enemies, particu- larly Silvius, Columbus, Fallopius, Eusta- chius and others, and with these he held great disputes; but in the course of these contro- versies, falling into the same fault of which he accused Galen, (having given descriptions of parts of the human body from those of brutes,) he came into disgrace, for in Spain lie had an opportunity of dissecting human bodies : he lost his life as he was making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. From his time the arts have been improving. In the sixteenth century, Harvey, as cus- tomary then, went to study anatomy in Italy. His master, F'abricius ab Aquapendente, hav- ing discovered the valves in the veins, pub- lished his doctrine of reins, carrying the blood from the heart to the liver. This was sufficient for Harvey’s genius to work upon : he found out the circulation of the blood in 1616, but did not publish it till 1628. Har- vey’s doctrine, at first, met with consider- able opposition from the favourers of Galen’s system. The next thing that naturally pre- sented itself for inquiry, was the passage of the nutriment into the blood : in 1627, As- silius discovered the lacteals, and, in 5 651, Pecquet, dissecting a dog to observe the lac- teals, discovered the lymphatics. When these things were known, it was natural enough to inquire whether nature observed the same economy in the fmtus as in the adult. On this subject, Harvey published some valuable books, and about this time some Dutch anato- mists, viz. Sevamennan, Van HomSten, and De Graff, made a great noise in their writ- ings, in which they endeavoured to prove that viviparous animals are produced from eggs as well as oviparous ones. Malphio-en, by the help of magnifying glasses, disco- vered parts which before escaped the mi- nutest inspection ; he was seconded by Le- venhoeck, who discovered the globules of blood, and carried his researches so far ns to affirm that he saw the communications of the arteries and veins, and that there were an infinite number of animalcula in the male semen. Towards the latter end of the last century, injections and other anatomical preparations were made, under Sevamerman and Rugirst, in Holland, and Coopare and St. Andrew, in England. Dr. Nicholas was the first who used the process of erosion, by which the vascular structure of many parts is made evident, by first injecting with wax. The figures and models made of wax, in ge- neral are all very inaccurate, but those made of plaster and lead, from the parts them- selves, are very good and serviceable. Che- selden, Albiuus, and others, have given us several exact figures of different parts of the human body, which have helped to improve the art. [Among the discoveries of the pre- sent age, Dr. Hunter mentions those which he has been fortunate enough to make him- self, and which lie thinks the greatest since the discovery of the circulation of the blood, viz., that the pmphatics or absorbing ves- sels are the same as the lacteals, which, with the receptaculum cliyli and thoracic duct, form one system of absorption ; that in the gravid uterus, the internal membrane of the womb comprised the external one of the se- cundines, and, with them, is thrown off from the uterus, every time a woman brings forth or suffers a miscarriage, and is called decidua; and that, therefore, the placenta is partly made of excrescence or efflorescence from the uterus itself. Mr. John Hunter discovered the lacteals in birds, and Mr. Ilewson those in fish.] A moment’s reflection will prove that great strides have been made towards perfection, yet tbe sub- ject is far from being exhausted ; and were we more acute, we should find that what we now know, compared with that which is still unknown, would bear but a small pro- portion. Astronomy and anatomy present us with tbe most striking views of tbe omnipotence and wisdom of the Creator. It is indispens- ably necessary for a man wlio practises surgery or physic, to be well acquainted with this study ; it teaches him where to cut with safety and despatch, and enables him. to form a just prognostic of diseases; in short, anatomy is the basis of surgery, it in- forms the head, guides the hand, and fami- liarises the heart with n kind of necessary inhumanity in the use of cutting instruments. The anatomist who con calmly consider the structure of the human body, without the noblest thoughts of its divine Author, if there is such a man, I say he certainly must have his soul labouring under a dead palsy. Having taken u short view of the rise and progress of anatomy, we shall next proceed to give some account of the different me- thods of teaching it, but must first make some observations on the structure of the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22371771_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
