A History of Human Anatomy eds. by T.V.N. Persaud, Marios Loukas, and R. Shane Tubbs (review)

The present volume is a revised and expanded edition of A History of Human Anatomy. It aims to present anatomy from Antiquity to modern times, depicting the field's various eras, places, scholars, and teachers, as well as the field's major controversies and advances. The book takes a chronological approach to the material while also presenting essential biographical, thematic, and regional histories.

Chapter 1 briefly outlines the history of anatomy in the prehistoric period in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and India, and chapters 2–7 move into a sustained discussion of anatomy in Greco-Roman Antiquity. These chapters discuss animal dissections carried out by Asclepius, Alcmaeon of Croton, Empedocles, and Diogenes of Apollonia in the pre-Hippocratic era. These early chapters also illustrate Hippocratic concepts and the Hippocratic legacy, Aristotle's anatomical writings, and the first anatomical investigations of the human body that were conducted by Herophilus of Alexandria and Erasistratus of Cos. Scientific documentation recorded by Roman philosophers (e.g., Lucretius, Gaius Plinius Secundus, Cornelius Celsus, and Marcus Tullius Cicero) is explored in great detail. Special emphasis is placed on the anatomical treatises and studies of the most celebrated anatomist of Antiquity, Claudius Galen, whose method of comparative anatomy, dogmatic adherence to the pneumatic theory, anatomical and physiological experiments, and scientific achievements are clearly brought out.

Chapters 8 and 9 investigate anatomical knowledge in the Early and High Middle Ages. The text explores the rise of Islam and Arabic medicine and the birth of great universities and medical schools in Europe, such as the universities of Bologna, Salerno, Montpellier, Paris, and Oxford. Special consideration is given to the Italian physician, anatomist, and professor of surgery Mondino de Luzzi, also known as Mundinus, and his detailed documentation of human dissections.

Chapters 10–15 discuss anatomy in the Renaissance, beginning with Leonardo da Vinci, the "Renaissance man," who combined artistic ability with keen scientific observation in his studies of the human form. This discussion of Leonardo is expanded by a systematic consideration of treatises about human anatomy written by Jacobus Silvius, Andreas Vesalius – the architect of the New Anatomy – and Vesalius's successors at Padua (e.g., Realdo Colombo, Gabriello Fallopio, Hieronymus Fabricus, and Giulio Casserius). These treatises are succeeded by an exploration of the rise of the famous medical school at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. This school strongly influenced anatomical studies and the training of physicians with the help of the following scholars: Herman Boerhave, the great reformer of medical education; Anton Nuck, the most successful clinician and medical teacher of the 17 ^thcentury; Pieter Pauw, who established the first anatomical theatre in the Netherlands; Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, the first anatomist to classify the muscles in a systematic manner; and Frederik Ruysch, known for his precise demonstration of the tiniest of vessels in almost every organ and part of the body. This discussion of the Dutch medical school is followed by a survey of the new era in scientific medicine occasioned by William Harvey's illustrations of the heart's movements and the circulation of blood in animals. Attention is also given to another scientific achievement of this period: Andreas Cesalpino's observation of the swelling of veins below the sites of ligatures.

This group of chapters on Renaissance anatomy concludes with a panoramic description of the central conceptual achievements of the period. This panorama is achieved through discussions of a number of scientific figures: Francis Glisson, an anatomist, author of Anatomic Hepatis, and an outstanding physiologist, who established the principle of "Irritability," which rested on the assumption that the human body is susceptible to external influences; Thomas Willis, who provided a detailed description of the anatomy of the brain, spinal cord, peripheral nervous system, and autonomic nervous system; James Drake, author of a popular medical treatise titled Anthropologica Novaor A New System of Anatomy; William Cheselden, a distinguished...