At the beginning of the sixteenth century—the period with which our history now has to deal—the only available knowledge of anatomy was that which had been supplied by Galen in the third century of the Christian era, and which had been handed down through all the intervening centuries as something absolutely correct and not to be challenged. But the time had arrived when men were no longer willing to accept as truth the teachings of any individual until they had subjected them afresh to the most searching investigations; and thus it came about that a group of remarkably able men devoted all their energies, during the greater part of the sixteenth century, to a very critical study of human anatomy. As the work accomplished by these men constitutes a very important chapter—perhaps the most important chapter—in the history of medicine, I may be pardoned if I devote a disproportionately large amount of space to the consideration of the careers of the more prominent of these founders of modern anatomy, and to an enumeration of the details of the work which they accomplished, and which furnished the most complete verification of the truth stated by Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam (1561–1626), in the following words (translation):—

Man has no other means of getting at and revealing the truth than by induction coupled with a never-tiring, unprejudiced observation of nature and an imitation of her operations. Actual facts must first be collected, and not created by a process of speculation.

One of the earliest and most thorough students of human anatomy was Marc Antonio della Torre (1473–1506), who belonged to an honorable family of Verona, several members of which had attained distinction as physicians. He planned to publish a treatise on anatomy, and, with this object in view, secured the assistance of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1515), the celebrated painter, architect and civil engineer, to make life-size pictures of the parts which he had dissected with such care. But, after the latter had completed many of the drawings which were intended to serve as illustrations for the projected treatise, Della Torre unexpectedly died, and the book was never finished. Quite a number of the drawings, however, found their way to England, and for many years past they have been carefully treasured at Windsor Castle and in certain private collections. If Della Torre’s life had been spared it is highly probable that his treatise on anatomy, equipped with illustrations copied from this great artist’s drawings, would have constituted a formidable rival of Vesalius’ famous work.

Not long after this event it became the rule, among the leading painters and sculptors of the Renaissance period, to pay a great deal of attention to the study of human anatomy. The museums of Central and Southern Italy contain quite a large number of anatomical drawings that were made by Michael Angelo, by Raphael and by other great masters of that period. Doubtless many of my readers recall seeing, in the Cathedral of Milan, Marco Agrate’s (1562) extraordinary masterpiece, in the form of a life-size black marble statue which represents Saint Bartholomew standing erect, and carrying on one arm the folded skin of his entire body. In this statue all the muscles and bony prominences are modeled with perfect accuracy. It is a remarkable work of art.

CHAPTER XXVII
THE FOUNDERS OF HUMAN ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY

Among the earliest physicians of this period to inculcate the importance of substituting a correct knowledge of anatomy for the frequently incorrect descriptions that had been prepared by Galen and handed down through the succeeding centuries, were the following: Jacques DuBois of Paris (1478–1555), who was perhaps better known by his latinized name of “Sylvius”; Guido Guidi (died in 1569), who was also known as “Vidus Vidius”; and Winther of Andernach, a small city on the Rhine. These three men, all of whom taught anatomy at Paris, were commonly considered the best anatomists of that early period. DuBois was further entitled to the credit of having been the first physician to inject blood-vessels with a material that renders them more easily visible, and also the first person in Paris to dissect a human corpse. It was from these men that Vesalius, who afterward became such a famous anatomist, received his first practical instruction in this branch of medical science. Nothing further need be said here of DuBois, but brief sketches of Guido Guidi and of Berengarius of Carpi, another contemporary anatomist of considerable distinction, deserve to find places in our history of this period. Vesalius’ facetious remark that “Winther of Andernach never used a knife except for the purpose of dissecting his food” absolves us from the duty of saying anything further about his career as an anatomist.

In 1542 Francis the First, King of France, gave a great impulse to the study of medicine by calling Guido Guidi from Florence, Italy, to teach that science in the Collége de France, an institution which he had founded at Paris in 1530. Guidi, upon his arrival in Paris, was at once most cordially received, both by those who were to be his colleagues and by the King. Francis bestowed upon him a suitable gift, appointed him to the position of First Physician (Archiater) at his Court, and assured him that he would receive an ample salary during his residence in the French metropolis. In 1547, after the death of Francis the First, Guidi returned to his home in Florence, where Cosimo dei Medici, at that time the head of the Florentine Republic and a little later Grand Duke of Tuscany (Cosimo III.), made him his First Physician and gave him the appointment of Professor of Philosophy in the University of Pisa. Not long afterward Guidi was transferred to the Chair of Medicine. He retained this position almost up to the time of his death (May 26, 1569), and during this long period Cosimo bestowed upon him various ecclesiastic honors, which not only increased his social rank but added materially to his financial resources.

Dezeimeris says that, while Guidi does not deserve to be placed, as an anatomist, in the same rank with Vesalius and Fallopius,[73] he merits full credit for the very important service which he rendered the physicians of his day by placing within their reach translations of certain Greek treatises relating to surgical topics—such treatises, for example, as those of Hippocrates on ulcers, on wounds of the head, on the joints and on fractures (with Galen’s comments), Galen’s treatise on fasciae, and that of Oribasius on ligatures and other surgical contrivances.

Apart from his merits as a worker in the field of medical science, Guidi occupies a creditable place in the history of medicine as a fine type of the well-educated and kindly disposed physician, as the following testimony given by Benvenuto Cellini, the distinguished Florentine sculptor, shows:—

On the occasion of my visit to Paris I made the acquaintance of Messer Guidi, and I wish to state in what a very friendly manner I was received by that noble citizen of Florence and excellent physician, the most virtuous, the most lovable, and the most domestic man whom I have ever met.