CHAPTER SECOND
Mondino, the Restorer of Anatomy
In the year 1315, in the old Italian city of Bologna, an event occurred which marks an important epoch in the history of medicine. A wondering crowd of medical students witnessed the dissection of a human cadaver—one of the few procedures of the kind that had occurred since the fall of the Alexandrian University. Acting under royal authority Mondino, a man far in advance of the age, placed the body of a female upon a table where for many centuries before only the cadavera of apes, of swine and of dogs had been studied.
Mondino, known also as Mundinus, Mundini, Raimondino, or Mondino dei Luzzi, was descended from a prominent Italian family. Little is known of his life. The year of his birth is disputed; probably 1276 was near the time. He was graduated in medicine in 1290 and in 1306 he became a professor in the University of Bologna, holding his chair with credit until his death in 1326. Like that of the illustrious Homer, Mondino’s nativity has been claimed by several rival cities. Guy de Chauliac, writing in 1363, states that Mondino was a Bolognese: Mundinus Bononiensis is Chauliac’s expression.
Mondino’s method of teaching anatomy is known from Chauliac’s testimony:—“Mundinus of Bologna, wrote on anatomy, and my master, Bertruccius, demonstrated it many times in this manner:—The body having been placed on a table, he would make from it four readings; in the first the digestive organs were treated, because more prone to rapid decomposition; in the second, the organs of respiration; in the third, the organs of circulation; in the fourth the extremities were treated.” The innovation so auspiciously begun was not continued, and after the death of Mondino human dissections were made only at long intervals. The few instances in which, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the ecclesiastical and civil authorities granted the right to make dissections only prove the contention, that the practical study of human anatomy did not gain recognition until the sixteenth century.
When Mondino began his dissections the epoch of Saracen learning had ended, but the influence of Arab medicine exerted by the writings of Albucasis, Avicenna and Rhazes had not declined. The Arabian physicians had accomplished little for anatomy. In this line the influence of Galen was still potent, and was rarely questioned until the publication of the Fabrica of Vesalius in 1543. During a long period the little treatise of Mondino held full sway in the mediaeval schools. Medicine was taught in the University of Bologna, which as early as the twelfth century was celebrated for its departments of literature and of law. These studies were free of the difficulties which beset medicine. The prejudice against dissection was so great that for nearly a century after his death few men dared to repeat the acts of Mondino.
In 1316 Mondino issued his book which remained in manuscript form for more than one hundred and fifty years, the first printed edition bearing the date 1478. Small and imperfect as it was, it marks an era in the history of science. By command of the authorities this book was read in all the Italian Universities. The work of Mondino contained no new facts; it was compiled largely from the writings of Galen and of Avicenna. The descriptions, to use the words of Turner, “are corrupted by the barbarous leaven of the Arabian schools, and his Latin is defaced by the exotic nomenclature of Ibn-Sina and Al-Rasi”. Mondino divided the body into three cavities, of which the upper contains the animal members, the lower the natural members, and the middle the spiritual members. Many of his names are borrowed from the Arab writers. Thus, he calls the peritoneum siphac, the omentum zyrbi, and the mesentery eucharus. His description of the heart is much nearer accuracy than would be expected. He resorted to vivisection, and tells us that when the recurrent nerves of the larynx are cut the animal’s voice is lost. In his book we find the rudiments of phrenology. He states that the brain is divided into compartments, each of which holds one of the faculties of the intellect.
MONDINO’S DIAGRAM OF THE HEART, 1513
Mondino did not himself make the dissections which are credited to him. According to an ancient custom which lasted until the time of Vesalius, the actual cutting was done by a barber who wielded a knife as large as a cleaver. The professor of anatomy sat upon an elevated seat and discoursed concerning the parts, while a demonstrator, who also did not soil his fingers, pointed to the different structures with a staff. Originally Mondino’s book contained no figures; when the art of wood engraving was introduced in the latter part of the fifteenth century, a few rude woodcuts appeared which represent Mondino and his method of teaching. In the Fasciculus Medicinae of Joannes de Ketham, published at Venice in 1493, Mondino’s book is printed with an illustration showing a demonstration in anatomy.