Bartholomeus Eustachius
Eustachius was born at San Severino, a small city near Salernum, about the year 1520. He studied anatomy in Rome and made remarkable progress in this science. In the year 1562, as he informs us in his Opuscula Anatomica, he was professor of medicine in the Collegio della Sapienza at Rome. Like many other men of genius, Eustachius died in poverty. In August, 1574, having been called by the illness of Cardinal Rovere to Fossombrone, Eustachius died upon the journey.
To Eustachius posterity is indebted for a series of splendid copperplate engravings which were designed to illustrate the anatomy of the human body. These plates, the handiwork of Eustachius, and the first anatomical illustrations wrought in copper, were completed in 1552, only nine years after the first impression of the book of Vesalius. Unfortunately for himself, and worse for medical science, Eustachius was unable to publish them. If this magnificent atlas of anatomy could have been published when completed, the anatomical discoveries of the eighteenth century would have come two hundred years earlier. Unfortunately the entire text of the work is lost. For one hundred and thirty-eight years the Eustachian plates remained either in the family of Pinus, an intimate friend of the anatomist, or were buried in the Papal Library at Rome. When discovered they were presented by Pope Clement XI. to his physician, Lancisi, who published them with notes of his own, at Rome, in 1714. In 1740 they were issued under the direction of Cajetan Petrioli. Four years later the edition by Albinus appeared, which was republished in 1761. The anatomical writings of Eustachius were published during his lifetime, in 1564. It is upon his Tabulae Anatomicae that the fame of this wonderful man is founded. If this work had been published in 1552, Eustachius would have divided with Vesalius the honor of founding human anatomy. The victim of circumstances, his name has been overshadowed by that of Vesalius, to whom in some respects he was superior. Deprived during life of his merited honors, Eustachius has been awarded a goodly share of posthumous fame.
BRAIN AND NERVES BY EUSTACHIUS
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MUSCLES BY EUSTACHIUS
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Eustachius was the first anatomist to describe, with any degree of accuracy, the tube which bears his name. We can truly say he discovered it, since Alcmaeon dissected only the lower animals, and was not an accurate observer, as his view that goats breathe through the ears, amply testifies. Eustachius discovered the tensor tympani and stapedius muscles, the modiolus and membranous cochlea, and the stapes. The honor of the discovery of the stapes is claimed for no less than five renowned anatomists, namely, Fallopius, Ingrassias, Columbus, Colladus, and Eustachius. It is unnecessary to discuss this disputed claim to priority. The truth seems to be that the stapes was discovered by both Ingrassias and Eustachius, each independently of the other. In 1546 Ingrassias publicly demonstrated the little bone of the ear in his lectures at Naples. Fallopius, after learning from an eyewitness that Ingrassias had actually discovered and named the ossicle, relinquished his claim to the discovery. Columbus and Colladus filed their information at too late a date. Eustachius, as previously stated, finished his anatomical plates in 1552. His seventh plate shows, among other subjects, the auditory ossicles—malleus, incus and stapes—and tensor tympani muscle. These objects are delineated as taken from a human subject, and also from a dog.
Eustachius discovered the origin of the optic nerves, and the sixth cerebral nerves. He gives excellent pictures of the corpora olivaria and corpora pyramidalia; of the stylo-hyoid muscle; of the deep muscles of the neck and throat; of the suprarenal capsules, and of the thoracic duct. He also described the ciliary muscle. Eustachius was the first anatomist who accurately studied the teeth and the phenomena of the first and second dentition. In his researches he employed magnifying glasses, maceration, exsiccation, and various methods of injection.