Andreas Vesalius, the Reformer of Anatomy

by James Moores Ball

The first anatomical treatise containing an account of the lesser, or pulmonary circulation, was the monumental work, De Re Anatomica, libri xv., written by Realdus Columbus and sumptuously published at Venice in the year 1559. This, however, was not the first printed account of the lesser circulation. Six years prior to the publication of the book of Columbus, the unfortunate Servetus, in a theological treatise, described correctly the course of the blood in its transit through the lungs. Tried for heresy, Servetus was burned, together with all obtainable copies of his book. Although it had been printed, the work was suppressed; hence it follows that Columbus was the first to publish the great discovery. Of the life of this anatomist we know but little. Born at Cremona, a small Milanese village, the year of his birth is unknown. He died in 1559, while his book was being printed. A few copies were finished before his demise, since a copy belonging to the late Dr. George Jackson Fisher, of Sing Sing, N.Y., contains the author’s own dedication to Pope Paul IV., while in other exemplars, the dedication has been written by the two sons of Columbus, and is addressed to “Pio IIII., Pont. Max”. This prelate, on the death of Paul IV., on August 18, 1559, became the head of the Church.

Some writers have held that the discovery of the lesser circulation was not made by Columbus independently of Servetus, but that a copy of the book of Servetus had drifted into Italy and had been read by Columbus. There is no direct evidence to support this view. When Vesalius was called to Madrid as physician to Charles the Fifth, Columbus, in 1544, succeeded him in the University of Padua; two years later he filled the anatomical chair at Pisa, and in 1546, Pope Paul IV. called him to Rome. Here he spent the later years of his life, engaged in teaching anatomy and in writing his book. For forty years Columbus pursued his anatomical studies, and in that period he dissected an unusually large number of bodies. Fourteen subjects passed under his scalpel in a single year.

TITLE-PAGE OF COLUMBUS’S ANATOMY
(Reduced one-half)

Columbus frequently made experiments upon living animals. He was the first to use dogs for such purposes, preferring them to swine. Book XIIII. of the work of Columbus is upon the subject of vivisection, De viva sectione. In this he tells us how to employ living dogs in demonstrating the movements of the heart and brain, the action of the lungs, etc. Columbus was the first anatomist who demonstrated experimentally that the blood passes from the lungs into the pulmonary veins. “When the heart dilates”, says Columbus, “it draws natural blood from the vena cava into the right ventricle, and prepared blood from the pulmonary vein into the left; the valves being so disposed that they collapse and permit its ingress; but when the heart contracts, they become tense, and close the apertures, so that nothing can return by the way it came. The valves of the aorta and pulmonary artery opening, on the contrary, at the same moment, give passage to the spirituous blood for distribution to the body at large, and to the natural blood for transference to the lungs”.

Like Servetus, Columbus held to the idea of “spiritus”. Harvey was the first physiologist who recognized the circulation as purely a movement of blood. All before him assumed the existence of a mixture of air and blood. Columbus, pupil and prosector of Vesalius, like his great master, denied the existence of foramina in the cardiac septum.

Gabriel Fallopius

GABRIEL FALLOPIUS

Gabriel Fallopius (1523-1562), of Modena, was a noted Italian anatomist. In his twenty-fifth year he was made professor of anatomy at Pisa. Although the span of his life was short, he will be remembered always as the discoverer of the tubes which bear his name. According to Fisher, Fallopius “described the ear more minutely than had ever before been done. He discovered the little canal along which the facial nerve passes after leaving the auditory; it is still called the aquaeductus Fallopii. He demonstrated the fact of the communication of the mastoid cells with the cavity of the tympanum; and also described the fenestrae rotunda and ovalis. In the treatment of diseases of the ear, he used an aural speculum, and employed sulphuric acid for the removal of polypi from the meatus. In some of his supposed discoveries he had long been anticipated; for example, the tubes which bear his name were known and accurately described by Herophilus, over three hundred years before the Christian era, and also by Rufus of Ephesus, of whom Galen speaks as the best anatomist of the second century. Rufus refers to two varicose and tortuous vessels passing from the testes (as the ovaries were called) to the cavity of the uterus. Fallopius, however, gave a full account of their course, position, size and structure. He cut into them and found them hollow, gave them the name of tubae seminales, and posterity attached his name to them, and in time came to a better comprehension of their true function. This is not the only instance in the history of anatomical discovery where the name of a person, not its discoverer, has been given to an organ. Allusion has been made to Fallopius as a botanist; a genus of plants, Fallopia, has been named in honor of him”.