Vesalius on the Anatomy and Function of the Recurrent Laryngeal Nerves: Medical Illustration and Reintroduction of a Physiological Demonstration from Galen (2014)
Lanska, Douglas J. (Author)
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences
Volume: 23, no. 3
Issue: 3
Pages: 211-232
The purpose of this article is to review the anatomical illustrations and physiological demonstrations of sixteenth-century Flemish-born anatomist and physician Andreas Vesalius concerning the recurrent laryngeal nerves. Although Vesalius was primarily an anatomist, he also used vivisection as a pedagogical device to help his students understand the function of structures within the fabric of the body that they had previously studied in anatomical detail. Vesalius's masterwork, De humani corporis fabrica or simply the Fabrica (1543, 1555), was ostensibly an anatomy text, but Vesalius included textual and figural references to his use of vivisection to explicate the function of specific structures. Even as he began to criticize the errors in Galen's anatomical works, Vesalius nevertheless adopted some of Galen's classic physiological demonstrations, in particular the ligation (and subsequent release) of the recurrent laryngeal nerves of a pig to demonstrate their role in generating the pig's squeal. Vesalius's illustrations concerning the recurrent laryngeal nerve in the Fabrica were of two types: elegant anatomical woodcut plates---unsurpassed for their clarity, accuracy, and detail --- and the distinctly inelegant historiated initial Q, depicting a throng of putti busily engaged in vivisecting a pig. Vesalius' anatomical plates were heavily plagiarized while the historiated initials, showing the rough work of an anatomist or surgeon, were largely ignored and remain little recognized today. While Vesalius' anatomical illustrations of the recurrent laryngeal nerves contained some errors, they were a dramatic departure from prior meager efforts at medical illustration and indeed far surpassed all contemporary published illustrations by others. Vesalius was also influential in reviving Galen's approach to vivisection, at least for pedagogical purposes, if not really then yet as a full-fledged investigative technique.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Vivian Nutton;
(2017)
Principles of Anatomy according to the Opinion of Galen by Johann Guinter and Andreas Vesalius
(/isis/citation/CBB585946379/)
Article
Shotwell, Allen R.;
(2013)
The Revival of Vivisection in the Sixteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001320049/)
Article
Amanda Taylor;
(2018)
The Compounded Body: Bodily Knowledge Production in the Works of Andreas Vesalius and Edmund Spenser
(/isis/citation/CBB197489403/)
Article
Cynthia Klestinec;
(2018)
Vesalius among the Surgeons
(/isis/citation/CBB331646601/)
Article
Vivian Nutton;
(2018)
1538, A Year of Vesalian Innovation
(/isis/citation/CBB166343013/)
Article
Douglas J. Lanska;
(2022)
Evolution of the myth of the human rete mirabile traced through text and illustrations in printed books: The case of Vesalius and his plagiarists
(/isis/citation/CBB062599708/)
Book
Vesalius, Andreas;
Garrison, Daniel H.;
(2015)
Vesalius, the China Root Epistle: A New Translation and Critical Edition. Translated by Garrison, Daniel H.
(/isis/citation/CBB001510057/)
Article
Gabriele Marasco;
(2011)
Gerolamo Cardano: tradition classique et réalités nouvelles dans l'anatomie et dans la chirurgie à l'epoque de la Renaissance
(/isis/citation/CBB432415041/)
Book
Kusukawa, Sachiko;
(2012)
Picturing the Book of Nature: Image, Text, and Argument in Sixteenth-Century Human Anatomy and Medical Botany
(/isis/citation/CBB001251192/)
Article
Michael Stolberg;
(2018)
Teaching Anatomy in Post-Vesalian Padua: An Analysis of Student Notes
(/isis/citation/CBB878473668/)
Article
Crowther, Kathleen M.;
Barker, Peter;
(2013)
Training the Intelligent Eye: Understanding Illustrations in Early Modern Astronomy Texts
(/isis/citation/CBB001321211/)
Thesis
Niekrasz, Carmen Cramer;
(2007)
Woven Theaters of Nature: Flemish Tapestry and Natural History, 1550--1600
(/isis/citation/CBB001560640/)
Book
Jorink, Eric;
Ramakers, Bart;
(2011)
Art and Science in the Early Modern Netherlands
(/isis/citation/CBB001201611/)
Article
Philippe Mudry;
(2020)
La quête du vivant ou une vie de chien. Aspects de l'investigation anatomique d'Alexandrie à Padoue
(/isis/citation/CBB614111939/)
Article
Berkowitz, Carin;
(2006)
Disputed Discovery: Vivisection and Experiment in the 19th Century
(/isis/citation/CBB000771702/)
Book
Domenico Bertoloni Meli;
(2019-04-02)
Mechanism: A Visual, Lexical, and Conceptual History
(/isis/citation/CBB686688156/)
Book
David Bainbridge;
(2018)
Stripped Bare: The Art of Animal Anatomy
(/isis/citation/CBB052719995/)
Article
Nutton, Vivian;
(2015)
More Vesalian Second Thoughts. The Annotations to the Institutiones anatomicae secundum Galeni sententiam, 1538
(/isis/citation/CBB001552551/)
Article
Smith, C. U. M.;
(2013)
Cardiocentric Neurophysiology: The Persistence of a Delusion
(/isis/citation/CBB001211264/)
Article
Catherine E. Storey;
(2022)
Then there were 12: The illustrated cranial nerves from Vesalius to Soemmerring
(/isis/citation/CBB903067026/)
Be the first to comment!