An Epitome of the History of MedicinePark, Roswell
History
An Epitome of the History of Medicine
Park, Roswell
Medicine -- History
Mondino, sometimes known as Mundinus, born in 1275, became a professor
in the University of Bologna, and died in 1327. He was the author of
a celebrated treatise on anatomy, said to have reached twenty-five
editions, and which was the first of its kind since Galen. This science
had been greatly neglected; in Salernum, for instance, they were, for
a long time, contented with the treatise of Copho on the anatomy of
the hog, and most of the anatomical knowledge of the age was apparently
derived from this source; Mondino resurrected the study and pursued it
with interest and enthusiasm, though under the greatest difficulties.
His works for more than two centuries, along with the writings of Galen
and the Arabic authors, served for anatomical demonstration, although
very incomplete,--as witness the statement:--
"Beneath the veins of the forearm we see many muscles and many large
and strong cords, of which it is not necessary to attempt the anatomy
on such a corpse (i.e., a recent one), but on one dried in the sun for
three years, as I have shown otherwise, in developing the number{093}
and the anatomy of those of the superior and inferior extremity."
On the other hand, he took the opposite course to discover and
demonstrate the nerves, and advised maceration in running water. It
required almost superhuman boldness to substitute demonstrations on the
human cadaver for those upon swine, yet this was done by Mondino; and at
the time the prejudice against dissection was so general that for more
than a century after Mondino--who died in 1327--no one dared, at least
publicly, to emulate his example. It was in the year 1315 that he
publicly dissected the bodies of two women in Bologna. Anatomical study
was further complicated at this time by certain bulls of Pope Boniface
VIII, forbidding evisceration or boiling or cooking any part of the
human body; these deliverances were really aimed, not against scientific
investigation, but at the absurd custom introduced by the crusaders of
cutting up and boiling the bodies of their relatives who died in
infidel countries, in order to send them home for burial in holy ground;
nevertheless, the papal injunction certainly operated to discourage and
prohibit anatomical dissection, since nearly two hundred years later
the University of Tübingen was obliged to apply to Pope Sixtus IV for
permission to authorize dissection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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