Andreas Vesalius' First Public Anatomy at Bologna. 1540 by Baldasar Heseler; Ruben ErikssonReview by: Charles D. O'MalleyIsis, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Dec., 1960), pp. 602-603Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/228638 .

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602 BOOK REVIEWS

poraries, although there is frequent ref- erence to Zerbi in the Commentaria. The remark, on the same page, that "the anatomy of Berengario is the first full- scale description of the entire human body between that of Mundinus ... and that of Vesalius" does less than justice to Zerbi and Achillini who wrote works which may be compared in significance with that of Mondino; furthermore, the remark is decidedly unfair to Nicolo Massa. It also seems somewhat incor- rect, on the same page, to compare the Isagogae breves with Vesalius's Epitome to the disadvantage of the latter, since Vesalius would have been quite willing to state that his Epitome was meant for a different purpose than the Isagogae. Finally, in respect to bibliography, on page 17 Professor Lind refers to the location of copies of the very rare Comn- mentaria, a useful bit of information. Employing the late Vittorio Putti's list of locations he adds to it a copy of the Commentaria presently in the Depart- ment of Anatomy, University of Mary- land, Baltimore. It may be of use to extend the list further by noting the copy in the Historical Library, Yale Univer- sity Medical School, the former Nicolaus Pol-Crummer-Evans copy now in the collection of Lessing Rosenwald, and two copies in the Wellcome Historical Medi- cal Library, London.

Despite the few adverse statements above, Professor Lind is to be congratu- lated on his contribution to the study of the history of anatomy, and it is to be hoped that he will continue his activities in this field.

C. D. O'MALLEY University of California Medical Center,

Los Angeles

BALDASAR HESELER: Andreas Vesalius' First Public Anatomy at Bologna, 1540. An eyewitness report together with his notes on Matthaeus Curtius' lectures on Anatomia Mundini. Edited, with an in- troduction, translation into English and notes by Ruben Eriksson. 343 pp., front., bibl., plates, figs. Uppsala: Alm- quist & Wiksells Boktryckeri AB, 1959. $11.25.

In January 1540 a kind of joint, al- though far from harmonious, course was

presented to the medical students of Bologna by Matteo Corte, professor of theoretical medicine in that university, and Andreas Vesalius, invited from Padua for the purpose by the Bolognese medical students. Corte lectured during the day on the anatomy of Mundinus, and in the evening Vesalius gave ana- tomical demonstrations, supposedly to illustrate Corte's lectures but actually a frequent refutation of them. Among the attendant students was a German, Bal- dasar Heseler, who took relatively full notes of the proceedings, and this note- book, surviving the passage of centuries, was deposited in the Royal Library, Stockholm, in 1846. Its significance in relationship to Vesalian studies and the study of the evolution of human anatomy in the sixteenth century was first real- ized by Dr. Ruben Eriksson, Chief Librarian of the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, who has transcribed the notebook and produced an annotated English version of it.

Heseler's notebook as now presented constitutes a work of fundamental im- portance for Vesalian studies. Most obviously it supplies new biographical information respecting Vesalius as well as settling various doubtful points of biography and chronology. For example, it was known from Vesalius's own words in the Fabrica that he had made two trips to Bologna, but was the second in 1539 or 1540? It is now apparent that the latter year is the correct one. We also know from the Examen of 1564 that he had quarrelled with Corte and that a lasting enmity had developed be- tween the two over the question of whether or not there were fibres in the veins which controlled the movement of the blood, a matter about which, inci- dentally, Corte was right and Vesalius wrong. We now have a full report of the quarrel as well as about other fac- tors contributing to that enmity. Hith- erto there have been certain scattered indications which gave some, although not particularly strong, support to the belief that Vesalius was an unusual teacher for his time and that his meth- ods had gained popularity for his lec- tures. There can no longer be any doubt on this point.

AWhile it is helpful to have these and

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BOOK REVIEWS 603

other matters cleared up or confirmed, far more important is the fact that it can now be proved that wherever in the Fab- rica Vesalius refers to incidents during his visit to Bologna he is relating unem- broidered truth. It has occasionally been asserted that wherever the anatomist made statements reflecting to his credit, such statements represent the assertions of a braggart which could not be checked. In every instance, however, from the size of his body of spectators and their enthusiastic interest to the Vesalian methods of instruction, we have con- firmation of Vesalius's words in Hese- ler's notebook.

As it turned out, the lectures of Corte and the demonstrations of Vesalius were far from complementary. The former, lecturing on Mundinus, used that text merely as a means of supporting the authority of Galen, unlike Berengario who about two decades earlier had em- ployed the same text for the destruction of Galen. Corte was a conservative to the degree that although lecturing on an anatomical text he announced himself as no anatomist in terms of dissection and by implication expressed disdain for Ve- salius because he was willing personally to dissect. Vesalius was, of course, a contrast to the conservative Corte, seek- ing to acquire knowledge of the human body by means of dissection rather than through the Galenic texts. Indeed, the contrast between the two men led to argument which on one occasion, despite the presence of the students, became so heated that it was necessary for the rec- tor to intervene. Heseler's notebook, it may be said, constantly reveals Vesalius as somewhat more of an extrovert than has been the common belief.

Vesalius is also presented as midway in his development between that Galen- ism which he displayed in his first anatomy at Padua in December 1537, sligh-tly modified in the Tabulae Anato- micae of 1538, and the confident anti- Galenism so pronounced in the Fabrica of 1543. So, for example, in Bologna he still accepted a human rete mirabile and declared that the interventricular septum of the heart was pervious, beliefs which he was to deny in the Fabrica as greater personal inspection of the cadaver in- creased his distance from traditional au-

thority. On the other hand, he had no hesitation in making frequent denials of Galen's authority and in the course of them, for example, denied the validity of belief in the five-lobed liver. He had already, too, determined upon his scien- tific method, so advising the students to observe for themselves rather than sub- missively to accep;t authority out of the past. Heseler's notebook admirably fills a gap in our knowledge of Vesalius's development away from tradition and toward the method of science. It can now be said with assurance that by the opening months of 1540 he had pro- gressed in method and confidence in that method to the point where we can see the Fabrica beginning to take shape.

Students of Vesalius owe a consider- able debt to Dr. Eriksson, not only for recognizing the significance of Baldasar Heseler's notebook and making it avail- able, but also for the great thoroughness with which he has performed that task, documenting every questionable point and, wherever pertinent, giving text of or reference to Vesalius's writings. Very obviously he read widely for his task both in the writings of Vesalius and in the literature about him.

CHARLES D. O'MALLEY University of California Medical Center, Los Angeles

BERN ANDERSON: Surveyor of the Sea; the Life and Voyages of Captain George Vancouver. xii + 274 pp., maps, plates, bibl., notes, appendix. Seattle: Univer- sity of Washington Press, 1959. $6.75.

This is an extremely interesting book, clearly and straightforwardly written and well documented. It is also a valu- able addition to maritime biography, for the only life of Vancouver up till now has been the very poor production by Godwin in 1931-though Godwin's ap- pendix of documents remains useful, and Admiral Anderson has drawn on it. The present book has another virtue: it is written by a man whose own interest in Vancouver arose from practical work off the coasts that Vancouver charted, and it bears the marks of close personal ac- quaintance with the problems that con- fronted the discoverer and hydrogra-

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