Who first performed human dissection?
Dissection
Human dissections were carried out by the Greek physicians Herophilus of Chalcedon and Erasistratus of Chios in the early part of the third century BC. During this period, the first exploration into full human anatomy was performed rather than a base knowledge gained from 'problem-solution' delving. While there was a deep taboo in Greek culture concerning human dissection, there was at the time a strong push by the Ptolemaic government to build Alexandria into a hub of scientific study. For a time, Roman law forbade dissection and autopsy of the human body, so physicians had to use other cadavers. Galen, for example, dissected the Barbary macaque and other primates, assuming their anatomy was basically the same as that of humans.
Androtomy
The first recorded dissection of the human body in the Western world took place in ancient Alexandria by Herophilus and Erasistratus. Though none of their writings have come down to us, other medical writers recorded what they had discovered.
Cadaver
Even though both Herophilus and Erasistratus had permission to use cadavers for dissection there was still a lot of taboo surrounding the use of cadavers for anatomical purposes, and these feelings continued for hundreds of years. From the time that anatomical dissection gained its roots in the 3rd century to around the 18th century it was associated with dishonor, immorality, and unethical behavior. Many of these notions were because of religious beliefs and esthetic taboos. and were deeply entrenched in the beliefs of the public and the church. As mentioned above, the dissection of cadavers began to once again take hold around the 12th century. At this time dissection was still seen as dishonorable, however it was not outright banned. Instead, the church put forth certain edicts for banning and allowing certain practices. One that was monumental for scientific advancement was issued by the Holy Roman emperor Frederick II in 1231. This decree stated that a human body will be dissected once every five years for anatomical studies, and attendance was required for all who was training to or currently practicing medicine or surgery. These events are what led to the first sanctioned human dissection since 300 B.C. and was performed publicly by Mondino de Liuzzi.This time period created a great deal of enthusiasm in what human dissection could do for science and attracted students from all over Europe to begin studying medicine.
In light of the new discoveries and advancements that were being made religious moderation of dissection relaxed significantly, however the public perception of it was still negative. Because of this perception, the only legal source of cadavers was the corpses of criminals who were executed, usually by hanging. Many of the offenders whose crimes “warranted” dissection and their families even considered dissection to be more terrifying and demeaning than the crime or death penalty itself. There were many fights and sometimes even riots when relatives and friends of the deceased and soon to be dissected tried to stop the delivery of corpses from the place of hanging to the anatomists. The government at the time (17th century) took advantage of these qualms by using dissection as a threat against committing serious crimes. They even increased the number of crimes that were punished by hanging to over 200 offenses. Nevertheless, as dissection of cadavers became even more popular, anatomists were forced to find other ways to obtain cadavers.
As demand increased for cadavers from universities across the world, people began grave-robbing. These corpses were transported and put on sale for local anatomy professors to take back to their students. The public tended to look the other way when it came to grave-robbing because the affected was usually poor or a part of a marginalized society. There was more out-cry if the affluent or prominent members of society were affected, and this led to a riot in New York most commonly referred to as the Resurrection Riot of 1788. It all started when a doctor waved the arm of a cadaver at a young boy looking through the window, who then went home and told his father. Worrying that his recently deceased wife's grave had been robbed, he went to check on it and realized that it had been. This story spread and people accused local physicians and anatomists. The riot grew to 5,000 people and by the end medical students and doctors were beaten and six people were killed. This led to many legal adjustments such as the Anatomy Acts put forth by the U.S. government. These acts opened up other avenues to obtaining corpses for scientific purposes with Massachusetts being the first to do so. In 1830 and 1833 they allowed unclaimed bodies to be used for dissection. Laws in almost every state were subsequently passed and grave-robbing was essentially eradicated.
Although dissection became increasingly accepted throughout the years, it was still very much disapproved by the American public in the beginning of the 20th century. The disapproval mostly came from religious objections and dissection being associated with unclaimed bodies and therefore a mark of poverty. There were many people that attempted to display dissection in a positive light, for example 200 prominent New York physicians publicly said they would donate their bodies after their death. This and other efforts only helped in minor ways, and public opinion was much more affected by the exposure of the corrupt funeral industry.It was found that the cost of dying was incredibly high and a large amount of funeral homes were scamming people into paying more than they had to. These exposures didn't necessarily remove stigma but created fear that a person and their families would be victimized by scheming funeral directors, therefore making people reconsider body donation. Currently, body donation isn't surrounded by stigma but can be considered as celebrated. Body donation has not only led to scientific advancements and discoveries, it has also led to lives being saved.
Stapedectomy
The world's first stapedectomy is credited to Dr. John J.Shea Jr. who performed it in May 1956 on a 54-year-old housewife who could no longer hear even with a hearing aid. Significant contributions to modern stapedectomy techniques were then made by the late Dr. Antonio De La Cruz of the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles; by the late Professor Henri André Martin of the Hôpital Edouard Herriot in Lyon, France, including calibrated platinotomy (stapes footplate rather than whole surgery) and trans-footplate piston surgery that also paved the way for modern stapedotomy; and by the late Dr. Jean-René Causse of the eponymous clinic in Béziers, France, who pioneered the use of Teflon piston prostheses (also critical progress for stapedotomy) and, with his late son Dr. Jean-Bernard Causse, the reattachment of the stapedius muscle alongside the use of veinous grafts.
Hugh Morriston Davies
Hugh Morriston Davies (10 August 1879 — 4 February 1965) was a Welsh thoracic surgeon, the first to perform a dissection lobectomy in the world, and the first to perform a thoracoplasty in the United Kingdom, both firsts achieved in 1912.
George Amos Dorsey
Dorsey had achieved some early media notoriety in 1897 and 1898 when he was called to aid the investigation of the murder of Louisa Luetgert in Chicago. He was one of the first anthropologists called to testify as an expert forensic witness in a murder case; he had identified four tiny fragments of bone as human and helped gain the arrest and conviction of Adolph Luetgert for the sensational murder of his wife in 1897. The murder case received national coverage from newspapers. Luetgert was convicted of the murder in his second trial.
Tracheal intubation
In 1854, a Spanish singing teacher named Manuel García (1805–1906) became the first man to view the functioning glottis in a living human. In 1858, French pediatrician Eugène Bouchut (1818–1891) developed a new technique for non-surgical orotracheal intubation to bypass laryngeal obstruction resulting from a diphtheria-related pseudomembrane. In 1880, Scottish surgeon William Macewen (1848–1924) reported on his use of orotracheal intubation as an alternative to tracheotomy to allow a patient with glottic edema to breathe, as well as in the setting of general anesthesia with chloroform. In 1895, Alfred Kirstein (1863–1922) of Berlin first described direct visualization of the vocal cords, using an esophagoscope he had modified for this purpose; he called this device an autoscope.
Herophilos
After the death of Herophilos in 280 BC, his anatomical findings lived on in the works of other important physicians, notably Galen. Even though dissections were performed in the following centuries and medieval times, only a few insights were added. Dissecting with the purpose to gain knowledge about human anatomy started again in early modern times (Vesalius), more than 1600 years after Herophilos' death.
Cadaver
Cadavers are used in many different facets throughout the scientific community.  One important aspect of cadavers use for science is that they have provided science with a vast amount of information dealing with the anatomy of the human body. Cadavers allowed scientists to investigate the human body on a deeper level which resulted in identification of certain body parts and organs.  Two Greek scientists, Herophilus of Chalcedon and Erasistratus of Ceos were the first to use cadavers in the third century B.C..  Through the dissection of cadavers, Herophilus made multiple discoveries concerning the anatomy of the human body, including the difference between the four ventricles within the brain, identification of seven pairs of cranial nerves, the difference between sensory and motor nerves, and the discovery of the cornea, retina and choroid coat within the eye.  Herophilus also discovered the valves within a human heart while Erasistratus identified their function by testing the irreversibility of the blood flow through the valves.  Erasistratus also discovered and distinguished between many details within the veins and arteries of the human body.  Herophilus later provides descriptions of the human liver, the pancreas, and the male and female reproductive systems due to the dissection of the human body. Cadavers allowed Herophilus to determine that the womb in which fetus’ grow and develop in is not bicameral. This goes against the original notion of the womb in which was thought to have two chambers; however, Herophilus discovered the womb to only have one chamber.  Herophilus also discovered the ovaries, the broad ligaments and the tubes within the female reproductive system.  During this time period, cadavers were one of the only ways to develop an understanding of the anatomy of the human body.
Richard Herrick
Richard J. Herrick (June 15, 1931 – March 14, 1963) was the world's first recipient of a successful human organ transplant, receiving a kidney from his identical twin brother Ronald Lee Herrick in an operation performed by Joseph Murray in 1954.
Tracheotomy
Despite the concerns of Hippocrates, it is believed that an early tracheotomy was performed by Asclepiades of Bithynia, who lived in Rome around 100 BC. Galen and Aretaeus, both of whom lived in Rome in the 2nd century AD, credit Asclepiades as being the first physician to perform a non-emergency tracheotomy. Antyllus, another Roman-era Greek physician of the 2nd century AD, supported tracheotomy when treating oral diseases. He refined the technique to be more similar to that used in modern times, recommending that a transverse incision be made between the third and fourth tracheal rings for the treatment of life-threatening airway obstruction.
Human skeleton
Leonardo Da Vinci, among his many talents also contributed to the study of the skeleton, albeit unpublished in his time. Many artists, Antonio Pollaiuolo being the first, performed dissections for better understanding of the body, although they concentrated mostly on the muscles. Vesalius, regarded as the founder of modern anatomy authored the book "De humani corporis fabrica", which contained many illustrations of the skeleton and other body parts, correcting some theories dating from Galen, such as the lower jaw being a single bone instead of two. Various other figures like Alessandro Achillini also contributed to the further understanding of the skeleton.
Raymond Damadian
Damadian's research into sodium and potassium in living cells led him to his first experiments with nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) which caused him to first propose the MR body scanner in 1969. Damadian discovered that tumors and normal tissue can be distinguished in vivo by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) because of their prolonged relaxation times, both T (spin-lattice relaxation) or T (spin-spin relaxation). Damadian was the first to perform a full body scan of a human being in 1977 to diagnose cancer. Damadian invented an apparatus and method to use NMR safely and accurately to scan the human body, a method now well known as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Dissection
From the beginning of the Islamic faith in 610 A.D., Shari'ah law has applied to a greater or lesser extent within Muslim countries, supported by Islamic scholars such as Al-Ghazali. Islamic physicians such as Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) (1091–1161) in Al-Andalus, Saladin's physician Ibn Jumay during the 12th century, Abd el-Latif in Egypt c. 1200, and Ibn al-Nafis in Syria and Egypt in the 13th century may have practiced dissection, but it remains ambiguous whether or not human dissection was practiced. Ibn al-Nafis, a physician and Muslim jurist, suggested that the "precepts of Islamic law have discouraged us from the practice of dissection, along with whatever compassion is in our temperament", indicating that while there was no law against it, it was nevertheless uncommon. Islam dictates that the body be buried as soon as possible, barring religious holidays, and that there be no other means of disposal such as cremation. Prior to the 10th century, dissection was not performed on human cadavers. The book "Al-Tasrif", written by Al-Zahrawi in 1000 A.D., details surgical procedure that differed from the previous standards. The book was an educational text of medicine and surgery which included detailed illustrations. It was later translated and took the place of Avicenna's "The Canon of Medicine" as the primary teaching tool in Europe from the 12th century to the 17th century. There were some that were willing to dissect humans up to the 12th century, for the sake of learning, after which it was forbidden. This attitude remained constant until 1952, when the Islamic School of Jurisprudence in Egypt ruled that "necessity permits the forbidden". This decision allowed for the investigation of questionable deaths by autopsy. In 1982, the decision was made by a fatwa that if it serves justice, autopsy is worth the disadvantages. Though Islam now approves of autopsy, the Islamic public still disapproves. Autopsy is prevalent in most Muslim countries for medical and judicial purposes. In Egypt it holds an important place within the judicial structure, and is taught at all the country's medical universities. In Saudi Arabia, whose law is completely dictated by Shari'ah, autopsy is viewed poorly by the population but can be compelled in criminal cases; human dissection is sometimes found at university level. Autopsy is performed for judicial purposes in Qatar and Tunisia. Human dissection is present in the modern day Islamic world, but is rarely published on due to the religious and social stigma.
List of Dutch discoveries
Flemish anatomist and physician Andreas Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy for the publication of the seven-volume "De humani corporis fabrica" ("On the Structure of the Human Body") in 1543.
Cryonics
Cryopreservation was applied to human cells beginning in 1954 with frozen sperm, which was thawed and used to inseminate three women. Eight years later, the freezing of humans was first scientifically proposed by Michigan professor Robert Ettinger. In April 1966, the first human body was frozen, though it had been embalmed for two months. It was placed in liquid nitrogen and stored at just above freezing. The middle-aged woman from Los Angeles, whose name is unknown, was soon thawed out and buried by relatives.
Alexis St. Martin
Alexis Bidagan St. Martin (April 8, 1802 – June 24, 1880) was a Canadian voyageur who is known for his part in experiments on digestion in humans, conducted on him by the American Army physician William Beaumont between 1822 and 1833.
St. Martin was shot in a near-fatal accident in 1822. His wound did not heal fully, leaving an opening into his stomach. Studies of St. Martin's stomach led to greater understanding of the stomach, gastric juices and the processes of digestion.
Hemodialysis
Many have played a role in developing dialysis as a practical treatment for renal failure, starting with Thomas Graham of Glasgow, who first presented the principles of solute transport across a semipermeable membrane in 1854. The artificial kidney was first developed by Abel, Rountree, and Turner in 1913, the first hemodialysis in a human being was by Hass (February 28, 1924) and the artificial kidney was developed into a clinically useful apparatus by Kolff in 1943 – 1945. This research showed that life could be prolonged in patients dying of kidney failure.
Cholecystectomy
Erich Mühe performed the first laparoscopic cholecystectomy on September 12, 1985 in Böblingen, Germany. Mühe was inspired to develop a technique for laparascopic cholecystectomy by the first laparascopic appendectomy, performed by gynecologist Kurt Semm in 1980. He subsequently designed an optical laparoscope with a working channel large enough to fit a distended gallbladder. Mühe presented his technique to the Congress of the German Surgical Society in 1986, claiming reduced postoperative pain and shorter hospitalization. His work was met with strong resistance by the German surgical establishment and he had difficulty communicating it in English. It was consequently ignored. Mühe's work was further disparaged in 1987, when he was charged with manslaughter for a postoperative patient death that was mistakenly attributed to his innovative technique. He was exonerated in 1990 after further investigation. His pioneering work was eventually recognized by the German Surgical Society Congress in 1992.
Esophagus
The first attempt at surgery on the esophagus focused in the neck, and was conducted in dogs by Theodore Billroth in 1871. In 1877 Czerny carried out surgery in people. By 1908, an operation had been performed by Voeckler to remove the esophagus, and in 1933 the first surgical removal of parts of the lower esophagus, (to control esophageal cancer), had been conducted.
Homo erectus
The Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois, inspired by Darwin's theory of evolution as it applied to humanity, set out in 1886 for Asia (despite Darwin's theory of African origin) to find a human ancestor.
In 1891–92, his team discovered first a tooth, then a skullcap, and finally a femur of a human fossil on the island of Java, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Excavated from the bank of the Solo River at Trinil, in East Java, he first (1893) allocated the material to a genus of fossil chimpanzees as "Anthropopithecus erectus", then the following year assigned his species to a new genus as "Pithecanthropus erectus" (the genus name had been coined by Ernst Haeckel in 1868 for the hypothetical link between humans and fossil Apes)—from the Greek πίθηκος ("píthēkos," "ape") and ἄνθρωπος ("ánthrōpos", "human")—based on the proposal that the femur suggested that the creature had been bipedal, like "Homo sapiens".
Cadaver
While many cadavers were murderers provided by the state, few of these corpses were available for everyone to dissect. The first recorded body snatching was performed by four medical students who were arrested in 1319 for grave-robbing. In the 1700s most body snatchers were doctors, anatomy professors or their students. By 1828 some anatomists were paying others to perform the exhumation. People in this profession where commonly known in the medical community as "resurrection men".
Aortic dissection
The earliest fully documented case of aortic dissection is attributed to Frank Nicholls in his autopsy report of King George II of Great Britain, who had been found dead on 25 October 1760; the report describes dissection of the aortic arch and into the pericardium. The term "aortic dissection" was introduced by the French physician J.P. Maunoir in 1802, and René Laennec labelled the condition "dissecting aneurysm". London cardiologist Thomas Bevill Peacock contributed to the understanding of the condition by publishing two series of the cases described in the literature so far: 19 cases in an 1843 review, and 80 in 1863. The characteristic symptom of tearing pain in the chest was recognized in 1855 when a case was diagnosed in life.
Jacopo Berengario da Carpi
Berengario made several important advances in anatomy including the first anatomical text augmented by illustrations, ""Anatomia Carpi. Isagoge breves perlucide ac uberime, in Anatomiam humani corporis"". This book emphasized the sensory over textual versions of the truth, an emphasis on dissection of human cadavers, some first denials of Galenic anatomy based on personal experience in dissection, and a preference for dissection of numerous bodies following a specific program of investigation. Whereas other anatomists claimed few actual dissections to their name, in 1522 Berengario da Carpi claimed to have anatomized several hundred bodies. He also denied the existence of Galen's rete mirabile. Later Vesalius claimed "he" was the first to do so.Notes
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Axel Cappelen
At Rikshospitalet he is credited with performing the first surgery on a human heart on 4 September 1895. The patient needed emergency surgery due to a knife wound. Cappelen accessed the thoracic cavity by cutting through the fourth rib. He repaired the wound of the left ventricle where he has sustained the stab wounds in the left side of his chest. After two days of intensive care, the patient died of coronary occlusion and not because of the repairing of the heart. At the autopsy the wound was found to be satisfactorily closed.
Ludwig Zehnder
Zehnder was a student of Wilhelm Röntgen, professor of physics at the universities of Freiburg and Basle. He produced the first pictures of the human skeleton by shining x-rays through the human body.
Dissection
An edict of the 1163 Council of Tours, and an early 14th-century decree of Pope Boniface VIII have mistakenly been identified as prohibiting dissection and autopsy, misunderstanding or extrapolation from these edicts may have contributed to reluctance to perform such procedures. The Middle Ages witnessed the revival of an interest in medical studies, including human dissection and autopsy.
Science
In Classical antiquity, Greek and Roman taboos had meant that dissection was usually banned in ancient times, but in Middle Ages it changed: medical teachers and students at Bologna began to open human bodies, and Mondino de Luzzi (c. 1275–1326) produced the ﬁrst known anatomy textbook based on human dissection.
Madhusudan Gupta
The question of whether Gupta's dissection was the actual first has been debated. In the 1830s, there was enough evidence to suggest that many Hindu students were ready to overcome prejudice and pick up a scalpel and "touch a dead body for the study of anatomy". In a personal statement in 1836, Gupta speaks of his major achievements, but does not mention the dissection.
Dissection
In Britain, dissection remained entirely prohibited from the end of the Roman conquest and through the Middle Ages through the 16th century, when a series of royal edicts gave specific groups of physicians and surgeons some limited rights to dissect cadavers. The permission was quite limited: by the mid-18th century, the Royal College of Physicians and Company of Barber-Surgeons were the only two groups permitted to carry out dissections, and had an annual quota of ten cadavers between them. As a result of pressure from anatomists, especially in the rapidly growing medical schools, the Murder Act 1752 allowed the bodies of executed murderers to be dissected for anatomical research and education. By the 19th century this supply of cadavers proved insufficient, as the public medical schools were growing, and the private medical schools lacked legal access to cadavers. A thriving black market arose in cadavers and body parts, leading to the creation of the profession of body snatching, and the infamous Burke and Hare murders in 1828, when 16 people were murdered for their cadavers, to be sold to anatomists. The resulting public outcry led to the passage of the Anatomy Act 1832, which increased the legal supply of cadavers for dissection.
Visible Human Project
The Visible Human Project is an effort to create a detailed data set of cross-sectional photographs of the human body, in order to facilitate anatomy visualization applications. It is used as a tool for the progression of medical findings, in which these findings link anatomy to its audiences. A male and a female cadaver were cut into thin slices which were then photographed and digitized. The project is run by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) under the direction of Michael J. Ackerman. Planning began in 1986; the data set of the male was completed in November 1994 and the one of the female in November 1995. The project can be viewed today at the U.S. National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, MD. There are currently efforts to repeat this project with higher resolution images but only with parts of the body instead of a cadaver.
Cradle of Humankind
In 1966, Phillip Tobias began his excavations of Sterkfontein which are still continuing and are the longest continuously running fossil excavations in the world. In 1991, Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand discovered the first hominid specimens from the Gladysvale site, making this the first new early hominid site to be discovered in South Africa in 48 years. In 1994, Andre Keyser discovered fossil hominids at the site of Drimolen. In 1997, Kevin Kuykendall and Colin Menter of the University of the Witwatersrand found two fossil hominid teeth at the site of Gondolin. Also in 1997, the near-complete "Australopithecus" skeleton of "Little Foot", dating to around 3.3 million years ago (although more recent dating suggest it is closer to 2.5 million years ago), was discovered by Ron Clarke. In 2001, Steve Churchill of Duke University and Lee Berger found early modern human remains at Plovers Lake. Also in 2001, the first hominid fossils and stone tools were discovered "in-situ" at Coopers. In 2008, Lee Berger discovered the partial remains of two hominids ("Australopithecus sediba") in the Malapa Fossil Site that lived between 1.78 and 1.95 million years ago.
Lake Mungo
The most important findings at Lake Mungo have been Mungo Man and Mungo Woman. Mungo Woman, a partially cremated body, was discovered in 1969 by Dr Jim Bowler from the Australian National University (ANU). Mungo Woman was only partially cremated before the remainder of her bones were crushed. The time that was taken into her burial is demonstration of an advanced ritualistic process. She was initially estimated to be 25,000 years old, although a more recent multi-university study in 2003 determined that she was probably closer to 40,000 years old. Mungo Woman is thus the earliest known human to have been cremated. Mungo Man was also discovered by Dr Bowler, on 26 February 1974. The remains were covered with red ochre, in what is the earliest known incidence of such a burial practice. Red ochre is commonly used in burials for ritualistic purposes. The site was dating using OSL dating, or luminescence dating. The site is dated to be 60 kya. If the fossils are actually from 60 kya, the fossils would be that of archaic Homo sapiens.
Heller myotomy
It was first performed by Ernst Heller (1877–1964) in 1913. Then and until recently, this surgery was performed using an open procedure, either through the chest (thoracotomy) or through the abdomen (laparotomy). However, open procedures involve greater recovery times. Modern Heller myotomy is normally performed using minimally invasive laparoscopic techniques, which minimize risks and speeds recovery significantly. The 100th anniversary of Heller’s description of the surgical treatment of patients with achalasia was celebrated in 2014.
Mesentery
Mesentery has been known for thousands of years, however it was unclear whether mesentery is a single organ or there are several mesenteries. The classical anatomical description of the mesocolon is credited to British surgeon Sir Frederick Treves in 1885, although a description of the membrane as a single structure dates back to at least Leonardo da Vinci. Treves is known for performing the first appendectomy in England in 1888; he was surgeon to both Queen Victoria and King Edward VII. He studied the human mesentery and peritoneal folds in 100 cadavers and described the right and left mesocolons as vestigial or absent in the human adult. Accordingly, the small intestinal mesentery, transverse, and sigmoid mesocolons all terminated or attached at their insertions into the posterior abdominal wall. These assertions were included in mainstream surgical, anatomical, embryological, and radiologic literature for more than a century.
Body snatching
Charles Knowlton (1800–1850) was imprisoned for two months in the Worcester (Massachusetts) County Jail for "illegal dissection" in 1824, a couple of months after graduating with distinction from Dartmouth Medical School. His thesis defended dissection on the rationalist basis that "value of any art or science should be determined by the tendency it has to increase the happiness, or to diminish the misery, of mankind." Knowlton called for doctors to relieve "public prejudice" by donating their own bodies for dissection.
Dissection
Plant and animal bodies are dissected to analyze the structure and function of its components. Dissection is practised by students in courses of biology, botany, zoology, and veterinary science, and sometimes in arts studies. In medical schools, students dissect human cadavers to learn anatomy.
Dissection
Vesalius in the 16th century carried out numerous dissections in his extensive anatomical investigations. He was attacked frequently for his disagreement with Galen's opinions on human anatomy. Vesalius was the first to lecture and dissect the cadaver simultaneously.
History of anatomy
From the 3rd century BCE until the 12th century, human anatomy was mainly learned through books and animal dissection. While it was claimed by 19th century polemicists that human dissection became restricted after Boniface VIII passed a papal bull that forbade the dismemberment and boiling of corpses for funerary purposes and this is still repeated in some generalist works, this claim has been debunked as a myth by modern historians of science. For many decades human dissection was thought unnecessary when all the knowledge about a human body could be read about from early authors such as Galen. In the 12th century, as universities were being established in Italy, Emperor Frederick II made it mandatory for students of medicine to take courses on human anatomy and surgery. Students who had the opportunity to watch Vesalius in dissection at times had the opportunity to interact with the animal corpse. At the risk of letting their eagerness to participate become a distraction to their professors, medical students preferred this interactive teaching style at the time. In the universities the lectern would sit elevated before the audience and instruct someone else in the dissection of the body, but in his early years Mondino de Luzzi performed the dissection himself making him one of the first and few to use a hands on approach to teaching human anatomy.Specifically in 1315, Mondino de' Liuzzi is credited with having "performed the first human dissection recorded for Western Europe."
Anatomy
Anatomy developed little from classical times until the sixteenth century; as the historian Marie Boas writes, "Progress in anatomy before the sixteenth century is as mysteriously slow as its development after 1500 is startlingly rapid". Between 1275 and 1326, the anatomists Mondino de Luzzi, Alessandro Achillini and Antonio Benivieni at Bologna carried out the first systematic human dissections since ancient times. Mondino's "Anatomy" of 1316 was the first textbook in the medieval rediscovery of human anatomy. It describes the body in the order followed in Mondino's dissections, starting with the abdomen, then the thorax, then the head and limbs. It was the standard anatomy textbook for the next century.
Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom
Human cadavers have been dissected by physicians since at least the 3rd century BC, but throughout history, prevailing religious views on the desecration of corpses often meant that such work was performed in secrecy. The Christian church forbade human dissection until the 14th century, when the first recorded anatomisation of a cadaver took place in Bologna. Until then, anatomical research was limited to the dissection of animals. In Britain, human dissection was proscribed by law until 1506, when King James IV of Scotland gave royal patronage to the Barber-Surgeons of Edinburgh, allowing them to dissect the "bodies of certain executed criminals". England followed in 1540, when Henry VIII gave patronage to the Company of Barber-Surgeons, allowing them access to four executed felons each year (Charles II later increased this to six felons each year). Elizabeth I granted the College of Physicians the right to anatomise four felons annually in 1564.
Medieval medicine of Western Europe
The Middle Ages brought a new way of thinking and a lessening on the taboo of dissection. Dissection for medical purposes became more prominent around 1299. During this time the Italians were practicing anatomical dissection and the first record of an autopsy dates from 1286. Dissection was first introduced in the educational setting at the university of Bologna, to study and teach anatomy. The fourteenth century saw a significant spread of dissection and autopsy in Italy, and was not only taken up by medical faculties, but by colleges for physicians and surgeons.
Rudolf Virchow
Virchow was the first to develop a systematic method of autopsy, based on his knowledge of cellular pathology. The modern autopsy still constitute his techniques. His first most significant autopsy was on a 50-year-old woman in 1845. He found from the body an unusual number of white blood cells, and gave a detailed description in 1847 and named the condition as "leukämie". One on his autopsies in 1857 was the first description of vertebral disc rupture. His autopsy on a baby in 1856 was the first description of congenital pulmonary lymphangiectasia (the name given by K. M. Laurence a century later), a rare and fatal disease of lung. From his experience of post-mortem examinations of a number of cadaver, he published his method in a small book in 1876. His book was the first to describe the techniques of autopsy specifically to examine abnormalities in organs, and retain important tissues for further examination and demonstration. Unlike any other operator before, he practiced complete surgery of all body parts with body organs dissected one by one. This has become the standard method.
Ablative brain surgery
Ablative brain surgery was first introduced by Pierre Flourens (1774–1867), a French physiologist. He removed different parts of the nervous system from animals and observed what effects were caused by the removal of certain parts. For example, if an animal could not move its arm after a certain part was removed, it was assumed that the region would control arm movements. The method of removal of part of the brain was termed "experimental ablation". With the use of experimental ablation, Flourens claimed to find the area of the brain that controlled heart rate and breathing.
Dissection
The practice of dissection flourished during the 7th and 8th century. It was under their rule that medical education was standardized. This created a need to better understand human anatomy, so as to have educated surgeons. Dissection was limited by the religious taboo on cutting the human body. This changed the approach taken to accomplish the goal. The process involved the loosening of the tissues in streams of water before the outer layers were sloughed off with soft implements to reach the musculature. To perfect the technique of slicing, the prospective students used gourds and squash. These techniques of dissection gave rise to an advanced understanding of the anatomy and the enabled them to complete procedures used today, such as rhinoplasty.
Dissection
The Italian Galeazzo di Santa Sofia made the first public dissection north of the Alps in Vienna in 1404.
Ibn al-Nafis
In the “Commentary of the anatomy of the Canon of Avicenna”, human anatomy experts such as Patrice Le Floch-Prigent and Dominique Delaval, concluded that Ibn al-Nafis used clinical, physiological, and dissection results were used in discovering and describing the pulmonary heart circulation in humans. Through their study on the “Commentary of the anatomy of the Canon of Avicenna”, they both concluded that Nafis did indeed used dissection to acquire his results, even though the practice of dissection was banned in Muslim tradition.
Ernst Haeckel
One student did find some remains: a Dutchman named Eugène Dubois searched the East Indies from 1887 to 1895, discovering the remains of Java Man in 1891, consisting of a skullcap, thighbone, and a few teeth. These remains are among the oldest hominid remains ever found. Dubois classified Java Man with Haeckel's "Pithecanthropus" label, though they were later reclassified as "Homo erectus". Some scientists of the day suggested Dubois' Java Man as a potential intermediate form between modern humans and the common ancestor we share with the other great apes. The current consensus of anthropologists is that the direct ancestors of modern humans were African populations of "Homo erectus" (possibly "Homo ergaster"), rather than the Asian populations exemplified by Java Man and Peking Man. (Ironically, a new human species, Homo floresiensis, a dwarf human type, has recently been discovered in the island of Flores).
Henri de Mondeville
"Mondeville conducted the first unauthorized human dissection at the University of Montpellier in 1315, and his efforts were pivotal towards legalization of human dissection in France from 1340. His full-length illustrations marked a significant transformation in anatomical studies during those days, as human cadaveric dissection was prohibited and anatomists had to rely solely on textual descriptions prevalent from the ancient period."
Medicine in the medieval Islamic world
It is claimed that an important advance in the knowledge of human anatomy and physiology was made by Ibn al-Nafis, but whether this was discovered via human dissection is doubtful because "al-Nafis tells us that he avoided the practice of dissection because of the shari'a and his own 'compassion' for the human body".
History of anatomy
The final major anatomist of ancient times was Galen, active in the 2nd century. He compiled much of the knowledge obtained by previous writers, and furthered the inquiry into the function of organs by performing vivisection on animals. Due to a lack of readily available human specimens, discoveries through animal dissection were broadly applied to human anatomy as well. Galen served as chief physician to the gladiators in Pergamum (AD 158). Through his position with the gladiators, Galen was able to study all kinds of wounds without performing any actual human dissection. By default, Galen was able to view much of the abdominal cavity. His study on pigs and apes, however, gave him more detailed information about the organs and provided the basis for his medical tracts. Around 100 of these tracts survive and fill 22 volumes of modern text. His two great anatomical works are "On anatomical procedure" and "On the uses of the parts of the body of man". The information in these tracts became the foundation of authority for all medical writers and physicians for the next 1300 years until they were challenged by Vesalius and Harvey in the 16th century.
Scientific Revolution
The writings of Greek physician Galen had dominated European medical thinking for over a millennium. The Flemish scholar Vesalius demonstrated mistakes in the Galen's ideas. Vesalius dissected human corpses, whereas Galen dissected animal corpses. Published in 1543, Vesalius' "De humani corporis fabrica" was a groundbreaking work of human anatomy. It emphasized the priority of dissection and what has come to be called the "anatomical" view of the body, seeing human internal functioning as an essentially corporeal structure filled with organs arranged in three-dimensional space. This was in stark contrast to many of the anatomical models used previously, which had strong Galenic/Aristotelean elements, as well as elements of astrology.
Dissection
A key principle in the dissection of human cadavers is the prevention of human disease to the dissector. Prevention of transmission includes the wearing of protective gear, ensuring the environment is clean, dissection technique and pre-dissection tests to specimens for the presence of HIV and Hepatitis viruses. Specimens are dissected in morgues or anatomy labs. When provided, they are evaluated for use as a "fresh" or "prepared" specimen. A "fresh" specimen may be dissected within some days, retaining the characteristics of a living specimen, for the purposes of training. A "prepared" specimen may be preserved in solutions such as formalin and pre-dissected by an experienced anatomist, sometimes with the help of a diener. This preparation is sometimes called prosection.
Vivisection
It is possible that human vivisection was practiced by some Greek anatomists in Alexandria in the 3rd century BC. Celsus in "De Medicina" and the early-Christian writer Tertullian state that Herophilos of Alexandria vivisected at least 600 live prisoners.
Vasectomy
The first recorded vasectomy was performed on a dog in 1823. A short time after that, R. Harrison of London performed the first human vasectomy; however the surgery was not done for sterilization purposes, but to bring about atrophy of the prostate. Soon, however, it was believed to have benefits for eugenics. The first case report of vasectomy in the U.S. was in 1897, by A. J. Ochsner, a surgeon in Chicago, in a paper titled, "Surgical treatment of habitual criminals." He believed vasectomy to be a simple, effective means for stemming the tide of racial degeneration widely believed to be occurring. In 1902, Harry C. Sharp, the surgeon at the Indiana Reformatory, reported that he had sterilized 42 inmates, in an effort to both reduce criminal behavior in those individuals and prevent the birth of future criminals.
Dissection
Dissection (from Latin ' "to cut to pieces"; also called anatomization) is the dismembering of the body of a deceased animal or plant to study its anatomical structure. Autopsy is used in pathology and forensic medicine to determine the cause of death in humans. Less extensive dissection of plants and smaller animals preserved in a formaldehyde solution is typically carried out or demonstrated in biology and natural science classes in middle school and high school, while extensive dissections of cadavers of adults and children, both fresh and preserved are carried out by medical students in medical schools as a part of the teaching in subjects such as anatomy, pathology and forensic medicine. Consequently, dissection is typically conducted in a morgue or in an anatomy lab.
Body snatching
In 1536, Andreas Vesalius challenged the known world of medicine and anatomy. As a 22-year-old medical student, he had a lot to lose when he began stealing bodies from the Paris cemetery, even if it was in the name of science. He would take the bodies back to his home and boil off the skin until there were only bones remaining. Vesalius wanted to identify every bone in the human body and reconstruct it like a jigsaw puzzle. At the time, there was only one set of text books about the body at Vesalius's disposal, written by Claudius Galen 1300 years earlier. Vesalius made over 200 corrections to Galen's book based on what he had learned from dissecting stolen bodies, and ignited a new age of modern medicine.
Willem Johan Kolff
When the war ended, Kolff donated his artificial kidneys to other institutions to spread familiarity with the technology. In Europe, Kolff sent machines to London, Amsterdam, and Poland. Another machine sent to Dr. Isidore Snapper at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City was used to perform the first human dialysis in the United States on January 26, 1948 under the supervision of Drs. Alfred P. Fishman and Irving Kroop.
Mondino de Luzzi
Mondino's major work, "Anathomia corporis humani", written in 1316, is considered the first example of a modern dissection manual and the first true anatomical text. The earliest edition of the work was printed in Padua in 1478, and more than 40 editions exist in total. By the 14th century, the practice of anatomy had come to refer to the dissection of a cadaver according to prescribed rules; "Anathomia" was intended as a handbook to guide this process. "Anathomia" remained the most widely-used anatomical text for 250 years (through the 16th century) because it clearly and concisely provided the important technical indications involved in the dissection process, including the steps involved and the reasoning behind the organization of these procedures. Unlike his predecessors, Mondino focuses specifically on anatomical descriptions rather than engaging in a larger discourse on pathology and surgery in general.
Daniel Hale Williams
Daniel Hale Williams (January 18, 1856 – August 4, 1931) was an African-American general surgeon, who in 1893 performed the first documented, successful pericardium surgery in the United States to repair a wound. He founded Chicago's Provident Hospital, the first non-segregated hospital in the United States and also founded an associated nursing school for African Americans.
Cadaver
Galen (130–201 AD) connected the famous works of Aristotle and other Greek physicians to his understanding of the human body. Galenic anatomy and physiology were considered to be the most prominent methods to teach when dealing with the study of the human body during this time period.  Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), known as the father of modern human anatomy, based his knowledge off of Galen's findings and his own dissection of human cadavers.  Vesalius performed multiple dissections on cadavers for medical students to recognize and understand how the interior body parts of a human being worked.  Cadavers also helped Vesalius discredit previous notions of work published by the Greek physician Galen dealing with certain functions of the brain and human body.  Vesalius concluded that Galen never did use cadavers in order to gain a proper understanding of human anatomy but instead used previous knowledge from his predecessors.
History of medicine
Greek and Roman taboos had meant that dissection was usually banned in ancient times, but in the Middle Ages it changed: medical teachers and students at Bologna began to open human bodies, and Mondino de Luzzi (c. 1275–1326) produced the first known anatomy textbook based on human dissection.
Dissection
Throughout the history of Christian Europe, the dissection of human cadavers for medical education has experienced various cycles of legalization and proscription in different countries. Dissection was rare during the Middle Ages, but it was practised, with evidence from at least as early as the 13th century. The practice of autopsy in Medieval Western Europe is "very poorly known" as few surgical texts or conserved human dissections have survived.
A modern Jesuit scholar has claimed that the Christian theology contributed significantly to the revival of human dissection and autopsy by providing a new socio-religious and cultural context in which the human cadaver was no longer seen as sacrosanct.
Abass Alavi
Abass Alavi () is an Iranian-American physician-scientist specializing in the field of molecular imaging, most notably in the imaging modality of positron emission tomography (PET). In August 1976, he became the first to perform human PET studies of the brain and whole body using the radiotracer [18F]Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG). Alavi holds the position of Professor of Radiology and Neurology, as well as Director of Research Education in the Department of Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania. Over a career spanning five decades, he has amassed over 2,300 publications and 50,000 citations, earning an h-index of 111 and placing his publication record in the top percentile of scientists.
François Magendie
Magendie was also a notorious vivisector, shocking even many of his contemporaries with the live dissections that he performed at public lectures in physiology. Richard Martin, an Irish MP, in introducing his famous bill banning animal cruelty in the United Kingdom, described Magendie's public dissection of a greyhound, in which the beast was nailed down ear and paw, half the nerves of its face dissected then left overnight for further dissection, calling Magendie a "disgrace to Society." There was a belief among British physicians, even those who defended animal experimentation, that Magendie purposely subjected his experimental animals to needless torture. A Quaker once visited him, questioning him about vivisection; according to Anne Fagot-Largeau's inaugural lesson at the College of France, he responded with much patience, argumenting the reasons of animal experimentation. Besides drawing sharp criticism from contemporaries in both Britain and France, later scientists critical of Magendie's methods included Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley.
Henry Dalton
Henry C. Dalton (born May 7, 1847) was superintendent of the St. Louis City Hospital from 1886 to 1892, and later a professor of abdominal and clinical surgery at Marion Sims College of Medicine (now part of the St. Louis University School of Medicine) . He is noted for being the first American to perform the suturing of the pericardium on record. Spanish surgeon Francisco Romero was documented with performing two successful surgeries in 1801 and French surgeon Dominique Jean Larrey was documented as successfully performing surgery on a woman's pericardium in 1810.
J. Hartwell Harrison
John Hartwell Harrison (February 16, 1909 – January 20, 1984) was an American urologic surgeon, who performed the first vital human organ removal for transplant to another; this was a pivotal undertaking as a member of the medical team that received the 1961 Amory Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for bringing kidney transplantation to the world.
Herophilos
Herophilos (; ; 335–280 BC), sometimes Latinised Herophilus, was a Greek physician deemed to be the first anatomist. Born in Chalcedon, he spent the majority of his life in Alexandria. He was the first scientist to systematically perform scientific dissections of human cadavers. He recorded his findings in over nine works, which are now all lost. Celsus in the 1st-century medical treatise De Medicina and the early Christian author Tertullian state that Herophilos vivisected at least 600 live prisoners.
Gustav Simon (surgeon)
Simon demonstrated that the excretion process remains functional in animals with one healthy kidney, and on 2 August 1869 performed the first successful nephrectomy on a human patient.
In 1872 with Bernhard von Langenbeck (1810-1887) and Richard von Volkmann (1830-1889), he founded the German Society of Surgery.
History of anthropometry
Swedish professor of anatomy Anders Retzius (1796–1860) first used the cephalic index in physical anthropology to classify ancient human remains found in Europe. He classed skulls in three main categories; "dolichocephalic" (from the Ancient Greek "kephalê", head, and "dolikhos", long and thin), "brachycephalic" (short and broad) and "mesocephalic" (intermediate length and width). Scientific research was continued by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844) and Paul Broca (1824–1880), founder of the Anthropological Society in France in 1859. Paleoanthropologists still rely upon craniofacial anthropometry to identify species in the study of fossilized hominid bones. Specimens of "Homo erectus" and athletic specimens of "Homo sapiens", for example, are virtually identical from the neck down but their skulls can easily be told apart.
Anatomy
Some of the most striking advances in early anatomy and physiology took place in Hellenistic Alexandria. Two of the most famous anatomists and physiologists of the third century were Herophilus and Erasistratus. These two physicians helped pioneer human dissection for medical research. They also conducted vivisections on the cadavers of condemned criminals, which was considered taboo until the Renaissance—Herophilus was recognized as the first person to perform systematic dissections. Herophilus became known for his anatomical works making impressing contributions to many branches of anatomy and many other aspects of medicine. Some of the works included classifying the system of the pulse, the discovery that human arteries had thicker walls then veins, and that the atria were parts of the heart. Herophilus's knowledge of the human body has provided vital input towards understanding the brain, eye, liver, reproductive organs and nervous system, and characterizing the course of disease. Erasistratus accurately described the structure of the brain, including the cavities and membranes, and made a distinction between its cerebrum and cerebellum During his study in Alexandria, Erasistratus was particularly concerned with studies of the circulatory and nervous systems. He was able to distinguish the sensory and the motor nerves in the human body and believed that air entered the lungs and heart, which was then carried throughout the body. His distinction between the arteries and veins—the arteries carrying the air through the body, while the veins carried the blood from the heart was a great anatomical discovery. Erasistratus was also responsible for naming and describing the function of the epiglottis and the valves of the heart, including the tricuspid. During the third century, Greek physicians were able to differentiate nerves from blood vessels and tendons and to realize that the nerves convey neural impulses. It was Herophilus who made the point that damage to motor nerves induced paralysis. Herophilus named the meninges and ventricles in the brain, appreciated the division between cerebellum and cerebrum and recognized that the brain was the "seat of intellect" and not a "cooling chamber" as propounded by Aristotle Herophilus is also credited with describing the optic, oculomotor, motor division of the trigeminal, facial, vestibulocochlear and hypoglossal nerves.
Herophilos
His works are lost but were much quoted by Galen in the second century AD. Herophilos was the first scientist to systematically perform scientific dissections of human cadavers. Dissections of human cadavers were banned in most places at the time, except for Alexandria. Celsus in "De Medicina" and the church leader Tertullian state that he vivisected at least 600 live prisoners.
Ancient Egyptian anatomical studies
Two individuals, Herophilus, and Erasistratus, both living within Alexandria and participating within the so-called School of Alexandria, both contributed to anatomical understanding and knowledge, as they began a practice of human dissection.
Tracheal intubation
In 1871, the German surgeon Friedrich Trendelenburg (1844–1924) published a paper describing the first successful elective human tracheotomy to be performed for the purpose of administration of general anesthesia. In 1888, Sir Morell Mackenzie (1837–1892) published a book discussing the indications for tracheotomy. In the early 20th century, tracheotomy became a life-saving treatment for patients afflicted with paralytic poliomyelitis who required mechanical ventilation. In 1909, Philadelphia laryngologist Chevalier Jackson (1865–1958) described a technique for tracheotomy that is used to this day.
LASIK
In 1980, Rangaswamy Srinivasan, at the IBM Research laboratory, discovered that an ultraviolet excimer laser could etch living tissue, with precision and with no thermal damage to the surrounding area. He named the phenomenon "ablative photo-decomposition" (APD).
Five years later, in 1985, Steven Trokel at the Edward S. Harkness Eye Institute, Columbia University in New York City, published his work using the excimer laser in radial keratotomy. He wrote,
Together with his colleagues, Charles Munnerlyn and Terry Clapham, Trokel founded VISX USA inc. Marguerite B. MacDonald MD performed the first human VISX refractive laser eye surgery in 1989.
Homo erectus
Most of the spectacular discoveries of "H. erectus" next took place at the Zhoukoudian Project, now known as the "Peking Man" site, in Zhoukoudian, China. This site was first discovered by Johan Gunnar Andersson in 1921 and was first excavated in 1921, and produced two human teeth.
Davidson Black's initial description (1921) of a lower molar as belonging to a previously unknown species (which he named "Sinanthropus pekinensis") prompted widely publicized interest. Extensive excavations followed, which altogether uncovered 200 human fossils from more than 40 individuals including five nearly complete skullcaps.
Franz Weidenreich provided much of the detailed description of this material in several monographs published in the journal "Palaeontologica Sinica" (Series D).
Psychosurgery
Evidence of trepanning (or trephining)—the practice of drilling holes in the skull—has been found in a skull from a Neolithic burial site in France, dated to about 5100 BC. There have also been archaeological finds in South America, while in Europe trepanation was carried out in classical and medieval times.
The first systematic attempt at psychosurgery is commonly attributed to the Swiss psychiatrist Gottlieb Burckhardt. In December 1888 Burckhardt operated on the brains of six patients (one of whom died a few days after the operation) at the Préfargier Asylum, cutting out a piece of cerebral cortex. He presented the results at the Berlin Medical Congress and published a report, but the response was hostile and he did no further operations.
Early in the 20th century, Russian neurologist Vladimir Bekhterev and Estonian neurosurgeon Ludvig Puusepp operated on three patients with mental illness, with discouraging results.
History of anatomy
The supply of printed anatomy books from Italy and France led to an increased demand for human cadavers for dissections. Since few bodies were voluntarily donated for dissection, royal charters were established which allowed prominent universities to use the bodies of hung criminals for dissections. However, there was still a shortage of bodies that could not accommodate for the high demand of bodies. Until the middle of the 18th century, there was a quota of ten cadavers for each the Royal College of Physicians and the Company of Barber Surgeons, the only two groups permitted to perform dissections. During the first half of the 18th century, William Cheselden challenged the Company of Barber Surgeon’s exclusive rights on dissections. He was the first to hold regular anatomy lectures and demonstrations. He also wrote "The Anatomy of the Humane Body," a student handbook of anatomy. In 1752, the rapid growth of medical schools in England and the pressing demand for cadavers led to the passage of the Murder Act. This allowed medical schools in England to legally dissect bodies of executed murderers for anatomical education and research and also aimed to prevent murder. To further increase the supply of cadavers, the government increased the number of crimes in which hanging was a punishment. Although the number of cadavers increased, it was still not enough to meet the demand of anatomical and medical training.
Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom
Documented cases of grave robbery for medical purposes can be found as far back as 1319. The 15th-century polymath Leonardo da Vinci may have secretly dissected around 30 corpses, although their provenance remains unknown. In Britain, the practice appears to have been common early in the 17th century. For example, William Shakespeare's epitaph reads "Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones" and in 1678, anatomists were suspected of being involved in the disappearance of an executed gypsy's body. Contracts issued in 1721 by the Edinburgh College of Surgeons include a clause directing students not to become involved in exhumation, suggesting, according to historian Ruth Richardson, that students had already done the exact opposite. Pupils accompanied professional body snatchers as observers, and were reported to have obtained and paid for their studies with human corpses, perhaps indicating that their tutors were complicit. The unauthorised removal of bodies from London graveyards became commonplace and by the 1720s, probably as a direct result of the lack of legally available bodies for anatomical research, fresh corpses had likely undergone commodification.
Corpses and parts thereof were traded like any other merchandise: packed into suitable containers, salted and preserved, stored in cellars and quays and transported in carts, waggons and boats. Encouraged by fierce competition, anatomy schools usually paid more promptly than their peers, who included individual surgeons, artists and others with an interest in human anatomy. As one body snatcher testified, "a man may make a good living at it, if he is a sober man, and acts with judgement, and supplies the schools".
In London, late 18th-century anatomists may have delegated their grave-robbing almost entirely to body snatchers, or, as they were commonly known, resurrectionists. A fifteen-strong gang of such men, exposed in Lambeth in 1795, supplied "eight surgeons of public repute, and a man who calls himself an Articulator". The report into their activities lists a price of two guineas and a crown for a dead body, six shillings for the first foot, and nine pence per inch "for all it measures more in length". These prices were by no means fixed; the black market value of corpses varied considerably. Giving evidence to the 1828 Select Committee on Anatomy, the surgeon Astley Cooper testified that in 1828 the price for a corpse was about eight guineas, but also that he had paid anything from two to fourteen guineas previously; others claimed they had paid up to twenty guineas per corpse. Compared to the five shillings an East End silk weaver could earn each week, or the single guinea a manservant to a wealthy household was paid, these were considerable sums of money and body snatching was therefore a highly profitable business. Surgeons at the Royal College in Edinburgh complained that resurrectionists were profiteering, particularly when local shortages forced prices up. One surgeon told the Select Committee that he thought the body snatchers were manipulating the market for their own benefit, though no criticism was made of the "Anatomy Club", an attempt by anatomists to control the price of corpses for their benefit.
Anatomical Theatre of Padua
In 1404, during his stay in Vienna, Galeazzo di Santa Sofia undertook the first solemn public dissection, a practice he had obviously first seen and carried out in Padua.
Thomas Annandale
Thomas Annandale, FRCS FRSE (1838–1907) was a Scottish surgeon who conducted the first repair of the meniscus, the first successful removal of an acoustic neuroma and introduced the pre-peritoneal approach to inguinal hernia repair. He served as Regius Professor of Clinical Surgery at the University of Edinburgh. His collection of anatomical specimens was donated to the Surgeon's Hall in Edinburgh and is now known as the Thomas Annandale Collection.
John Cutting Berry
On the request of Kanda Takahira, the governor of Hyōgo prefecture, Berry also took charge of Kobe Hospital and undertook other medical activities in Kobe, Himeji, Akashi, Kakogawa, Arima, and Sanda. Berry typically examined between 500 and 700 patients a month and instructed other local doctors on the side. In January 1873, Berry conducted the first human dissection in the prefecture at Kobe Hospital, before an audience of 750 doctors and medical students.
Hemicorporectomy
It was into this environment that Frederick E. Kredel first proposed the operation in February 1951 while discussing a paper on pelvic exenteration. The first hemicorporectomy was attempted by Charles S. Kennedy in 1960, but the patient died eleven days later. American Surgeons, J. Bradley Aust (1926–2010) and Karel B. Absolon (1926–2009) conducted the first successful hemicorporectomy in Minnesota in 1961.
Craniometry
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002), an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science, studied these craniometric works in "The Mismeasure of Man" (1981) and claimed Samuel Morton had fudged data and "overpacked" the skulls with filler in order to justify his preconceived notions on racial differences. A subsequent study by the anthropologist John Michael found Morton's original data to be more accurate than Gould describes, concluding that "[c]ontrary to Gould's interpretation... Morton's research was conducted with integrity."
Hans Reck
In December 1913 one of the workmen found a bone protruding from one of the oldest layers, Bed II, at a level where extinct animals from the Pleistocene had been found. He started to excavate, then told Reck of his find.
Reck directed the excavation. The workers used hammers and chisels to excavate a human skeleton with modern anatomy that was embedded in a block of sedimentary rock. Reck examined the surrounding rocks carefully, but found no sign of disturbance that could indicate a burial at some later data.
Reck took the skull back to Berlin in March 1914, and published an article in which he speculated that the skeleton was of a man from 150,000 years ago, far earlier than had been previously considered for the origin of man.
The announcement caused a considerable stir, although many people dismissed Reck's claims, saying it must be a recent burial.
Hugo Kronecker
Hugo Kronecker and his learner Samuel James Meltzer were the first, who studied (in 1883) oesophageal manometry in humans.
History of science
In classical antiquity, Greek and Roman taboos had meant that dissection was usually banned, but in the Middle Ages medical teachers and students at Bologna began to open human bodies, and Mondino de Luzzi (c. 1275–1326) produced the ﬁrst known anatomy textbook based on human dissection.
Anatomical Theatre of Padua
It is worth noting that in Padua already existed a well established practice of dissection since the end of the thirteenth century. In fact, a traditional legend hands down the story of avaricious man's heart found in a basket by St. Anthony; the heart is described in a scientific way, and that shows how the direct observation of the corpses was already considered essential.
Appendectomy
The first recorded successful appendectomy was on December 6, 1735, at St. George's Hospital in London, when French surgeon Claudius Amyand described the presence of a perforated appendix within the inguinal hernial sac of an 11-year-old boy. The organ had apparently been perforated by a pin the boy had swallowed. The patient, Hanvil Andersen, made a recovery and was discharged a month later.
Grafton Elliot Smith
Sir Grafton Elliot Smith, FRS HFRSE FRCP (15 August 1871 – 1 January 1937) was an Australian-British anatomist, Egyptologist and a proponent of the hyperdiffusionist view of prehistory. He believed in the idea that cultural innovations occur only once and that they spread geographically. Based on this, he traced the origins of many cultural and traditional practices across the world, including the New World, to ideas that he believed came from Egypt and in some instances from Asia. An expert on brain anatomy, he was the first to study Egyptian mummies using radiological techniques. He took an interest in extinct humanoids and was embroiled in controversy over the authenticity of the Piltdown Man.
Dan Gavriliu
Gavriliu first performed the operation on April 20, 1951; it was the first successful replacement of a human organ. After describing his procedure in the scientific literature, however, Gavriliu did not write extensively about his research, as he could not afford to pay the publication fees.
Cadaver
His approach to the depiction of the human body was much like that of the study of architecture, providing multiple views and three-dimensional perspectives of what he witnessed in person. One of the first examples of this is using the three dimensional perspectives to draw a skull in 1489. Further study under Verrocchio, some of Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical work was published in his book "A Treatise on Painting". A few years later, in 1516, he partnered with professor and anatomist Marcantonio della Torre in Florence, Italy to take his study further. The two began to conduct dissections on human corpses at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova and later at hospitals in Milan and Rome. Through his study, da Vinci was perhaps the first to accurately draw the natural position of the human fetus in the womb, via cadaver of a late mother and her unborn child. It is speculated that he conducted approximately 30 dissections total. His work with cadavers allowed him to portray the first drawings of the umbilical cord, uterus, cervix and vagina and ultimately dispute beliefs that the uterus had multiple chambers in the case of multiple births. It is reported that between 1504 and 1507, he experimented with the brain of an ox by injecting a tube into the ventricular cavities, injecting hot wax, and scraping off the brain leaving a cast of the ventricles. Da Vinci's efforts proved to be very helpful in the study of the brains ventricular system. Da Vinci gained an understanding of what was happening mechanically under the skin to better portray the body through art. For example, he removed the facial skin of the cadaver to more closely observe and draw the detailed muscles that move the lips to obtain a holistic understanding of that system. He also conducted a thorough study of the foot and ankle that continues to be consistent with current clinical theories and practice. His work with the shoulder also mirrors modern understanding of its movement and functions, utilizing a mechanical description likening it to ropes and pulleys. He also was one of the first to study neuroanatomy and made great advances regarding the understanding of the anatomy of the eye, optic nerves and the spine but unfortunately his later discovered notes were disorganized and difficult to decipher due to his practice of reverse script writing (mirror writing).
Tracheal intubation
The first detailed descriptions of tracheal intubation and subsequent artificial respiration of animals were from Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) of Brussels. In his landmark book published in 1543, "De humani corporis fabrica", he described an experiment in which he passed a reed into the trachea of a dying animal whose thorax had been opened and maintained ventilation by blowing into the reed intermittently. Antonio Musa Brassavola (1490–1554) of Ferrara successfully treated a patient suffering from peritonsillar abscess by tracheotomy. Brassavola published his account in 1546; this operation has been identified as the first recorded successful tracheotomy, despite the many previous references to this operation. Towards the end of the 16th century, Hieronymus Fabricius (1533–1619) described a useful technique for tracheotomy in his writings, although he had never actually performed the operation himself. In 1620 the French surgeon Nicholas Habicot (1550–1624) published a report of four successful tracheotomies. In 1714, anatomist Georg Detharding (1671–1747) of the University of Rostock performed a tracheotomy on a drowning victim.
Gentile da Foligno
Gentile Gentili da Foligno (died 18 June 1348) was an Italian professor and doctor of medicine, trained at Padua and the University of Bologna, and teaching probably first at Bologna, then at the University of Perugia, Siena (1322-24), where his annual stipend was 60 gold florins; he was called to Padua (1325-35) by Ubertino I da Carrara, Lord of Padua, then returned to Perugia for the remainder of his career. He was among the first European physicians to perform a dissection on a human being (1341), a practice long that had been taboo in Roman times. Gentile wrote several widely copied and read texts and commentaries, notably his massive commentary covering all five books of the "Canon of Medicine" by the 11th-century Persian polymath Avicenna, the comprehensive encyclopedia that, in Latin translation, was fundamental to medieval medicine. Long after his death, Gentile da Foligno was remembered in the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493) as "Subtilissimus rimator verborum Avicenne", "that most subtle investigator of Avicenna's teachings"
Aortic dissection
Surgery for aortic dissection was first introduced and developed by Michael E. DeBakey, Denton Cooley, and Oscar Creech, cardiac surgeons associated with the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, in 1954. DeBakey developed aortic dissection himself at age 97 in 2005, and underwent surgery in 2006. Endovascular treatment of aortic dissection was developed in the 1990s.
James Hogarth Pringle
Pringle made a particular study of the treatment of fractures, where he was at an advantage because X-rays had been introduced very early into clinical practice in Glasgow Royal Infirmary, an innovation that allowed Pringle to gain wide personal experience of fractures and their management. His colleague John Macintyre (1857–1928) had established the world's first x-ray service for patients in Glasgow Royal Infirmary in March 1896. This allowed James Hogarth Pringle an early, perhaps unique experience in fracture diagnosis and management using x-rays, and formed the basis for his book on fractures and their treatment.
He had the added advantage of working in the hospital where Joseph Lister had first introduced antisepsis and would surely have been aware of his own father's work on antisepsis in introducing Listerian antisepsis into Australia. He was, like Sir William Macewen, an early exponent of aseptic technique in surgery. Both of these factors undoubtedly contributed to his expertise and success with fracture management.
Struthers' ligament
The structure was originally depicted by Tiedemann, and later by Knox in the early 19th century, but it was John Struthers was the first to draw attention to this structure in 1848 as a "peculiar process" that bore curious resemblance to anatomy that he had seen in cats. This observation was one of many that Struthers made in subsequent investigations of vestigial and rudimentary structures, and in sharing these observations with his contemporary, Charles Darwin, provided significant evidence for the theories of evolution. Charles Darwin took the ligament to mean that humans and other mammals had a common ancestor, and used Struthers' work as evidence in Chapter 1 of his "Descent of Man" (1871). Struthers went on to create a museum of Comparative Anatomy filled with zoological specimens to illustrate Darwin's theory of common descent.
Human body
In Ancient Greece, the "Hippocratic Corpus" described the anatomy of the skeleton and muscles. The 2nd century physician Galen of Pergamum compiled classical knowledge of anatomy into a text that was used throughout the Middle Ages.
In the Renaissance, Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) pioneered the modern study of human anatomy by dissection, writing the influential book "De humani corporis fabrica". Anatomy advanced further with the invention of the microscope and the study of the cellular structure of tissues and organs. Modern anatomy uses techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, fluoroscopy and ultrasound imaging to study the body in unprecedented detail.
Anatomy
Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) (Latinized from Andries van Wezel), professor of anatomy at the University of Padua, is considered the founder of modern human anatomy. Originally from Brabant, Vesalius published the influential book "De humani corporis fabrica" ("the structure of the human body"), a large format book in seven volumes, in 1543. The accurate and intricately detailed illustrations, often in allegorical poses against Italianate landscapes, are thought to have been made by the artist Jan van Calcar, a pupil of Titian.
Animal testing
The earliest references to animal testing are found in the writings of the Greeks in the 2nd and 4th centuries BC. Aristotle and Erasistratus were among the first to perform experiments on living animals. Galen, a 2nd-century Roman physician, dissected pigs and goats; his is known as the "father of vivisection". Avenzoar, a 12th-century Arabic physician in Moorish Spain also practiced dissection; he introduced animal testing as an experimental method of testing surgical procedures before applying them to human patients.
Gallbladder
The first surgical removal of a gallstone (cholecystolithotomy) was in 1676 by physician Joenisius, who removed the stones from a spontaneously occurring biliary fistula. Stough Hobbs in 1867 performed the first recorded cholecystotomy, although such an operation was in fact described earlier by French surgeon Jean Louis Petit in the mid eighteenth century. German surgeon Carl Langenbuch performed the first cholecystectomy in 1882 for a sufferer of cholelithiasis. Before this, surgery had focused on creating a fistula for drainage of gallstones. Langenbuch reasoned that given several other species of mammal have no gallbladder, humans could survive without one.