Early contributions of anatomy to obstetrics.

  • Barbour, A. H. Freeland (Alexander Hugh Freeland), 1856-1927.
Date:
1888
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Early contributions of anatomy to obstetrics. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    him Haller, in his Encydopccdia of Anatomists} says, he dissected even living animals, and, first in history, took care to have anatomical plates made, lettered just as ours are He often compared human viscera with those of animals, so to speak, one by one, so that we cannot at all deny that this great man had some knowledge of human anatomy. Although Aristotle gives us no special description of the uterus in the human female, he evi- dently believed that it was bicornnous like that of the lower animals, as the following references show:—(10.) .... The uterus of all animals, in which it lies near the genitals, is bifid, one half on the right and the other on the left. And, in the next paragraph, he puts the uterus of man in the same cate- gory as that of the dog, pig, horse, and horned animals.2 Further, in speaking of the cause of difference of sex, he refers to the view that males were developed in the right, and females in the left half of the uterus.3 Hcrophilus of Chalcedon (b.c. 300) has, according to Sir William Turner,4 along with Erasistratus, the distinction of being known to posterity as the first who dissected and described the parts of the human body. Both these physicians flourished under Ptolemy Soter, and probably Ptolemy Philadelphia, and were indeed the principal supports of what has been named in medical history the Alexandrian School, to which their reputation seems to have attracted numerous pupils. M}r reason for mentioning Herophilus here is that Haller5 says of him that he was diligently versed in the genital organs of both sexes, and discovered the epidydymis. He points out that the os of a gravid uterus before labour will not admit a stilus In some women he saw four veins coming from the renal vessels to the uterus—probably the spermatic vessels. As his works have not been preserved, these facts are gained from references in other writers. The eight books of Celsus (B.C. 53 to 7 A.D.) contain but scanty references to female anatomy. In lib. iv. 1,° he says,— The vulva in virgins is somewhat small. Moreover, in women, except when they are gravid, not much larger than can be embraced by the hand. It being straight and continued in a neck, called the canal 'vagina),7 rising in a line with the middle of the belly, turns thence a little 1 Bibliotheca Anatomica qud scripta ad anatomen ct •physiologiwm facientia a rerum initiis reccnsentur. Lugduni Batavorum, ex officina Haakiana, HDCOiiXXiv., Tom. i. p. 3. 2 De Animolibus Historic/,, lib. iii. cap. i. On page 36 of vol. v. of J ris- toteles Opera Omnia, Gr. et Lat., Paris 1857-1874. 3 Ibid., p. 392. 4 Article Anatomy in Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th edition. 5 Op. cit., torn. i. p. 60. 8 Awelii Cornelii Celsi Medicinw. Impressum Venetiis per Philippum pinzi. Sumptibus domini Benedicti fontana. Anno domini 1497, die vi. Mai. 7 Ea recta continuataque cervice quern canalem vocant. By canalem is evidently meant the vagina.