From Harvey To HARC

1.12.05

• 1537 - Pope Clement VII permitted teaching of anatomy by dissection.
• Dissections became public events in Italy.
• Leonardo Da Vinci - practiced dissections and produced 750 anatomical drawings.

Andreas Vesalius (1514 - 1564):
• Studied in Paris, Louvain and Padua.
• Medical degree in 1537.
• Published De Humani Corporis Fabrica in 1543.
• Challenged Gallenic ideas.
• Deemed unacceptable to dissect females at the time - drawn with exaggerated hips to emphasise reproduction.

[Galen = red bile, yellow bile, phlegm, blood.]

William Harvey (1578 - 1657):
• Studied medicine at Caius College, Cambridge.
• Studied at Padua with Girdamo Fabrizio.
• Set up practice as physician in London.
Etc…
• First person to propose that circulation occurs as results of beating heart.

William Hunter (1718 - 1783):
• Scottish anatomist and obstetrician.
• Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus.

Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723):
• Inventor of the microscope.

Herman Boerhaave (1668 - 1738):
• Dutch anatomist.
• Idea of body as pressurised system.
• Importance of physiology.
• Discovered role of electricity in body - manifested in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

René Lannec (1781 - 1826):
• French physician.
• Invented the stethoscope.

19th Century:
• As anatomy becomes key to medical education, supply of bodies decreases.
• Only supply: hanged criminals.
• Ressurectionists: West Port Murders - Burke and Hare prosecuted in 1832 - had murdered 16 or more people to supply Robert Knox.
• Grave-robbing eg. in Liverpool - associations between grave diggers and anatomy schools. Imported from Ireland, left in cellars in Seel Street.
• Public fear of dissection - fate worse than death.
• 1832 Anatomy Act tried to solve this, but legalised use of bodies of destitute dying in workhouses - body degraded.

20th Century:
• In 1934, only 3% of bodies were donated.
• By 1960s, most dissection bodies were left in wills.
• Before World War II, living less alienated from dying - died at home.
• Increase in deaths from heart disease and cancer, in hospital death.
• Until final third of 20th Century, public excluded from hospital deaths - rationales challenged in 1970s.
• Importance of witnessing death - big psychological component in grieving.
• First redefining of death - 1968 - Harvard definition.
• 1972 - "persistent vegetative state."
• Still divergence of opinion.
• Reassess how we see the body in death and in life.