The Anatomist - Bill Hayes [7]
By the beginning of the fourteenth century, human dissections were conducted as often as once a year at the top European universities. The corpses used, male and female alike, were almost always those of executed criminals. The leading anatomist of the time, Mondino dei Liucci (c. 1270—c. 1326), a professor at the University of Bologna, became the Henry Gray of the late Middle Ages. His dissection manual, Anathomia, completed in 1316, was used in nearly all medical schools throughout Europe for the following two hundred years. After the invention of printing, Mondino’s Anathomia went through thirty-nine editions, a number that the British version of Gray’s Anatomy has only just matched.
Mondino earned a place in medical history by performing the first “properly recorded” dissection of a human corpse, but he is also remembered for sparking a revolution in the teaching of anatomy. Mondino systematized the process of dissection, providing a step-by-step method for exploring the human body. Following his lead, later pioneers would eventually overturn many of the fallacies of Galenism. In a sense, Mondino provided the map, allowing his successors to uncover a string of treasures.
In the Mondino method, a human dissection followed a strict schedule dictated by a grim fact: the process was a race against putrefaction. In an age when cadavers were not embalmed, only the cold could slow decomposition, but only somewhat, so the procedure would be carried out during the coldest time of the year and at a rapid clip, over four successive days. Rather than beginning with the outer chest and progressively moving deeper into the body, as one would today, Mondino always dissected from the inside out, starting with the intestines, since they rotted quickly and smelled worst first. Seated above the cadaver on a pulpit, he would recite from his text while the actual cutting was done by a trained assistant. The students never dissected. A second assistant, called a demonstrator, would hold aloft or point out the body parts described. Incidentally, Henry Gray was a member of a similar three-person team at St. George’s and over his tenure filled each of these roles.
Illustration from an edition of Anathomia by Mondino dei Liucci, c. 1493
By the final day of a Mondino dissection, the smell had probably risen to the level of olfactory bludgeon. For this reason, the University of Bologna made a special allowance to the anatomy department, providing a budget to purchase wine for the students and spectators at dissections—a little something to help deaden the senses, one gathers. (Interestingly, the cadaver, too, might have benefited from the alcohol, which, as anatomists would later discover, makes a pretty good preservative.) One final allowance deserves mention. In what may have been the creepiest way in history to earn extra credit, students at Bologna could bring in bodies of their own. But even in this case, they were not permitted to dissect them.
As I step back and watch Massoud, Laura, and the others finish exposing the phrenic nerve, I find myself preoccupied with how tiny our cadaver looks—smaller than any of the others in the room. For a moment, I even wonder if this could be a child, but I know that’s not possible; children’s bodies are almost never given to an anatomy program (instead, parents will commonly donate a deceased child’s organs for transplant or research purposes). A walk to the “Cause of Death” list posted on the back wall sets me straight. We actually have the body of a frail woman who was eighty-eight years old. She died of heart failure and had also had Alzheimer’s disease.
Returning to the dissection table, I take the opportunity to feel her lung, which Laura had placed beside her neck. This is the first internal organ I have ever held in my hands. Whereas I thought the lung would feel hollow and light, instead the tissue is dense, with the consistency of a wet loofah. The base of the lung is smooth