Leonardo da Vinci's rebirth of anatomy
Leonardo da Vinci's anatomy studies could have revolutionized medicine, but they were lost for a long time. The drawings show insights into the human body that were previously completely unknown.
New view of the body
Da Vinci first came to anatomy through art. He studied the structure, function and proportions of the body, which he wanted to understand and depict as realistically as possible. The Renaissance no longer sees the body as a shell of the soul, as it was viewed in the Middle Ages, but celebrates the beauty of the human body.
Everything begins with the skull
From 1489, the Renaissance artist began to work with the head. He opened different skulls and drew them from different angles. His sectional view through the skull shows an anatomically correct representation of the large veins for the first time. Da Vinci was particularly fascinated by the fluid-filled cavities in the skull, the ventricles.
The search for the soul
Leonardo considered the eye to be the most important sensory organ because it coordinates all other impressions. He was the first to recognise that the optic nerves cross over to the other half of the brain. He called the node "senso comune" and believed it was the home of the human soul. Today we know it's where the hypothalamus, which controls important bodily functions, is located.
Deep insights
In 1506, a dying old man allowed Da Vinci to dissect his body after death. The artist recorded all the steps of the process in detail. Da Vinci noted that the blood vessels become increasingly narrow and crooked with age. In mirror writing, the artist described an arteriosclerosis for the first time. In addition, da Vinci drew the first cirrhosis of the liver in medical history.
Knowledge gained from animal anatomy
The first anatomical studies were carried out in Egypt as early as 1550 BC. However, most anatomy knowledge was gained through animal dissections and then transferred to humans, with all sorts of mistakes. Nevertheless, the findings collected this way by the Greek physician Claudius Galen in the second century A.D. remained influential for centuries.
Mysterious documentation
What Leonardo couldn't draw, he tried to describe in writing. He didn't use a secret code, but mirror writing, which is why many things remained hidden for a long time. He only used normal writing when others were supposed to see the manuscripts. The original left-hander was reeducated as a right-hander as a child, but ended up being ambidextrous.
Dissections: Outlaws only
At the University of Pavia, south of Milan, the artist was allowed to examine over 30 corpses. The dissection was only tolerated in the case of executed criminals or suicide victims that were not allowed to be buried in cemeteries. Since there was no cold storage yet, the investigations took place mainly in winter.
Ineffective medicine
Da Vinci was the first to discover the appendix. During his lifetime, many people died of the "side disease," which was only treated with castor oil, which didn't really help. It was not until 1735 that a London physician succeeded in the first documented removal of an inflamed appendix.
Three-dimensional representation
The Renaissance artist studied the organs and the entire nervous and muscle system of man. He skillfully used hatching to make his works appear as three-dimensional as possible. As an anatomist, he sketched the first known representation of a human spine with the typical curvature and the correct number of vertebrae.
Limited research possibilities
Since he was not a doctor, the hospital denied Da Vinci further access to corpses, so he had to continue his anatomical studies on animal organs. He didn't have a human model for depicting the uterus with the unborn child either, but reconstructed the image after the dissection of a cow.
Historical errors
However, DaVinci also combined his new insights with traditional ideas. He combined the woman's uterus with her breast because people back then believed that a woman's menstrual blood was converted into milk. This idea goes back to the Greek physician Claudius Galen from the 2nd century AD.
Studies of the heart
Contrary to the traditional idea, Da Vinci recognized the human heart as a muscle. For his studies, Da Vinci even built an artificial heart out of glass. In order to understand the flow dynamics of the organ, he probably also used his knowledge as a fortress engineer. The blood circulation was only described in detail in 1628, by English physician William Harvey.
Far ahead of his time
Da Vinci's findings could have revolutionized anatomy and thus medicine as a whole, but unfortunately he did not publish his notes during his lifetime. Many of his early discoveries were not described again until 300 years later. After his death in 1519, many drawings were lost. The rest was only rediscovered in the 20th century and is now mostly part of the British royal family's collection.
Beginning of the Modern Age
Real scientific anatomy studies only began with Flemish surgeon Andreas Vesalius, whose sections expose all muscles, tendons and nerve tracts down to the smallest detail. The then 29-year-old published his well-founded investigations in 1542 in his main work "De Humani Corporis Fabrica" — " On the fabric of the human body."