anatomy~

i love anatomy...
a subject i can read n study n memorize with passion...(but dis really doesn't mean i knew it off by heart)

so, today i wanna share a piece of story, a history of how anatomy began...about the man who started our way of learning anatomy...Andreas Vesalius (click for his web)

_____________________________________
modern medicine began around the sixteenth century in the innovative minds of such people such as the anatomist Andreas Vesalius and the physiologist William Harvey. Andreas Vesalius (1514 - 1564) taught anatomy in Italy. in his time, cadaver dissection had resumed for the purpose of autopsies and gradually found its way into the training of medical student around Europe.

dissection was an unpleasant business, however, and most professors considered it beneath their dignity. in these days before refrigeration and embalming, the odor from the decaying cadaver was unbearable. dissection were conducted outdoors in a nonstop 4day race against decay. bleary medical student had to fight the urge to vomit, lest they incur the wrath of an overbearing professor. professors typically sat in an elevated chair, the cathedra, reading dryly from Galen or Aristotle while a lower-ranking barber-surgeon removed putrefying organs from the cadaver and held them up for the student to see. barbering and surgery were considered to be "kindred arts of the knife"; today's barber poles date from this era, their red and white stripes symbolizing blood and bandages.

Vesalius broke with tradition by coming down from the cathedra and doing the dissection himself. he was quick to point out that much anatomy in Galen's books was wrong, and he was the first to publish accurate illustrations for teaching anatomy.

when others began to plagiarize his illustrations, Vesalius published the first atlas of anatomy, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body), in 1543. this book began a rich tradition of medical illustration that has been handed down to us through such milestones as Gray's Anatomy (1856) and the vividly illustrated atlases and textbooks of today.

copied from 
Saladin Anatomy & Physiology
The Unity of Form and Function (Third Edition)

a wonderful history isn't it?
how ancient people used to study anatomy... without any refrigeration and stuff...my first yr experience of the anatomy lab wasn't pleasant, but at least it wasn't a 4day race against decay...hehe
now i miss waiting in that lab for hours beside cadavers...
well, dat's for today...

from history we learn~