INTRODUCTION 5 



Church seems to have had more direct interest in this matter 

 than the courts of justice possibly because it was concerned with 

 what happens to human beings in the hereafter. It required a 

 greater power than that inherent in the clergy to break down 

 traditions, in this respect, which were about as deeply entrenched 

 in the minds of man as anything could be, namely, that of a 

 strong temporal agency. 



It should be remembered that a part of the human race has 

 evolved through three important periods: the savage, barbaric 

 and civilized. The first refers to the state when all men were 

 hunters and fishermen, the second to the introduction and prac- 

 tice of primitive agriculture and the third to a social culture 

 characterized by relative progress in art, science and statecraft. 

 It is only in the last era, beginning about 1500 B.C., during which 

 there has been much advancement in the field of medicine. If the 

 span of the civilized age has been about 4,500 years, then it 

 is in the last one-eleventh of it, since A.D. 1543, that we can 

 speak of major medical growth and scientific understanding. This 

 amounts to about 415 years. 



A.D. 1543 is mentioned above because it represents a land- 

 mark, not only in anatomy, but in medicine generally. It marks 

 the date when Andreas Vesalius (A.D. 1514-1564) published his 

 great work entitled, De Corporis Humani Fabrica Lihri Septem 

 or Seven Books on the Structure of the Human Body, It has been 

 judged as a classic, one of the ten greatest contributions in the 

 field of medicine. His pioneering research was responsible for set- 

 ting the wheels of progress in motion, dating the beginning of 

 the renaissance of medicine. 



The story of anatomy before the middle of the 16th Century 

 deals with the primitive, the mystic, the philosophic and only to 

 a minor extent with the scientific study of human structure. Be- 

 sides considering early aboriginal ideas about the human body, 

 others are reviewed in respect to the ancient, civilized Egyptians, 

 Hindus, Chinese and Hebrews; also the prevailing opinions exist- 

 ing in the following periods: Homeric, classical Greek, pre-Chris- 

 tian, Galenic and Dark Ages. It is on record that a start in 

 scientific human dissection, under almost ideal conditions from 



