About antique Anatomy & Medical Prints

Hippocrates, 460-377 B.C.was the first to treat anatomy as a science, but it was not until Aristotle, 384-327 B.C.that this was taken seriously. It was he who gave the name aorta to the principle artery.

In the first century the Roman government forbade the dissection of human bodies. In 1415 Mindino, a professor of anatomy in Bologna, gave public demonstrations of the results of his dissection. Berenger, Columbus Fallopius, and Eustachius, all added facts to the science. However it was not until 1832 that the practise of dissection was legalised by an Act of Parliament, in order to stop the rifling of graveyards by “body-snatchers” (as described in Charles Dickens’s “Tale of Two Cities”).

All of this activity has left us with some wonderful anatomical prints – just the thing for your consulting rooms if you are a doctor, or, if you have a strong stomach, your kitchen.

In 1836 Jones Quain, Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the University of London, published The Muscles of the Human Body for his students. In it he writes “the muscles of the body are the agents by which its efforts and movements are performed”.
There are many examples of his work in this section.