#thomas willis

Today I offer 3 books which deal with female topics, procreation, psychology, child bearing and raising Claude Quillet‘s poem is exceedingly stylish and yet quite informative, very, rarely found with all five of the engravings. pseudo Albertus Magnus who was strongly influenced by Avicenna’s [Ibn-Sina (980-1037)] connects all stages of female sexual generation with the early medieval concept of…

Today I offer 4 books which deal with female psychology, before it existed. Willis by way of dissection anticipates modern ideas of the physiology of emotion baby connecting the mood, hysteria and melancholy with Brain functions. SOLD Châstelain, who treated diseases of the nervous system Argues that that vapors and convulsions and hysteria are functions of body chemistry and pseudo Albertus…

Today I offer 4 books which deal with female psychology, before it existed. Willis by way of dissection anticipates modern ideas of the physiology of emotion baby connecting the mood, hysteria and melancholy with Brain functions. Châstelain, who treated diseases of the nervous system Argues that that vapors and convulsions and hysteria are functions of body chemistry and pseudo Albertus Magnus…

from) Traité des convulsions et des mouvemens convulsifs qu’on appelle à présent vapeurs, par M. Chastelain.”  “ As women experience more serenity than men  the most frequent cause of their convulsions and convulsive moments is serenity which accumulates more often in the ovaries or the glands of the mesentery than the folds of the brain or the ventricles. “ 759J   M. Jean  Châstelain ±1715…

A, De Humani Corpus Fabrica, Book VII, Plate 3 L, Corpus Callosum; D, Falx Separated and Laid on Left Brain. B, Plate 4 E Gyri, GH White Matter O, Choroid Plexus. Modified courtesy of D. Garrison, Department of Classics, Northwestern University.

The brain illustrations of Vesalius and Willis were the first in anatomic history with pictorial accuracy. Their illustrations, illustrators, and methods are discussed. Woodcut blocks were used for the prints of figures in the Vesalian anatomy. Figures of the brain appear to be done after external fixation in the work of Willis

Vesalius was known to conduct public dissections with as many as 500 observers, including officials of Padua or Bologna and faculty and students of their medical schools.

The man, however, may only be comparing Galenic anatomic observations with the findings of Vesalius. An older figure may be a symbolic rendition of Galen realizing that some of his anatomic observations 1400 years before were wrong. It is doubtful that an artist working with Vesalius was able to come close enough to the cadaver to accurately illustrate it in the sometimes carnival-like settings. From a medical student's description,3 Vesalius dissected rapidly and lectured while he dissected.

The artist, out of necessity, must have drawn rapidly, not only to avoid working with unpleasant odors but also in response to the urgency from Vesalius to complete his work. The time it took the artist to make individual drawings is not known. If Netter,5 500 years later, can be used as a guide, multiple initial drawings are needed to portray the body in certain positions or in motion. For the final illustration of a stellate ganglion block, which Netter did for a CIBA Symposium article,5 as many as 8 preliminary sketches were used to show the position of the body, the stellate ganglion, and the needle direction for it.

Although Venice was a major center for international book publication at the time, Vesalius decided to have both the Fabrica and the Epitome printed in Basel. What is amazing, 200 of the blocks survived until World War II, when they were destroyed in the Allied bombing of Munich. They had been discovered in the 1930s in an attic storage area of the University of Munich by Wiegland, who described them in the Three Vesalian Essays.3 The completed woodcut blocks were most likely shipped from Venice to Milan and then over the Alps to Basel in August 1542. The mode of transport of the blocks, the largest being approximately 10 × 17 inches (25.4 × 43.18 cm) is not known.