Illustrations from the Wellcome Library Vesalius's Method of Articulating the Skeleton and a Drawing in the Collection of the Wellcome Library
Medical History, 2000, 44: 97-110 Illustrations from the Wellcome Library Vesalius's Method of Articulating the Skeleton and a Drawing in the Collection of the Wellcome Library MONIQUE KORNELL* ne ofthe recent acquisitions ofthe Wellcome Library, a sixteenth-century Italian drawing of the bones of the pelvis (Plate 1), is particularly significant because it clearly depicts the copper wires and iron rod used in the method of articulation of the skeleton described by Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) in the thirty-ninth chapter of the first book of De humani corporis fabrica, published in 1543.1 This procedure was the most detailed yet to have appeared in print and it was further enlivened by its visual de- L__________________________ monstration in initial letters decorating the book.2 * Monique Kornell, MA, PhD, Iconographic of the human skeleton by Andreas Vesalius of Collections, Wellcome Library for the History & Brussels', Bull. Hist. Med., 1946, 20: 433-60; and Understanding of Medicine, 183 Euston Road, more recently in Andreas Vesalius, On the fabric London NWI 2BE. of the human body. A translation of "De humani corporis fabrica libri septem"; Book I. The bones I am indebted to Dr Robert R Coleman of The and cartilages, by William Frank Richardson, in Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame, collaboration with John Burd Carman, San, for his kind assistance with the Biblioteca Francisco, Norman Publishing, 1998, pp. 370-84. Ambrosiana drawings collection, to Dr Kliment P For a commentary on the chapter, see also M Gatzinsky of the Department of Anatomy, Roth, Andreas Vesalius Bruxellensis, Berlin, Georg Gothenburg University, Sweden, for his Reimer, 1892, app.
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