Talk:History of anatomy

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 August 2021 and 25 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rabb0417.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:25, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Juan.Villabona001, Achow3, Otterlyobsessed. Peer reviewers: Acewind88, Juan.Villabona001.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:34, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Comments
Why nothing on medieval anatomy published in the Arabic language? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.73.132.76 (talk) 10:23, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

I
I can't edit this page - I think it may be too long? I'd like to fix the Olaus Rudbeckius link, it should be either the Swedish or the Latin name, not a mix. -- OlofE 10:18 Sep 27, 2002 (UTC)
 * yeh, this one needs help but it's a great start! —Preceding unsigned comment added by DennisDaniels (talk • contribs) 18:31, 23 October 2002

Why does this comuter have more links than the history of Anatomy?

Shouldn't this page contain a brief summary of the history of anatomy, rather than just a collection of links? // Habj 00:08, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I really like this article and think it has a lot of interesting information that is concise and to the point. I think it this article could possibly improve by adding a larger body of information about the emergence of anatomy as a scientific discipline and why how anatomical insight would have been used in antiquity both inside and outside the clinical setting. (Kevinzehnder (talk) 15:12, 13 September 2013 (UTC))

Work on this page and topic
I just edited out some subjective matter from the conclusion and fixed some grammar. 27 Nov 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.165.68.54 (talk) 00:35, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I have just taken some rather WP:BOLD action on this page and its related pages, which I'm going to explain here. The text that originally occupied this page was copied out of a massive Anatomy article that was scanned from an early 20th century encyclopedia by User:The Epopt in February 2002. The text was then split, first into the anatomy page and this page, and then into further subages linked to from this page. These pages then proceeded to, well, sit there, acquiring cleanup, wikify, globalize, and pov tags every now and then. One of them was refactored, without much change of content, but remained a confusing article; another acquired an intro paragraph recently, presumably as part of cleanup queue work; I stumbled across one while working cleanup queue several weeks ago and nominated it for deletion; it got zapped. Seeing one of its cousins on cleanup queue today, I realized what was going on here.

Looking around the various articles that the original chunk of text had become, it was clear that the text was actively inhibiting the development of our content on the topic. Nobody wants to wade into a massive chunk of unwikified text, requiring a sentence-by-sentence copyedit, much of which is so outdated or judgementally phrased as to be useless in any event.

And so, to remedy this problem, I wrote up a short summary article here, then blanked and redirected all the daughter articles. Hopefully, with this 4 year old obstruction removed, the wiki process will proceed as normal and we'll get some good articles here in a while. Anyway, I'm a little nervous about taking such a large action unilaterally like this, so if anyone has any comments on what I did, I'd appreciate hearing them. --RobthTalkCleanup? 19:16, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, the whole thing reads MUCH better! I am a bit puzzled at what happened though. I was stumbling along through the 1600's and step for step tried to tie the general topics together, and I was more or less concluding that a general discussion of the times was needed, with separate links to the main players. There is still a lot of work to be done. Vesalius was a major influence through his travels and famous book. There is also a lot of material still to be added on the situation in England (think of the bodysnatchers). Also, dissection of animals was in general at a higher level through the ages than human anatomy, because the Church allowed all work on animals. The increased world trade due to shipping had a direct effect on the knowledge of animals and the first thing men did with new ones, was to kill them, draw them, dissect them, and draw them again (often saying that the drawings were human, to increase book sales). I hope you didn't delete any names, because it is through following the individual anatomists and their personal networks that the story gets pieced together. The medical 'community' was basically a bunch of curious lone cowboys who could read and write in Latin.Jane 09:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I just realized who I'm missing: the Italian Berenger from Bologna - I can't find his page or info anywhere. Jane 09:32, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I spent a while looking for Mr. Berenger as well, and we don't have an article on him yet; his actual name was Giacomo Berengario] da Carpi, and you can find some info on him by Googling that. I'm afraid I won' be able to help out much more with the reexpansion; I know almost nothing about the topic, and the stuff I wrote is mostly a cleaned up summary of the stuff it replaced.  As far as deleting names, you can find the whole original mess here in the history, so no information's been lost.  I removed some from the article in its current edition, mostly because I was having trouble determining who was and wasn't important enough for inclusion.  Anything I left out that should go back in is fine by me to readd. --RobthTalkCleanup? 13:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Quality
Everything up to 17th and 18th century anatomy is well written, and then the article gets bad. Can whoever wrote or refined these sections bring what follows to an equal standard? I should greatly appreciate it. 211.28.237.149 06:27, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree. 132.216.109.42 (talk) 18:05, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Tarikh llm Tashrih
About Tarikh llm Tashrih (An extensive Book in Urdu on History of anatomy). The author Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman first published it in 1967 from Tibbi Academy, Delhi; he then published the second revised edition in 2009 (ISBN 978-81-906070-) from Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences, Aligarh, India.

- Review of the first edition (1967): The book contains a preface by the famous Indian Historian of Medicine, Mohammad Zubair Siddiqui of Calcutta (Mohammad Zubair Siddiqui was both nationally and internationally known for his Arabic text edition of Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari’s Firdaws al- Hikma, published from Berlin. Another of his publication is Studies in Arabic and Persian Medical Literature, Calcutta, 1959) and an introduction by Hakîm ‘Abdul Latîf (Aligarh). The author collected for his book a wealth of information, which he arranged in seven chapters. He traced in it the history of anatomy of the Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian, Chinese, Iranian, Jews, Greeks (13th–3rd c. B.C.), Romans] ( 2nd c. B.C.–7th c. A.D.), Graeco-Arab (8th–15th c. A.D.), Unani medicine in Europe and in Medieval India. The span of the time period dealt with in his book is roughly of 3000 years! Interesting is the bibliography at the end of the book, which comprises a total of 62 standard sources, with the following break-up: 19 Arabic, 1 Persian, 33 English and 9 Urdu publications. His best chapters are those in which he dealt with the Greek medicine in Roman and Arabic-Islamic ages. In the latter he deals with 32 Islamic physician of Unani medicine. The last chapter is on Medieval Indian Unani physicians, who wrote on anatomy. It is based on original research. In so far as the historicity of certain events is concerned, the author did his best to draw upon the most up-to-date sources. For instance, about the allegation of the destruction of Alexandrian Library by the Arabs, the author has presented evidence on the falsehood of that accusation based on the works of European historians, and also on the Indian publications of Shibli Nomani and Syed Sulaiman Nadvi. The production of the book must be quite a difficult task indeed. He has employed Sanskrit, Greek, Arabic and Roman scripts for proper names and terms in the text. He has given comprehensive information about the publications of various physicians, discussing even various editions of their original texts, wherever possible. Apart from some minor typographical or other errors, for instance of German/French words and references, this book is an excellent history for the graduates of Unani medicine. It is in fact the first compilation of its kind in Urdu and /or Tibbî literature. According to Oskar Cameron Gruner: “…It is a valuable book and a notable evidence that the western historians should realise that they are not the sole contributors in this field.” (O. C. Gruner, Letter to Zillurrahman, dated 12.1.68, published in the Newsletter of Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences (Aligarh), Ed. S.M.R. Ansari, Vo.4, No. 1 (2004) pp.11-12.) Hashemi1971 (talk) 04:54, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Birmingham
Why are there so many references to one university? It reads like a school childs essay —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.126.69.92 (talk) 02:44, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree, especially since the shortage of specimen for dissection seems to be a British problem only. But here it's shown as if prosection was the future of anatomy training in general. This is not true at all. For example in Germany, there are much more people willing to donate than the medical schools would need. Furthermore, since the donors have to pay a fee for being accepted, the costs for the universities are partly covered. In addition to that, we have up to ten students working at one specimen, not five. -- 132.199.204.203 (talk) 17:49, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:jagged 85clean up
I took this out because while he is interesting his work has no real significant's to the history of anatomy
 * ===Ibn al-Nafis===

The Arabian physician Ibn al-Nafis (1213–1288) was one of the earliest proponents of human dissection and postmortem autopsy, and in 1242, he was the first to describe the pulmonary circulation and coronary circulation of the blood, which form the basis of the circulatory system, for which he is considered the father of the theory of circulation. Ibn al-Nafis also described the earliest concept of metabolism, and developed new systems of anatomy and physiology to replace the Avicennian and Galenic doctrines, while discrediting many of their erroneous theories on the four humours, pulsation, bones, muscles, intestines, sensory organs, bilious canals, esophagus, stomach, and the anatomy of almost every other part of the human body.
 * J8079s (talk) 02:48, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I took this out too as it really has no place in the history of anatomy.
 * ==Medieval anatomy==

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the study of anatomy became stagnant in Christian Europe but flourished in the medieval Islamic world, where Muslim physicians and Muslim scientists contributed heavily to medieval learning and culture. The Persian physician Avicenna (980-1037) absorbed the Galenic teachings on anatomy and expanded on them in The Canon of Medicine (1020s), which was very influential throughout the Islamic world and Christian Europe. The Canon remained the most authoritative book on anatomy in the Islamic world until Ibn al-Nafis in the 13th century, though the book continued to dominate European medical education for even longer until the 16th century.

The Arabian physician Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) (1091–1161) was the first physician known to have carried out human dissections and postmortem autopsy. He proved that the skin disease scabies was caused by a parasite, a discovery which upset the theory of humorism supported by Hippocrates and Galen. The removal of the parasite from the patient's body did not involve purging, bleeding, or any other traditional treatments associated with the four humours. In the 12th century, Saladin's physician Ibn Jumay was also one of the first to undertake human dissections, and he made an explicit appeal for other physicians to do so as well. During a famine in Egypt in 1200, Abd-el-latif observed and examined a large number of skeletons, and he discovered that Galen was incorrect regarding the formation of the bones of the lower jaw and sacrum.
 * J8079s (talk) 01:35, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Too limited
The scope of this article is way too limited, as if "anatomy" only concerns the human body. --Crusio (talk) 17:07, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Many of the points made in this page are underdeveloped and vague. They allude to facts but do not expand. Many sentences have the capability to be turned into entire sections. Hippocrates and his contributions need to be expanded and there is absolutely no mention of Versalius, who is one of the main founders of anatomy as we know it. A section about the anatomical theatres with Heronymus Fabricius as the founder needs to be elaborated on. Greece and Egypt can be expanded to add new and relevant information such as the influence of the mummification process on peoples understanding of the human form. Advances my Islamic scientists were being made as well and can be added to this article

Various people are missing and those who are present in the article lack background and general information to tie them into subject. Aristotle, Galen, and Avincenna all delved into anatomy. Avenzoar in the 2nd century was the first to carry out postmortem autopsies. Da Vinci even became obsessed with the human physiology and drew his famous anatomical man. Body snatching was also a much more in depth practice and could use some elaboration and emphasis. Alexnicolejones (talk) 23:36, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Then add them with suitable sources, but Vesalius is definitely present in text and image. Chiswick Chap (talk) 01:44, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

If this article is expanded to include more than just human anatomy, the addition of a section on comparative vertebrate anatomy, with reference to Edward Tyson would be useful. Theboywiththednatattoo (talk) 23:33, 11 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Perhaps; and Sir John Struthers too. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:08, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Minor edits
I found this article very interesting, also I do have some minor corrections that I feel might make it even better. In the first paragraph, could you specify what methods you were talking about, when you wrote "Methods have also improved dramatically."

This treatise shows that the heart, its vessels, liver, spleen, kidneys, hypothalamus, uterus and bladder were recognized, and that the blood vessels were known to emanate from the heart. Could you rephrase this to "this treaties shows that the heart and its vessels were recognized, and the blood vessels were known to emanate from the heart. The liver, spleen, kidneys, hypothalamus, uterus and bladder were also recognized", I think that it sound better that way.

The Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE) features a treatise on the heart. It notes that the heart is the center of the blood supply, with vessels attached for every member of the body. Also if you can rephrase this to read like this "The Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE) features a treatise on the heart. It notes that the heart is the center of blood supply, and attached to it are vessels for every member of the body", that would great.

In 1489, Leonardo da Vinci, known mostly for his work in art and technology, began a series of anatomical drawings depicting the ideal human form. Here, you could insert "producing" after the word "began".

His work led to anatomy marked a new era in the study of anatomy and its relation to medicine. It is possible to rephrase this sentence?, I did not quite understand it.

God job Mbar3466 (talk) 00:47, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Myth about a Medieval Ban on Dissection Removed
This article previously claimed "Human dissection became restricted after Boniface VIII passed a papal bull that forbade the dismemberment and boiling of corpses for funerary purposes." This is a myth that was propagated by the nineteenth century polemicist Andrew Dickson White and which has long since been debunked by modern historians of science. See Katherine Park, "Myth 5 - That the Medieval Church Prohibited Dissection" in Ronald L. Numbers, Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion (Harvard University Press, 2010) pp. 43-49. I have removed this claim from the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TimONeill (talk • contribs) 02:33, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Some suggestions
I enjoyed reading this article, but there are a few suggestions. Even though it explains and includes many information of various species such as animal tissues, vertebrate, and invertebrate. I, as a reader, think it needs to be more relevant to human anatomy even though it includes human anatomy illustrations. This article is well organized with appropriate categories, so it makes more clear to find what reader wants to know or read. But, I suggest to make more clear on history category by period. Also, it seems limited because it tries to include and treats various species. When I checked a few citations and links, everything seems to work without plagiarism. However, references are coming from one university and it can give confusion and biased information to readers. If there are more explanation of images and even more images that can show the change of anatomy, it would help readers to follow the article by giving for understand. Leeahli1 (talk) 01:27, 31 January 2017 (UTC)Halim Lee

If I can add, this article is missing sections on the study of anatomy in non-Western societies (including China, India, South America) --Tom (LT) 09:17, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Introduction
I would like to work on the introduction because it seems to be to be rather vague and it seems like it could help the reader if it was more clear. I will take a stab at it, any suggestions are welcome. Mgood13 (talk) 03:54, 17 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Looking forward to it. Will follow. Make sure to have a look at the advice for lead sections if you haven't already come across it. Hope you stick around when your course is done. PriceDL (talk) 04:07, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I realize that my lead is probably not...great. I'm a little unsure how to characterize the development over the course of a few millennia without inserting some sort of opinion on in about it "becoming better" or "more scientific" or things that are super vague and that I'm definitely not qualified to speak upon. Mgood13 (talk) 04:11, 17 February 2017 (UTC)


 * It's fairly unsubstantial so for now I'd suggest you Be Bold. If you're going to be making lots of edits in a short space of time then add the In Use Template to the page to stop someone causing you problems; just don't forget to move it when you're done for the day. I'll have a look back in a few hours to tidy it up a bit if I think it needs it. Not quite sure what to suggest yet in terms of information for the lead as I haven't studied the history of medicine for about 8 years PriceDL (talk) 04:21, 17 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Have made a few small changes with edit comments for you to have a look at. I think the third sentence needs clarification or rewording, but I've left it as is for now to allow you to clear it up. Probably brief summaries (unlikely to be a paragraph each I think), or alternatively just briefly going through major developments (autopsy, functional studies, textbooks etc.) might be the way to go. PriceDL (talk) 04:55, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

17th and 18th Centuries
I will clean up this section and add some more information. This section does not read well and it seems like there are too many unconnected ideas. Let me know if you have any suggestions. Achow3 (talk), 27 February 2017 (UTC)

The reference to Michelangelo in this section belongs in an earlier section, preferably with that referring to Leonardo; both artists (and others) engaged in dissection (see, for example: in the 15th c., not only Leonardo. 67.134.206.17 (talk) 17:36, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Suggestions
Good edits Achow3! You especially did a great job of connecting different ideas together through the use of transitions. I did notice that there are some minor grammatical/punctuation errors that need fixing. There are also a couple longer sentences which could be edited, since they make the content harder for readers to understand, and would help with the flow of the article. One place you could fix this is in the Early Modern Anatomy section: "Vesalius's success was due in large part to him exercising the skills of mindful dissections for the sake of understanding anatomy, much to the tune of Galen's "anatomy project" instead of focusing on the work of other scholars of the time in recovering the ancient texts of Hippocrates, Galen and others (which much of the medical community was focused around at the time)."Acewind88 (talk) 02:52, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Ancient India Additions
User:Vincentvikram In my most recent addition to this Wikipedia page that got reverted, I added 4 "subjects" that are included below. What do you think about the sources?

For subject 2, for the 1st paragraph I used info that came from https://www.umassd.edu/media/umassdartmouth/center-for-indic-studies/workshop2009_speakersn1.pdf?, for the 2nd paragraph, and for the 3rd paragraph.

For subjects 1, 3, and 4, I just got the information from the Journal of Postgraduate Medicine.

1: Archaeological excavations of the Indus Valley Civilization that flourished c. 3000 BCE in the Indian Subcontinent show evidence of knowledge in comparative anatomy. Cave paintings depict animals with critical areas marked; these critical areas when hit would have killed the animal. This is evidence for the first lessons in surface anatomy.

2: The Garbha Upanishad is an Ancient Indian Hindu Upanishadic text ascribed to Pippalada, who lived c. 1400 BCE. It describes the body as having 5 elements, 7 tissues, and 3 doshas. It said the skull has 4 bones with 16 pockets per side. It said the body had 45 million hairs, 360 bones, 700 veins, 500 muscles, 180 sutures, 900 sinews, and 107 joints. . It also discussed the development of the embryo: "'From the conjugation of blood and semen the embryo comes into existence. During the period favourable for conception after the sexual intercourse it becomes a `Kalala' (one-day-old embryo). After remaining seven nights it becomes a vesicle - `Budbuda'. After a fortnight it becomes a spherical mass 'Pinda'. After a month it becomes a firm mass. After two months the head is formed. After three months the limb regions appear.'"

This description in the Garbha Upanishad matches much of modern medicine - a 7-day-old embryo is vesicular and called a blastocyst, and the descriptions of the formation of the head and limb regions generally matches the timing of those body parts' development as we know in modern medicine.

3: The Atharva Veda was an Ancient Indian Hindu text. According to Witzel (1991), it was created c. 1200/1000 BCE, and according to Flood (1996), it was created c. 900 BCE. The Atharva Veda refers to the heart as the "Lotus with nine gates", which is accurate as the heart is known today; the heart has 3 openings in the right atrium, 4 in the left atrium, and 1 one in each ventricle for a total of 9 openings. The Atharva Veda refers to "Dhamanis" (ducts with thick walls equivalent to arteries, "Siras" (ducts with thin walls equivalent to veins), and "Snavas" (finer ducts similar to capillaries).

4: Sushruta was an Ancient Indian Hindu physician who is known as the main author of the Sushruta Samhita, which likely was composed by the mid-1st millennium BCE. Sushruta's school noted 300 bones in the body. They included teeth, nails, cartilage, and bony prominences and protrusions as bones, which may explain why they counted so many bones. Sushruta said that the human body had 500 muscles, with 400 being in the extremities, 66 in the trunk, and 34 in the region above the clavicles. He explained that the "dhamanis" and the "siras" had an origin in the umbilicus, and he described "rasa" flowing through these ducts. In addition to "siras" and "dhamanis", he mentioned that there were 22 "Srotas". He was aware of at least 4 cranial nerves, and he described the rectum's interior as having 3 grooves. He described the vas deferens, the urinary bladder, and the uterus. He is also known as the "Father of Surgery". He also described "Marmas" which were the meeting places of different parts of the body, such as "Mamsa" (flesh or muscles), "Sira" (vessels), "Snayu" (ligaments), "Asthi" (bones), and "Sandhi" (joints). He elaborated the effects of injuries to these "Marmas". The "Gulpha Marma" at the junction of the calf and foot being injured would result in lameness, pain, and paralysis; injury to the "Indravasti Marma", which was 12 to 13 fingerbreadths above the ankle, could result in hemorrhage and possible death; injury to the "Janu Marma" at the junction of the knee and thigh would result in lameness; injury to the "Vitapa Marma" at the junction of the scrotum and inguinal region could result in impotency.

Biology
Summary of development of biology science during the roman and greek period btween 8 and 11 centuries 197.252.202.32 (talk) 18:58, 14 September 2022 (UTC)