The “Anatomia infantis” of Gabriel de Zerbi

THE

“ANATOMIA

INFANTIS”

OF GABRIEL

BY LE ROY CRUMMER, M.D.,

DE

ZERBI

OMAHA, NEBRASKA

T

HE first work on anatomy printed in the sixteenth century was entitled, Gabriel de Zerbi; Opus Anatomiwe tot&s corporis hzcmani et singulorum ?nrnrb,*o~~lc~?~, Venice, 1502. In this particular period, all of the anatomic writings were based either on Galen or Mundinius, and t,he various editors usually were content to reproduce the text of either one of these two authors, with many comments and but slight additional information drawn from personal observation of the external of the human body or from very superficial dissections.

Woodcut illustrations had been introduced in a few books on anatomy in the last decade of the fifteenth century, and so much attention has since been paid to the graphic anatomic incunabula; i.e., Ketam, Hundt, the Concilliator of Petrus de Abano, and the Maragarita Philosophica of Reiysch, that the books on anatomy without illustration have been almost forgotten. Among the authors who published such early works on anatomy may be mentioned Vasse, Leoniceno, Benedicti, Benivieni, Valla, Achilini, and de Zerbi. The controversies and priority claims of these various authors, many of whom taught anatomy in the ltalian universities, have long been settled and are of no particular interest today, but just as Copho’s Anatomy of the Pig persisted after Mundinius, so Mundinius held sway long after Vesalius, and the ideas of these early anatomists persisted for a long period beyond the time of the brilliant discoveries in anatomy. There are many reasons for the persistance of this belief in pre-Vesalian anatomy, not the least of which was the popularization of these earlier ideas of anatomy by the publication of numerous popular health books, which, originally issued even before 1500, have been copied, issued, and reissued up to the present day. The, Mastc~rwork of ~lristotle and the Spc,*eis o:f Albert the Great, each a peculiar mixture of charms and superst,ition, with early sixteenth century anatomy and obstet,rics, are still printed in enormous editions and may be found in almost any secondhand bookshop. But to return to de Zerbi: Gabriel de Zerbi (1458-1505) was professor of anatomy at both Padua and Rome. He had a most unfortunate life, being forced to flee from his position in Rome on account of theft and soon afterwards was murdered by a slave of the Pasha. His chief work, OPUS Ancrtomia~e, et,c., 1502, was, according to Sprengl, entirely in the method of Mundinius, but, nevertheless, it was based on more or less dissection. He gave a very early, if not the 352

C’RUM MER

:

“ .INBTOMIA

INFAKTIS

’ ’ OF

GAI3IUEL

DE ZERBI

:i:i::

first description of the round ligaments of the uterus, and properly ascribed the olfact.ory protuberance to cerebral substance. He also disputed Galen’s idea of two umbilical veins, asserting that, there wan only one. There is no record of subsequent editions of his Opus, and Ilallcr states that the only further appearance of his work is found in an excerpt entitled Anatomh Znfnntis which was printed in the 1587 edition of Dryander’s dnatontim Cio~poris H umuui. Dryander (d. 1560) was professor at Narbnrg and the author of one of the most important illustrated pre-Vesalian anatomies. The first edition of his book, almost unknown, was in 1536. It had only twenty folios, but it was based on two dissections which he made in the spring of the same year. An enlarged edition with thirty-five folios, with the tit,le A?ratorn ine Corporis Hwrwn.i, Xarburg, 1537, contained added illustrations and increased text and there was also included the first separate printing of the Anatomia Po,rci of Copho, and t,he excerpt from de Zerbi’s Opus with the title: ArrutonlG, Zlafrmfis. In 1541, Egenolph, the Frankfurt publisher, seeuls to have formed a close association with Dryander. He puhlishetl the latter’s AYW~om,*iaM~ndi&, and in 1542, his Der gctnzeu~ Artzenni 8pi~gel Gmeimr Znhalt which went through many subsequent editions. This association, it would seem, continued until Dryander’s death, for as late as 1557, Egenolph issued a new editiou of the i1l*tzenei &‘~ie~clc~l. This friendship with Egenolph should outweigh Drya,nder’s qua.rrel with Vesalius and the subsequent ill repute. Egenolph probably caught the popular fancy more completely than any other publisher of the period, and his medical publications, profusely illustrated, were issued under the editorship of Dryander and Ryff, both of whom have been damned by the mispraise of Vesalius. Egenolph’s chief editor and best friend was Phillip Melanchton, and it is d:ifficult to condemn entirely men who were associated so closely for years with Egenolph and Melanchton. In his position as editor, Dryander had opportunity to choose the best from the earlier authors, and therefore his selection of de Zerbi’s B?za.tol?ziaZnfantis stamps it as representing t,he best knowledge of the period. In spite of the many difficult.ies of Renaissance Latin, the following translation fairly represents the ideas of the original. Bnntomy

of the Infant,

!l’a.ken

from the Commentaries mist, Gabriel de Zerbis

of the

Disti~pMed

An,,ato-

If the fetus is to be male and by abortion comes out within forty days, the womb being open, coming out from the orifice, together with moisture on to the earth, it will be dissolved becau.se of its tenderness, and will not be found because of its smallness. If, however, the abortion takes place over cold water which is smooth and

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clear, a creature will be found by straining, and it will have the appearance of :I large ant. And this substance will be f’ound in a kind of a web or membrane, and its head and all its limbs arc formed and distinct. And somctimcs, when it has recently been emitted, it will be found to have motion of dilation and constriction when it is pricked with a needle, on account of which it is clearly known that this creature is animate; and it is found that its generative organs and eyes arc large in respect to its size, for this reason, because as yet, they arc not complete and united, but in the fluid matter there comes out the appearance and form of members: and a similar thing happens in the ease of other animals, as to the eyes and generative organs, before their full growth; for these members always have great size compared with the rest. But if what has been conceived is to be female, and through abortion has come out from the womb before three months, that is ninety days, the thing that has come immaturely will be found to have no form; but if it has entered the fourth month, or completed the third, then there will be found a female form; moreover, when it is complete, it is quickly filled out to the final form in which it is born, since a compact thing that is moist, will, after it begins to remain fixed, be formed and completed more quickly than one that is dry. While the little infant is in the womb, it holds its hands at its chin, Hippocrates said, and its head at its feet; neither is it possible to judge of the truth, nor will you see in wombs, whether the child keeps its head higher or lower; for the fetus, before its motion outward, in the case of natural birth, said Avicenna, undoubtedly is upright, that is, it is in a state of rest and stands or is in position above the feet; and its face is upright and is bent above its knees, and the palms of the hands arc supported on its knees and its nose is placed between both knees; and the eyes are above both knees and it certainly draws both knees to an anterior position; and the neck, with the back, is toward the anterior part of its mother; and its face lies inclined toward its mother’s back, defending, no doubt, by the hardness of the mother’s spine, the heart of the fetus from external injuries. The reasons for its position is: because then this position is more convenient for making a turn, that is to say, at the time of birth, above the head, since its egress is thus a better egress; then also because it occupies a smaller place, although there are those who say that this position is only that of the male; Avicenna, namely, said of the female the disposition is the rcits disposition is such, that is of the male; verse; yet this dictum is lacking in reason, but its position in the uterus is different from the position of the fetus of most others in the class of brutes. For every quadruped animal is placed stretched out in the womb on account of the length of the womb. But the animal that lacks feet lies along its side, as can be seen in the dolphin and whale and other fish that generate their like in the uterus. The biped animal, however, rests curved-in from the womb just as birds in the egg and man in the womb; that is, they rest in the womb curved inR-ard; because in this way the nose of the human being is between its knees and its eyes above its knees and the ears outside its knees when the human being is in the uterus. And this position is certainly for the purpose of some protection of the heart, Avicenna said in the case of animals; and this method is more suitable for protecting itself, that is to say, from injuries that might come to it from without. The fetus is attached to the womb, with the secundines as a connective, with the veins joined to its liver, but with the arteries that are in the seeundines connected with the heart; the covering of all of these is the umbilicus until they unite at the fetus of the mother. It also has some connection with the father and the parts of his body through the formative virtue derived from the father’s generative power which is in the seed and creative spirit.

CRUMMER

:

“ANATOMIA

INFANTIS”

OF

GARRIEL

DE

ZERBI

35:;

This, then, is the authoritative professional understanding of em.. bryology at the beginning of the sixteenth century. We scarcely realize today how quickly during the Renaissance, the “latest” theories $ere disseminated in the popular health books written in the vernacular for the benefit of the common people. Such a sequence or contrast may be shown by comparing de Zerbi’s opinions with a chapter on the same subject taken from a popular health compilation of an unknown author of almost the same date: 3i?a y& admwi, etc. Froschauer, Augsburg, ca. 1505. (Sudhoff No. 120.) This little tract printed in German is an early type of the pseudoscientific health books, and Chapter “E” may be translated as follows : ‘(How a child is at first in the mother’s belly/ In the first month, it is a blood clot; In the next month, it has the beginning of a belly/ In the third month, it has a belly/ In the fourth month, it receives a navel/ In the fifth month, it has something similar either to the father or to the mother/ so that one can see if it is a boy or a girl/ In the sixth month, it h&S vessels all over its belly just like a man should have/ In the seventh month, it has bones in its 1imbsJ IO the eighth month, these become stronger and stiffer/ And in IS month, nature separates it and promptly throws a well made child from darkness to the light of day.”

I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. J. A. Rice, Jr., Professor of Classic Languages, 1Jniversity of Nebraska, for his aid in the translation of de Zerbi. CITY

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