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“It could be Seen more Clearly in Unreasonable Animals than in Humans”: The Representation of the Rete Mirabile in Early Modern Anatomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2012

Sebastian Pranghofer
Sebastian Pranghofer
Affiliation:
*Sebastian Pranghofer, MA, Centre for the History of Medicine and Disease, Durham University, Queen’s Campus, University Boulevard, Stockton-on-Tees, TS17 6BH, UK; e-mail: sebastian.pranghofer@durham.ac.uk
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Medical History , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 561 - 586
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Copyright © The Author(s) 2009. Published by Cambridge University Press

References

1 Takeshi Mikami, Akira Takahashi, and Kiyohiro Houkin, ‘Cartoid rete mirabile associated with subarachnoid hemorrhage’, Neurol. Med. Chir., 2005, 45: 201–4.

2 John M Forrester, ‘The marvellous network and the history of enquiry into its function’, J. Hist. Med. Allied Sci., 2002, 57: 198–217, p. 209.

3 Throughout the text the terms “rete mirabile” and “wonderful net” will be used synonymously.

4 Berengario da Carpi, A short introduction to anatomy (Isagogae brevis), transl. L R Lind, University of Chicago Press, 1959 (1st ed., Latin, 1522), p. 147; Edwin Clarke and C D O’Malley, The human brain and the spinal cord: a historical study illustrated by writings from antiquity to the twentieth century, 2nd ed., San Francisco, Norman Publishing, 1996, pp. 764–7.

5 For a critical appraisal of this view, see Andrew Cunningham, The anatomical renaissance: the resurrection of the anatomical projects of the ancients, Aldershot, Scolar Press, 1997, pp. 88–142.

6 For the older literature, see, for example, C D O’Malley, Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514–1564, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1964, pp. 178–9. For a more recent account, see Andrew Wear, ‘Medicine in early modern Europe, 1500–1700’, in Lawrence I Conrad, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton, Roy Porter, and Andrew Wear, The western medical tradition: 800 bcto ad1800, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 279–80.

7 Forrester, op. cit., note 2 above.

8 On the rhetoric of early modern scientific images, see Sachiko Kusukawa, ‘The uses of pictures in the formation of learned knowledge: the cases of Leonhard Fuchs and Andreas Vesalius’, in Sachiko Kusukawa and Ian MacLean (eds), Transmitting knowledge: words, images, and instruments in early modern Europe, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 73–96. The descriptive-empirical nature of seventeenth-century Dutch art is discussed in Svetlana Alpers, The art of describing: Dutch art in the seventeenth century, London, Penguin Books, 1983. New methods of standardizing visual representations in the eighteenth century are the topic of Barbara M Stafford, Body criticism: imaging the unseen in Enlightenment art and medicine, Cambridge, MA, and London, MIT Press, 1991.

9 Galen on the usefulness of the parts of the body: De usu partium, transl. from the Greek by Margaret Tallmadge May, 2 vols, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1968, vol. 1, pp. 430–1.

10 Ibid., p. 432.

11 Ibid. For a detailed account of Galen’s complex concept of pneumatic elaboration and the physiology of the rete mirabile, see Julius Rocca, Galen on the brain: anatomical knowledge and physiological speculation in the second century ad, Leiden, Brill, 2003, pp. 208–19.

12 Ibid., pp. 249–53.

13 Forrester, op. cit., note 2 above, p. 204.

14 Magnus Hundt, Antropologium de hominis dignitate, natura, et proprietatibus, de elementis, partibus et membris humani corporis, Leipzig, Wolfgang Stöckel [printer], 1501, fol. 2v; Johann Dryander, Anatomiae, hoc est, corporis humani dissectionis pars prior, in qua singula quae ad caput spectant recensentur membra, atque singulae partes, singulis suis ad vivum commodissime expressis figuris, deliniantur, Marburg, Eucharius Ceruicorus, 1537, fols 14r, 28r, with the index on fol. 27v. The illustration from Hundt’s Antropologium is reproduced in Edwin Clarke, Kenneth Dewhurst, An illustrated history of brain function: imaging the brain from antiquity to the present, 2nd ed., San Francisco, Norman Publishing, 1996, Figure 32, p. 28.

15 Andreas Vesalius, Tabulae anatomicae sex: six anatomical tables of Andreas Vesalius, London, privately printed for Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, 1874 (1st ed. 1538).

16 According to Baldasar Heseler’s minutes of Vesalius’s anatomical demonstrations at Bologna in 1540, Vesalius demonstrated the rete mirabile in the head of a sheep during his fifteenth demonstration and in a human head during his twenty-fifth demonstration. Baldasar Heseler, Andreas Vesalius’ first public anatomy at Bologna: an eyewitness report by Baldasar Heseler, ed. Ruben Erikson, Uppsala and Stockholm, Almqvist and Wiksells, 1959, pp. 221, 289.

17 “... mirabilis plexus reticularis”. Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica libri septem, Basel, Johannes Oporinus, 1543, p. 642. If not indicated otherwise the translations are mine.

18 Ibid., pp. 642–3.

19 On Vesalius’s use of images as part of an argument, see Kusukawa, op. cit., note 8 above, pp. 87–9.

20 Juan Valverde, Anatome corporis humani, Venice, Juntarius, 1589 (1st ed., Italian, 1559), Tab. II, Lib. V, Fig. XVII, p. 255.

21 Forrester, op. cit., note 2 above, p. 208. Laurentius, Bauhin and Riolan held chairs for anatomy at the universities of Montpellier, Basel and Paris, respectively. Andreas Laurentius was also probably the most successful author of anatomical handbooks in the first three decades of the seventeenth century. His Historia anatomica humani (1599) saw eleven editions between 1599 and 1628.

22 Jean Riolan, Anthropographia et osteologia, Paris, D Moreau, 1626, pp. 389–90; Jacques Dubois, In Hippocratis et Galeni physiologiae partem anatomicam isagoge, Basel, Jacob Derbilley, 1556, pp. 246–7; Niccolò Massa, Anatomiae liber introductorius, in quo quamplurimae partes, actiones, atque utilitates humani corporis, nunc primum manifestantur: quae a ceteris tam veteribus, quam recentioribus hucusque praetermissa fuerant, Venice, J Zilletus, 1559, p. 85.

23 Andreas Laurentius, Historia anatomica humani corporis et singularium eius partis multis controversiis & observationibus novis illustrata, Frankfurt/Main, I Mettayer [printer], 1600 (1st ed. 1599), p. 391. The rete mirabile is illustrated in figure XVII on p. 209.

24 Vivian Nutton, ‘Representation and memory in renaissance anatomical illustration’, in Fabrizio Meroi and Claudio Pogliano (eds), Immagini per conoscere: dal rinascimento alla rivoluzione scientifica, Florence, L S Olschki, 2001, pp. 61–80, on pp. 76–8.

25 Laurentius, op. cit, note 23 above, p. 209; Caspar Bauhin: Theatrum anatomicum, Frankfurt/Main, Matthaeus Becker, 1605, Lib. III, Tab. XI, Fig. XIV p. 560.

26 On Vesalius’s visual paradigm in general, see Kusukawa, op. cit., note 8 above. On the different and controversially debated modes and concepts for an appropriate visual representation of the anatomical body, especially in the eighteenth century, see James Elkins, ‘Two conceptions of the human form: Bernhard Siegfried Albinus and Andreas Vesalius’, Artibus et Historiae, 1986, 7 (14): 91–106; Stafford, op. cit., note 8 above, pp. 108–18; Katja Regenspurger and Patrick Heinstein, ‘Justus Christian Loders Tabulae anatomicae (1794–1803). Anatomische Illustrationen zwischen wissenschaftlichem, künstlerischem und merkantilem Anspruch’, Medizinhist. J., 2004, 38: 245–84, pp. 256–9.

27 Vesalius’s design of his anatomical illustrations also intended to provide naturalistic representations of the human body. They were thought to help those who were not able to attend dissections on a regular basis themselves. Vesalius, op. cit., note 17 above, fols 3v–4r.

28 Ludwig Choulant, History and bibliography of anatomic illustration in its relation to anatomic science and the graphic arts, trans. and ed. Mortimer Frank, University of Chicago Press, [1920], p. 255.

29 Adriaan van der Spiegel, ‘De humani corporis fabrica’, Adriaan van der Spiegel, Opera omnia quae extant, Tomus I, Amsterdam, Johannes Blaeu, 1645 (1st ed. 1627), Lib. X, Tab. X, p. 195.

30 Adriaan van der Spiegel, De humani corporis fabrica libri decem, tabulis XCIIX aeri incisis … nec ante hac visis exornati … opus posthumum, Venice, Deuchinus, 1627, p. 317.

31 Johann Vesling, Syntagma Anatomicum. Locis plurimis actum, emendatum, novisque iconibus diligenter exornatum, Padua, P Frambotti, 1647 (1st ed. 1641), Tab. III, Cap. XIV, Fig. III.

32 “… wiewohl solches [the rete mirabile] in etlichen unvernünftigen Thieren klärer alß in dem Menschen zu sehen.” Johann Vesling, Künstliche Zerlegung Menschlichen Leibes, Lateinisch geschrieben, und mit vielen schönen Figuren gezieret …, Leiden, Wyngaerden, 1652 (1st ed. Latin 1641), p. 132.

33 Ibid., p. 128.

34 Ibid., p. 132.

35 Nicolaus Steno, Lecture on the anatomy of the brain, ed. Gustav Scherz, Copenhagen, A Busck, 1965 (1st ed., French, 1669), p. VII.

36 G Stern, ‘Introduction: Niels Stensen’s Discourse’, ibid., pp. 61–103, on pp. 74–7.

37 William Bynum argued that the “anatomical method” was the predominant method of anatomical/physiological research until the early nineteenth century and was also used by Thomas Willis. William F Bynum, ‘The anatomical method, natural theology, and the function of the brain’, Isis, 1972, 64: 444–68, p. 446.

38 Steno, op. cit., note 35 above, pp. 7–9. On Steno’s method, see also Adolf Faller, ‘Die Präparation der weißen Substanz des Gehirns bei Stensen, Willis und Vieussens’, Gesnerus, 1982, 39: 171–93, pp. 176–80.

39 Wepfer’s research was methodologically rigid and based on accurate observation. He adopted a similar approach in his work on toxicology. Andreas-Holger Maehle, Johann Jakob Wepfer (1620–1695) als Toxikologe, Aarau, Sauerländer, 1987, p. 127.

40 Regarding the innovative character of Wepfer’s work, see Clarke and O’Malley, op. cit., note 4 above, pp. 769–75. Clarke and O’Malley credited Wepfer with providing the final proof that the rete mirabile was absent in man (p. 769) and also underlined his contributions to the anatomy of the brain by giving the hitherto most accurate account of the cerebral vascular system (p. 771). On Wepfer’s anatomy in general, see Henry Nigst, Das anatomische Werk Johann Jakob Wepfers (1620–1695), Aarau, H R Sauerländer, 1947.

41 On the use of commentaries in early modern anatomy, see Roger K French, ‘Berengario da Carpi and the use of commentary in anatomical teaching’, in Andrew Wear, Roger K French and Iain M Lonie (eds), The medical renaissance of the sixteenth century, Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 42–74, and, more recently, Rafael Mandressi, ‘Métamorphoses du commentaire: projets éditoriaux et formation du savoir anatomique au XVIe siècle’, Gesnerus, 2005, 62: 165–85.

42 Johann Jakob Wepfer, Observationes anatomicae, ex cadaveribus eorum, quos sustulit apoplexia: cum exercitatione de eius loco affecto, Schaffhausen, Alexander Rieding, 1675 (1st ed. 1658), pp. 20–1.

43 “Ubi rami, scilicet carotidis, coentus & intertexti, Rete mirabile arteriosum constituent.” Ibid., p. 26.

44 Ibid., pp. 26–9.

45 Ibid., p. 52.

46 Ibid., pp. 50–2.

47 A Karenberg, ‘Johann Jakob Wepfers Buch über die Apoplexie (1658). Kritische Anmerkungen zu einem Klassiker der Neurologie’, Nervenarzt, 1998, 69: 93–8, p. 95.

48 Thomas Willis, The anatomy of the brain and nerves, facsimile of the 1681 English edition, ed. William Feindel, Birmingham, AL, Classics of Medicine Library, 1978 (1st ed., Latin, 1664), p. 57.

49 Ibid., p. 84.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid., p. 85.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid., p. 86.

55 Ibid.

56 Raymond de Vieussens, Neurographia universalis: Hoc est, omnium corporis humani nervorum, simul & cerebri, medullaque spinalis descriptio anatomica, Leiden, Johannes Certe, 1685 (1st ed. 1684), pp. 46, 48. On Vieussens’ Cartesian background and experimental research in general, see C E Kellett, ‘The life and work of Raymond Vieussens’, Annals of Medical History, 3rd series, 1942, 4: 31–54.

57 Henry Ridley, The anatomy of the brain: containing its mechanism and physiology; together with some new discoveries … of ancient and modern authors upon that subject, London, Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, 1695, p. 64.

58 Ibid., pp. 64–5.

59 “In homine vero exiliis & obscurior est.” (“In humans, however, it is thin and obscure.”), Ysbrand van Diemerbroeck, Anatome corporis humani, plurimis novis inventis instructa variisque observationibus, et paradoxis, cùm medicis, tùm physiologicis adornata, Geneva, Samuel de Tournes, 1679 (1st ed. 1672), p. 529.

60 Ibid., pp. 529–30.

61 Philippus Verheyen, Anatomie, oder Zerlegung des menschlichen Leibes …, Königsberg and Leipzig, Christoph Gottfried Eckart, 1739 (1st ed., Latin, 1693), pp. 502–3.

62 Stephan Blankaart, Reformierte Anatomie oder Zerlegung des menschlichen Leibes, Leipzig, Moritz Georg Weidmann, 1691 (1st ed., Dutch, 1678), pp. 212–14.

63 Blankaart, for example, described an experiment to demonstrate the structure of the rete mirabile in relation to the plexus retiformis by injecting wax or ink. Ibid., pp. 216–17. A general account of the history of the use of injections in anatomical research can be found in F J Cole, ‘The history of anatomical injections’, Stud. Hist. Method Sci., 1921, 2: 1285–343; Adolf Faller, Die Entwicklung der makroskopisch-anatomischen Präparierkunst von Galen bis zur Neuzeit, Basel, S Karger, 1948. Faller observed that well into the seventeenth century the knife remained the prime tool for anatomical research (ibid., p. 54). However, the increasing use of injections for research into the vascular system during the second half of the seventeenth century resulted in new observations. This partly explains the ongoing controversies about the rete mirabile, since such observations demanded explanation: vascular ramifications at the base of the brain as a result of injections could either be identified as a rete mirabile or, because of their very different appearance from traditional accounts of the rete mirabile, be regarded as a proof that the wonderful net did not exist in certain species.

64 Andrew Cunningham, ‘The pen and the sword: recovering the disciplinary identity of physiology and anatomy before 1800: II, old anatomy – the sword’, Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. Biomed. Sci., 2003, 34C: 51–76, pp. 55–6.

65 Willis, op. cit., note 48, pp. 92–3.

66 The term “emblematic world view” was coined by William B Ashworth, who regarded the emblem as the key to Renaissance understanding of the world. The full meaning of an emblem could only be fully comprehended when all three parts, the image as well as the motto and the epigram, were considered. Accordingly, a true understanding of an object from the natural world could only be acquired through a comprehensive knowledge of its meanings. William Ashworth, ‘Natural history and the emblematic world view’, in David C Lindberg and Robert S Westman (eds), Reappraisals of the scientific revolution, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 303–32.

67 Alpers, op. cit., note 8 above, pp. xxiv–xxv. Hal Cook recently showed how such a new form of objectivity, which was characterized by detailed and exact description of the material world, emerged and situated it within the socio-cultural and economic context of the Dutch Golden Age. See Harold J Cook, Matters of exchange: commerce, medicine, and science in the Dutch Golden Age, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2007.

68 James Keill, The anatomy of the humane body abridge’d …, London, Ralph Smith and William Davies, 1703 (1st ed. 1698), p. 144.

69 James Drake, Anthropologia nova; or, a new system of anatomy: describing the animal oeconomy, and a short rationale of many distempers incident to human bodies …, 2 vols, London, Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, 1707, vol. 2, p. 394.

70 Ibid., pp. 394–6.

71 Ibid., p. 491.

72 Heister’s work, especially his surgical work and his correspondence with colleagues and patients, has recently received increased attention from medical historians such as Marion Ruisinger, Patientenwege: die Konsiliarkorrespondenz Lorenz Heisters (1683–1758) in der Trew-Sammlung Erlangen, Stuttgart, Franz Steiner, 2008 (see bibliography for further references). However, Heister’s anatomical investigations have so far received little attention.

73 Lorenz Heister, A compendium of anatomy, London, Thomas Combes and James Lacy, 1721 (1st ed., Latin, 1717), p. 211.

74 That Heister revised his account of the rete mirabile (although never denied its existence in human beings) in later editions of his Compendium anatomicum was unusual. In the anatomical handbooks of other authors, such as Vesling, Blankaart, Diemerbroeck and Keill, the passages on the wonderful net remained unchanged in the last editions published during their lifetimes (Vesling, Syntagma anatomicum, Padua, 1647; Diemerbroeck, Anatome corporis humani, Geneva, 1674; Blankaart, Anatomia reformata, Leiden, 1695; Keill, Anatomy, London, 1718).

75 “… der ehemals dieses Nez mit Worten und Kupferstichen angezeiget hat, izo daselbe unter die mährlein zählet”. Lorenz Heister, Compendium anatomicum …, Nürnberg, Johann P Krauß, 1771 (1st ed., Latin, 1717), p. 315. Ruysch alluded in his later work to the “fables about the rete mirabile in the human head” (“fabulae de reti mirabile in capite humano”). He used them to exemplify the danger of using animal cadavers in anatomy and transferring the results to human bodies. See Frederik Ruysch, ‘Adversariorum anatomico-medico-chirurgicorum. Decas secunda. In qua varia notatu digna recensentur’, idem, Opera omnia anatomico- physico-chirurgica, Amsterdam, Jansson-Waesberg, 1720, p. 45.

76 Frederik Ruysch, ‘Epistola anatomica problematica duodecima, authore Mich. Ernesto Ettmullero, M. D. &c. ad virum clarissimum Fredericium Ruyschium, Med. Doc. Anatomiae & Botanices Professorem, de cerberi corticali substantia, &c.’ (1st ed 1699), in idem, Opera omnia anatomico-physico-chirurgica, Amsterdam, Jansson-Waesberg, 1721, Tab. 13.

77 Alexander Monro primus, An essay on comparative anatomy, London, J Nourse, 1775 (1st ed. 1744), p. 63.

78 Ibid., pp. 63–5.

79 Alexander Monro secundus, Observations on the structure and functions of the nervous system, Edinburgh, William Creech; and London, Joseph Johnson, 1783, p. 2 and ibid., table I.

80 Ibid., caption for table I.

81 Albrecht von Haller, ‘Iconum Anatomicarum. Quibus alique partes corporis humani delineatae traduntur. Fasciculus VII. Arteriae cerebri, Medullae spinalis, Oculi’, 1754, in idem, Iconum anatomicarum partium corporis humani, Göttingen, Abraham Vandenhoeck, 1743–1756, p. 3.

82 John Bell, The anatomy of the human body, 2 vols, Edinburgh and London, Cadell and Davies, 1797, vol. 2, p. 337.

83 Johann Gottfried Herder, Outlines of a philosophy of the history of man, London, J Johnson, 1800 (1st ed., German, 1784–1791), p. 80. On the Europe-wide contemporary reception and influence of Herder’s Outlines, see Wolfgang Pross, ‘Nachwort: “Natur” und “Geschichte” in Herders Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte’, in Johann Gottfried Herder, Werke, Band 3.1: Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit, Munich, Hanser, 2002, pp. 883–1041, on pp. 1021–41.

84 The history of the rete mirabile in comparative anatomy is discussed in Forrester, op. cit., note 2 above. He follows the research on the structure and function of the rete mirabile until the 1960s. By this time a new concept had been established, namely that the function of the rete mirabile in animals was not to regulate the blood flow into the brain, but to regulate the temperature of the blood in the brain. Ibid., pp. 210–16.

85 Samuel Thomas Soemmering, Vom Baue des menschlichen Körpers, part 1, Knochenlehre, Frankfurt/Main, Varrentrapp und Wenner, 1791, pp. xxiv–xxv.

86 Soemmering described the vascular system in Samuel Thomas Soemmering, Vom Baue des menschlichen Körpers, part 3, Gefäßlehre, Frankfurt/Main, Varrentrapp und Werner, 1792. The anatomy of the brain, however, was treated in idem, Vom Baue des menschlichen Körpers, part 5, Hirn- und Nervenlehre, Frankfurt/Main, Varrentrapp und Werner, 1791.

87 Ibid., p. 159.

88 Ibid., pp. 106–12, 163–8.

89 C G de Gutiérrez-Mahoney, M M Schechter, ‘The myth of the rete mirabile in man’, Neuroradiology, 1972, 4: 141–58, pp. 153–5.

90 Ibid, p. 157.

91 Ibid., and Mikami, Takabashi and Houkin, op. cit., note 1 above.

92 Cunningham, op. cit., note 64 above, p. 55.

93 Harold J Cook, ‘The new philosophy and medicine in seventeenth-century England’, in Lindberg and Westmann (eds), op. cit., note 66 above, pp. 397–436; Roger French and Andrew Wear (eds), The medical revolution of the seventeenth century, Cambridge University Press, 1989; Karl E Rothschuh, Konzepte der Medizin in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, Stuttgart, Hippokrates Verlag, 1978, pp. 164–70, on empiricism in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century medicine, and pp. 228–40, on iatromechanism in seventeenth-century medicine. On anatomy and the Cartesian “new philosophy”, see Roger French, Dissection and vivisection in the European Renaissance, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1999, pp. 253–73.

94 Steno, op. cit., note 35, pp. 144–5.

95 Lorraine Daston, Peter Galison, ‘The image of objectivity’, Representations, 1992, 40: 81–128, pp. 84–95.

96 David Gugerli and Barbara Orland, ‘Einleitung’, in idem (eds), Ganz normale Bilder. Historische Beiträge zur visuellen Herstellung von Selbstverständlichkeit, Zürich, Chronos, 2002, pp. 9–16, on p. 11. Gugerli and Orland defined “very normal images” in modern sciences as images, which had become self-evident and whose meaning was obvious and doubtless within a scientific discourse.

97 Andrew Cunningham, ‘The pen and the sword: recovering the disciplinary identity of physiology and anatomy before 1800: I, old physiology – the pen’, Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. Biomed. Sci., 2002, 33C: 631–65, and idem, op. cit., note 64 above. In German-speaking countries, for example, only from the late eighteenth century were journals published which reflected the development of a disciplinary division, e.g., the Magazin für die pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie, Altona, 1796, or the more successful Archiv für die Physiologie, Halle/Saale, 1796–1815. For the institutional establishment of the new disciplines at universities in the German territories, Austria and Switzerland since the early nineteenth century, see Hans-Heinz Eulner, Die Entwicklung der medizinischen Spezialfächer an den Universitäten des deutschen Sprachgebietes, Stuttgart, Ferdinand Enke, 1970, pp. 31–65.