Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1036

HEINRICH AUGUST WRISBERG (1739-1808) Descriptio anatomica embryonis. Sumtibus viduae A. Vandenhoeck 1764 [8] 80 pp., fold. plate. 22 cm.

Wrisberg, a well-known German anatomist, was a native of St. Andreasberg. He succeeded Johann Georg Roederer (1726-1763) as professor of obstetrics at Göttingen in 1764 and later became professor of anatomy at the University. A skilled and competent anatomist, Wrisberg did a great deal of research on the abdominal nerves. In addition, his name is eponymically associated with the cuneiform cartilages of the larynx, the ganglion of the superficial cardiac plexus, the posterior lateral meniscofemoral ligament, the set of filaments which connect the motor and sensory roots of the trigeminal nerve, the medial cutaneous nerve of the arm, and the nervus intermedius which arises from the geniculate ganglion and is the sensory component of the facial nerve. Wrisberg was an active author and wrote many books during his career. The present work on the gross anatomy of the fetus is one of his earliest publications; therein he presents his observations on five cases in which he was able to perform postmortem examinations on fetuses (in various stages of development) that had either been aborted or died with their mother. The folding plate depicts each of the fetuses described in the text.

Gift of John Martin, M.D.