Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1130

SAMUEL THOMAS VON SOEMMERRING (1755-1830) De basi encephali et originibus nervorum cranio egredientium. Prostat apud Abr. Vandenhoeck viduam [1778] [8] 184 pp., 4 (misnumbered 3) fold. plates. 25.1 cm.

Soemmerring, a German physician and anatomist, taught and practiced medicine at various cities and universities in Germany, but his chief fame rests on his series of incomparable anatomical atlases. "He aimed, like Albinus, at the discovery of the true and the beautiful in the form of every part of the human body and combined a perfect sense of artistic representation with the most exact perception of details. He endeavored, like Albinus, to have every part reproduced just as it exists in the living body, and not as it appeared after death from the treatment of the anatomist" (Choulant-Frank, p. 301). The present work is Soemmerring's doctoral dissertation on the origin and classification of the twelve cranial nerves. He believed that the cranial nerves had their origin in the ventricle walls and that the cerebrospinal fluid was the seat of the soul and the "sensorium commune" postulated by Prochaska (see No. 1085). He also described the topography of the cerebral hemispheres, the pineal gland, and the optic chiasma. The plates were drawn by Soemmerring and engraved by Carl Christian Glassbach, Jr. (fl. 1770). The first three plates represent the base of the brain and one is a duplicate outline plate. The final plate is a cross-section of a side view of the brain.

See Related Record(s): 1085

Cited references: Choulant-Frank, p. 304; Cushing S320; Garrison-Morton 1383; Waller 9044

Gift of John Martin, M.D.