Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 300

GIOVANNI BATTISTA CANANI (1515-1579) Musculorum humani corporis picturata disectio (Ferrara 1541?). Facsimile edition, annotated by Harvey Cushing & Edward C. Streeter. R. Lier 1925 98 pp., illus., facsims. 21 cm.

A native of Ferrara, Canani came from a distinguished medical family and developed into an anatomist at an early age. He was trained by Marcantonio della Torre, an associate of Leonardo da Vinci, and was Pope Julius IIIs personal physician until his death in 1555, after which he became chief physician at the University of Ferrara. He discovered the palmaris brevis muscle in the hand and was the first to describe the valves in the veins, a fact which he communicated to his contemporary, Vesalius. In 1541, he published a small volume of twenty leaves on the muscles of the arm and forearm. This was to be the initial book of a seven-book series on the anatomy of the human body that he planned to produce; however, it was the only book that was completed. It is thought that he felt his work was so overshadowed by Vesalius' Fabrica that he destroyed as many copies as he could recover. Nevertheless, as far as we know today, his illustrations are the first copperplate engravings to be used in medical illustration. Unfortunately, the engraver, Girolamo da Carpi (1501-1556), failed to solve many of the technical problems, and the plates leave much to be desired. Nonetheless, Canani's technique of picturing each muscle separately and showing its relationship to the bones was a new and unique approach to teaching anatomy. At the time this facsimile copy was printed, there were only eleven copies of the original known to be extant. This facsimile was made from Dr. Harvey Cushing's copy.

Cited references: Choulant-Frank, pp. 150-151 (1541 ed.); Cushing C56; Garrison-Morton 373 (1541 ed.); Waller 1746

Gift of John Martin, M.D.