Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 499

NATHANIEL HIGHMORE (1613-1685) Corporis humani disquisitio anatomica. Ex officina Samuelis Brown 1651 [13] 262 [8] pp., illus. 29 cm.

Highmore entered Oxford in 1631 where he received his B.A. and M.A. degrees before continuing in the study of medicine. By 1641, civil war was spreading across the country and, by 1642, King Charles I had retired to Oxford after the battle of Edgehill. In attendance with the King was William Harvey (see 416 ff.) with whom Highmore subsequently worked and studied. While at Oxford, the King ordered the university to award degrees to those who had rendered him wartime service. These were known as the "Caroline Creations" and Highmore received his Doctor of Medicine from the King in 1643, some two years before he would have received it under university regulations. It is not known what service Highmore rendered the King to receive this honor. Following his studies at Oxford, he eventually settled into regular practice at Sherborne in Dorset where he remained until his death. In spite of the demands of a busy practice, he still found time to write several books. The present treatise is the most noteworthy of his works and is the first English anatomy to give a full account of circulation with proper credit to Harvey. Highmore arranged the book in three sections providing coverage of the abdomen, thorax, and head. Although his account of the circulation is sound, he still reflects the physiology of an earlier period and bases his plates on those of Vesalius (see 280 ff.). However, it was in this book that he described the sinus maxillaris (Highmore's antrum) and the mediastinum testes (Highmore's body) that are so familiar to every medical student.

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 382; Russell 416; Waller 4456; Wellcome III, p. 263