A GLIMPSE OF OUR PAST

Johann Vesling (1598–1649):Seventeenth Century Anatomist of Padua and His

Syntagma AnatomicumSANJIB KUMAR GHOSH*

Department of Anatomy, ESI-PGIMSR & ESIC Medical College, Joka, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Johann Vesling (1598–1649) was a German anatomist and surgeon whobelonged to the golden period of the illustrious University of Padua. He madesignificant contributions to the advancement of anatomical knowledge duringthe 17th century and is remembered most for his remarkable anatomical work,the Syntagma Anatomicum, which was published in 1641. He was the first todescribe the soleus muscle and to emphasize its resemblance to the sole fish.He produced the earliest illustrations of the human lymphatic system and wasone of the first to document observations about the thoracic duct. He was alsothe first to report the bifurcation of the human hepatic portal vein on enteringthe fissure of the liver. His observations from embryological experiments werecritical for understanding the development of the four-chambered heart. Hewas one of the first authors to state that four pulmonary veins empty into theleft atrium of the heart. Syntagma Anatomicum (1641) was the most widelyused anatomical text in Europe for almost a century and was republished anumber of times with editions in Latin, German, Dutch, and English. Syntagmawas the first illustrated western anatomical text to reach Japan and laid thefoundation for the development of European medicine there. The illustrationsused in it deviated from the artistic convention that had characterized anatomi-cal figures from the time of Vesalius, and focused instead on representing ana-tomical details to make them helpful for medicine and surgery. Clin. Anat.27:1122–1127, 2014. VC 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Key words: Syntagma Anatomicum; Padua; rete mirabile; ossiculum quartum;anatomical illustration

EARLY LIFE AND CAREER

Johann Vesling (1598–1649), who is mostly knownby his Latinized name Johannes Veslingius, was a Ger-man anatomist and surgeon (Fig. 1). He was born in aCatholic family in Minden, Westphalia (Nordsiek,1999). During his youth his family fled to Vienna,probably to escape religious persecution (Hintzsche,1976). A few documents suggest that Veslingius stud-ied medicine in Vienna, but there is no authentic evi-dence for this (Van Helden, 2004). However, theavailable literature establishes that Veslingius enrolledas a medical student at the University of Leiden in theNetherlands in November 1619 (Pagel, 1895; Nord-siek, 1999). He had an interest in botany (which hepursued throughout his life); and as advised by Ever-

hardius Vorstius (1565–1624), his teacher in Leiden,he moved to the University of Bologna, Italy (La Cava,1948), one of the main centers of botanical knowl-edge in Europe from the early part of the 16th century(Grendler, 2002). In Bologna, he was influenced byhis teacher, Fabrizio Bartoletti (1576–1630), whoinstilled in him an enthusiasm for anatomy and

*Correspondence to: Sanjib Kumar Ghosh, Department of Anat-omy, ESI-PGIMSR & ESIC Medical College, Joka, Kolkata700104, West Bengal, India. E-mail: drsanjib79@gmail.com

Received 24 May 2014; Revised 14 July 2014; Accepted 22 July2014

Published online 14 August 2014 in Wiley Online Library(wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/ca.22454

VVC 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Clinical Anatomy 27:1122–1127 (2014)

surgery (La Cava, 1948). Apparently, Veslingius didnot receive a degree from either Leiden or Bolognaand he moved to Venice, where he obtained his doc-toral degree in medicine (La Cava, 1948). He wasappointed as instructor in anatomy in the medical col-lege of Venice in 1627 (Castiglioni, 1937). In the win-ter of 1627/1628, he performed an anatomicaldemonstration in the presence of Venetian physiciansthat earned him the right to practice medicine in thecity (La Cava, 1948). He also gave public lectures onanatomy in Venice. His teaching was so highlyesteemed that even students from the University ofPadua, the most prominent university in Europe in thefield of medicine during that period, came to hear him(Hirsch, 1888; Taylor, 2009). However, his popularityas both physician and teacher did not go down wellwith Pompeo Caimo (1568–1631), a former professorof theoretical medicine and lecturer of anatomy in theUniversity of Padua who was practicing medicine inVenice at that time (Hintzsche, 1976). Subsequently,in order to protect the much older Paduan professorfrom competition by his younger colleague, the

Venetian government refused to reimburse Veslingiusfor the expenses he incurred in conducting his ana-tomical demonstrations (Hintzsche, 1976). Moreover,in an attempt to drive him from Venice, Veslingiuswas directed to serve as physician to Alvise Cornaro,a high profile Venetian statesman, when Cornaro wasappointed state representative in Cairo. Veslingiusand Cornaro left for Egypt at the beginning of August1628 (Porzionato et al., 2012).

STAY IN EGYPT

Veslingius studied the local flora in Egypt with greatinterest (Saccardo, 1895) and subsequently docu-mented his observations in his most important botani-cal work, De plantis aegyptiis observationes et notaead Prosperum Alpinum (Vesling, 1638). During hisstay in Egypt, he studied the development of the chickembryo in artificially hatched eggs (Cole, 1944; Adel-man, 1966). The findings related to embryology andcomparative anatomy documented in his papers andletters were published posthumously by Thomas Bar-tholin (1616–1680), his pupil in Padua, as Observa-tiones anatomicae et epistolae medicae (Vesling andBartholin, 1664). On his visit to Jerusalem with Cor-naro, Veslingius was made a Knight of the Order ofthe Holy Sepulcher (Fletcher, 2011). He wasappointed professor of anatomy and surgery in theUniversity of Padua on December 1632 (Hintzsche,1976). His stay in Egypt proved beneficial for Veslin-gius as he escaped the epidemic of plague that devas-tated northern Italy between 1629 and 1631 (Cipolla,1981). Moreover, association with Cornaro as his per-sonal physician could have been decisive for Veslin-gius’ appointment at Padua, where universityappointments were invariably associated with statepatronage in those days (Nordsiek, 1999).

AS PROFESSOR IN PADUA

Veslingius returned from Egypt and assumedcharge as professor of anatomy and surgery in Paduaat the beginning of 1633 (Hintzsche, 1976). He was avery able teacher and complemented his lectures withdrawings he prepared himself. These illustrations werelater included in his anatomical masterpiece, Syn-tagma Anatomicum (La Cava, 1948). In 1638, he wasappointed to the chair of botany in Padua (Porzionatoet al., 2012). He succeeded Alpino Alpini (died 1637),the son of the great Venetian botanist Prospero Alpini(1553–1617) (Saccardo, 1985). Veslingius took thisopportunity to revive his interest in botany; he ceasedto lecture on surgery but retained the chair of anat-omy (Porzionato et al., 2012). In the same year, hepublished his treatise on botany, De plantis aegyptiis.The text included the findings from his study of plantsbeginning from his stay in Egypt. He also documentedthe pharmacological uses of the flora he studied. Mostof the materials in the text were additions to the find-ings of Prospero Alpini (Vesling, 1638) but in manycases Veslingius’ observations were more accuratethan Alpini’s. Moreover, the illustrations used in

Fig. 1. A portrait of Johann Vesling from his anatomi-cal masterpiece, Syntagma Anatomicum. The Latin wordsaround his portrait could be translated as “JohannesVeslingius Mindanus, Knight of Jerusalem, Primary Pro-fessor of Anatomy and Pharmacology of the School ofPadua.” The Latin words below the image could be trans-lated as “Veslingius flourishes by the art of Apollo, whohonors him by shining purple snow on his chest.”

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Veslingius’ text were better than those in Alpini’s work(Saccardo, 1895). In the final years of his life, Veslin-gius renovated the botanical garden in Padua. His con-nection with the garden entailed pharmacology andthis was in accordance with his lifelong interest in thestudy of medicinal plants (Castiglioni, 1937). Veslin-gius published his most remarkable work on anatomy,Syntagma Anatomicum publicis dissectionibus in audi-torium usum diligenter aptatum, in 1641 (Vesling,1641). It was the most successful anatomical text ofthe second half of the 17th century (Pranghofer,2009). The first edition was somewhat deficient inillustrations as it had only two copperplates. However,Veslingius republished Syntagma Anatomicum in 1647(Fig. 2), and in this edition his anatomical findingswere illustrated with 24 copperplates (Choulant,1920). In 1648, he was given a leave of absence fromPadua that allowed him to undertake a botanical expe-dition to Crete, a Greek island. He returned ill anddied soon afterward, on August 30, 1649 (Hintzsche,1976). In accordance with his wishes, he was buriedin the cloister of the church of Saint Anthony in Paduaand a funerary monument was erected inside theBasilica of Saint Anthony (Riva et al., 2010).

ANATOMICAL CONTRIBUTIONS

In his Syntagma Anatomicum, Veslingius describedanatomical structures exactly as they are seen at dis-section for the benefit of medical students (Riva et al.,2010). He was the first to describe the soleus muscle,the name of which derives from its resemblance tothe sole fish (Skinner, 1949). Veslingius described themuscle in Latin as “soleus, a figura piscis denomi-natus”, which in English means “Soleus, named for itsfish shape” (Vesling, 1641). The raphe scroti or scro-tal septum, a central line running over the scrotumfrom the anus to the root of the penis, was firstdescribed by Veslingius and is referred to as Vesling’sline (Porzionato et al., 2012). He produced the earliestillustrations of the lacteals and the human lymphaticsystem as a whole (Persaud, 1997; Ambrose, 2006).He also documented his observations on the thoracicduct in a letter to his pupil, Thomas Bartholin, in 1649(Vesling and Bartholin, 1664; Ambrose, 2006). Thethoracic duct was later described in detail by theFrench physician Jean Pecquet (1624–1674) in 1651(Loukas et al., 2011). Veslingius was the first to reportthe bifurcation of the human hepatic portal vein in1647, when he accurately illustrated the division ofthis vein into two main branches as it entered the fis-sure of the liver (Singer and Rabin, 2012). Prior tothis observation, the accepted belief was that the por-tal vein divided into five branches on arriving at thegate of the liver, as reported by Andreas Vesalius(1514–1564) (Singer and Rabin, 2012). Recently,anatomical detail related to the bifurcation of the por-tal vein has become critical for the successful place-ment of transjugular intrahepatic portosystemicshunts (Schultz et al., 1994). Veslingius detailed thedevelopment of the four-chambered heart on thebasis of his observations of chick embryos, under-taken during his stay in Egypt (Porzionato et al.,2012). He was one of the first authors to state thatfour pulmonary veins empty into the left atrium of theheart (Eimas, 1990). The cerebral vasculature at thebase of the brain was accurately illustrated by Veslin-gius in the 1647 edition of the Syntagma (Fig. 3);Iulius Casserius (1552–1616) had illustrated it previ-ously (published posthumously in 1627), but the workof Thomas Willis (1621–1675) came later, in 1664;today, the arterial circle of the brain is eponymouslylinked to Willis (Roberts and Tomlinson, 1992). How-ever, there is a difference of opinion among anato-mists as to whether the anterior communicatingartery was correctly illustrated by Veslingius in thecopperplate describing the arterial circle at the base ofthe brain (Porzionato et al., 2012). In the same illus-tration, Veslingius detailed the presence of the retemirabile (Latin for wonderful net), represented asbranches of the internal carotid artery that spreadover the surface of the human brain (Pranghofer,2009) (Fig. 3). The rete mirabile was discovered byHerophilus (335–280 B.C.) but was first described byGalen (129–216/217 A.D.) in artiodactyls, which aresub-mammalian vertebrates (Uehara et al., 1978).Veslingius upheld the idea that it existed in man,although he admitted “it could be seen more clearly in

Fig. 2. The frontispiece of Syntagma Anatomicumfrom the edition published in 1647. The illustration repre-sents a public dissection by Veslingius in the old anatomi-cal theatre of Padua, built by Fabricius. [Color figure canbe viewed in the online issue, which is available atwileyonlinelibrary.com.]

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unreasoning animals than in humans” (Pranghofer,2009). The literature suggests that the carotid retemirabile is a physiological vascular network betweenthe external and internal carotid systems present insome vertebrate species, but rarely observed inhumans in the cavernous and paracavernous regions(Karasawa et al., 1997). In recent times, a few caseshave been reported that were either asymptomatic orpresented with hemorrhagic/ischemic symptoms, butthe overall prognosis appears to be good (Mikamiet al., 2005; Sahin et al., 2010; Aburto-Murrieta andDulce, 2011). Veslingius convincingly described thephysiology of the heart, the functioning of the lungs,and the circulation of the blood on the basis of hisfindings from embryological studies (Riva et al.,2010). His ideas were in accordance with the theoryof William Harvey (1578–1657) in this context, andVeslingius documented his acceptance of Harvey’stheory in one of his letters (Porzionato et al., 2012).Veslingius illustrated a round, very small structureattached to the side of the stapes capitulum (Fig. 4),which he described as the ossiculum quartum (fourthossicle) and the ossiculum parvum (small bone) (Ves-ling, 1651). This was first described by Pieter Paaw(1564–1617) in 1615 as a sesamoid bone that devel-ops within the stapedial tendon; it is now referred toas the ossicle of Paaw (Paaw, 1615). Paaw had

observed the ossicle in oxen (Graboyes et al., 2011),but Veslingius reported it in a human fetus (Vesling,1651). In accordance with the opinions of other prom-inent anatomists of the 17th century, Veslingiusacknowledged the presence of adrenal glands in theabdomen. He suggested that they “probably favor theevacuation of serous liquid and store the black bile,which acts as a ferment, promoting the secretion ofliquid from the blood.” However, by his own admis-sion, he was not sure about the use of the adrenals inthe human body (Carmichael, 1989).

POPULARITY OF SYNTAGMAANATOMICUM

Syntagma Anatomicum was the most widely usedanatomical text in Europe during the second half ofthe seventeenth and first half of the 18th centuries

Fig. 3. An illustration from Veslingius’s SyntagmaAnatomicum (edition of 1647; Tab. III, Cap. XIV, Fig. III)in which the cerebral vasculature at the base of the brainis displayed. The rete mirabile is indexed with the letter‘P’ in the image. Reproduced with permission fromPranghofer S, Med Hist, 2009, 53, 561–586, VC CambridgeUniversity Press.

Fig. 4. A depiction of the auditory ossicles in a humanfetus by Johann Vesling from chapter 8 of his 1651 editionof the Syntagma Anatomicum. He used the terms“ossiculum quartum” (fourth ossicle) and “ossiculumparvum” (small bone) to indicate a structure attached tothe side of the stapes capitulum (D). Reproduced withpermission from Graboyes et al., Otol Neurotol, 2011, 32,1185–1188, VCWolters Kluwer Health.

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(Castiglioni, 1941). It was republished a number oftimes with 16 editions in Latin, German, Dutch, andEnglish (Riva et al., 2010). Its popularity was not lim-ited to Europe; in 1741, a Dutch version of the Syn-tagma became the first illustrated western anatomicaltext to reach Japan (Ogawa, 1964; Murakami et al.,2007). The figures in Syntagma often served as mod-els for illustrating anatomy textbooks published later innorthern Europe (Choulant, 1920). One such text wasthe Anatomischen Tabellen by Johann Adam Kulmus(1689–1745), an anatomist from the free city of Dan-zig (Kulmus, 1722). Most of the illustrations used inKulmus’ work were taken from the Syntagma (Luyen-dijk-Elshout, 1991; Riva et al., 2006). The Japanesephysicians Ryotaku Maeno (1723–1803) and GenpakuSugita (1733–1817) managed to obtain a Dutch trans-lation of Kulmus’ book, entitled Ontleedkundige Tafe-len, and took the text to Japan in 1771 (Bowers,1970). Ontleedkundige was translated into Japaneseand was published as Kaitai Shinsho in Tokyo in 1774(Screech, 2005; Tubbs et al., 2009). Kaitai was thefirst western anatomical text published in Japan in Jap-anese (Bowers, 1970). The quality of its anatomicalillustrations (mostly from the Syntagma) ensured itspopularity and proved a pioneering step toward thedevelopment of European medicine in Japan (Chou-lant, 1920). The success of Syntagma could be attrib-uted to the simplicity and the diagrammatic nature ofthe illustrations used. Veslingius focused primarily onanatomical details in his illustrations, thus makingthem realistic and useful for medicine and surgery(Riva et al., 2010). He avoided the theatrical attitudesand ornate landscapes that had been prevalent in ana-tomical figures from the time of Vesalius (Roberts andTomlinson, 1992). Although he has been primarilycredited with the break from the Vesalian tradition ofanatomical illustrations characterized by grandiosehuman figures (prevalent in the Renaissance period),this trend was initiated by Fabricius ab Acquapendente(1533–1619), whose Tabulae Pictae (a masterpiece onanatomical illustrations) disappeared after his death(Riva et al., 2000; Smith, 2006). The influence of Fab-ricius on Veslingius is apparent from the praise for Fab-ricius in the preface of Syntagma (Riva et al., 2010).

CONTROVERSY RELATED TO THEPANCREATIC DUCT

Veslingius was accused of murdering Johann GeorgWirsung in August 1643, although he was eventuallyacquitted. Wirsung (1589–1643) was a medical stu-dent in Padua, where he performed the autopsiesbefore his mentor, Veslingius, presented the demon-stration lectures to the public in the anatomy theater(Howard and Hess, 2002). Wirsung has been creditedwith discovering the main pancreatic duct in 1642,which he illustrated in a copperplate (Howard et al.,1998). However, some authors have attributed thisdiscovery to Wirsung’s coworker Moritz Hoffman, Wir-sung being hailed for confirming and disclosing it(Giardiello et al., 2007). The discovery was of greatscientific value as it removed the pancreas from thelist of amorphous organs and placed it correctly

among the glands (Giardiello et al., 2007). Veslingiusalso described the pancreatic duct (Roberts and Tom-linson, 1992), but it is not clear whether he did sobefore or after Wirsung. Wirsung became well estab-lished after this discovery, and conflicts between himand Veslingius began to surface (Carter, 1998). Con-sequently, when Wirsung was assassinated 1 yearafter his great discovery, Veslingius was charged withthe crime on the grounds of academic jealousy.

CONCLUSION

Johann Vesling was undoubtedly one of the greatanatomists of the 17th century. His findings contributedsignificantly to the advancement of anatomical knowl-edge. He was the author of one of the most populartextbooks in the history of the subject. The illustrationsused in his text focused on anatomical details and heconsciously avoided the influence of artistic embellish-ments, which was a prevalent trend in those times. Theefforts of such anatomists were critical for the evolutionof anatomical sciences to the form familiar today.

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