The Proceedings of the Charaka Club Volume 4

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 Excerpt: ...right and left Pars cerebelli. Olefactory organ; Coitus nervorum visiorarum; Nervus visorius; Pituitary body; Meatus and pelvis for Pituitary; Plexus retecularis or retemirabile about the Pituitary gland. It is difficult to say what new features of the brain were discovered and described by Vesalius. Probably no one knows. Daremberg says that Vesalius added little really new to anatomy and that his "Fabrica" was only a sort of second edition of Galen, "revised, corrected and much amended" and that many of his figures fail absolutely in correctness and that "such faults are not to be compensated for by beauty of design and engraving." However, Vesalius certainly enumerates eleven pair of nerves (missing only the fourth) while Galen described seven and, as indicated in the preceding list, he gave a systematic and practically correct description of the gross features of brain anatomy. The sixteenth century was one of intense individualistic activity in anatomical as well as medical and surgical lines. It was the century of Fracastorius, of Gerome Cardan, of Conrad Gesner "the modern Pliny," of Paracelsus and of Ambrose Pare. It was also the century in which many anatomists gained individual fame for their special contributions to myology, osteology, and the circulation. Columbus and Fallopius distinguished themselves at Padua after Vesalius left. Fallopius, we are told, described the cervical and lumbar swellings of the cord and gave in better detail the chorda tympani nerve and the fifth, eighth and ninth nerves. Servetus, the theologian, described the pulmonary circulation. Jacob Sylvius, teacher of Vesalius, described and got his name later attached to the aqueduct (but not the fissure) of Sylvius. Cesalpinus almost d...