Anatomy

Anatomy is the study of the structure of the body.

HISTORY

Herophilos of Chalcedon (335–280 BC) is regarded as the founder of anatomy. He was the first scientist to systematically perform scientific dissections of human cadavers. He recorded his findings in over nine works, which are now all lost. 

In the 2nd century Galen of Pergamon produced an account of anatomy, which was the only source of anatomical knowledge until the 1540s.

During the Middle Ages, universities in the Arab world ensured the tradition of Ancient Greek medicine continued and in the 13th century the first Islamic medical schools opened in Turkey. The study of anatomy, however, was bound by Islamic doctrine, which forbids dissection of the human body. Therefore Arab surgeons had to rely on the Greek texts for anatomical descriptions.

Michelangelo was intrigued by anatomy and when he became an artist, he kept corpses in his studio which he peeled and probed. Michelangelo made many anatomical sketches using colored chalk and water in order to master anatomy. The sculptor was accused of performing dissections on living people as part of his anatomical studies. 

Michelangelo Anatomical Studies of a Leg

When Johannes Guinter, a professor of medicine at the University of Paris, translated Galen’s On Anatomical Procedures into Latin in 1531. the Greek physician was still acknowledged by the church to be the world’s only official authority on human anatomy. To query Galen’s authority on anatomy was an act of heresy punishable by death. This was in spite of the fact Galen gleaned his knowledge from dissecting dogs, goats and pigs rather than the human body. 

 

The Flemish court physician to the emperor Charles V, Andreas Versalius published in 1543 his masterwork, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Structure of the Human Body). The author based his work on the numerous dissections he had undertaken over the last few years, despite the practice being thought contentious. In the book he gave the first truly accurate account of the human body, and created a new atmosphere of inquiry, which helped induce a shift in strategy in medicine from superstition into a scientific discipline.

Anatomical chart in Vesalius's Epitome, 1543

Gray's Anatomy is the standard medical text book used by virtually every student doctor and nurse. Thomas Gray published the first edition of Anatomy in 1858, which covered 750 pages and contained 363 figures.

HUMAN ANATOMY FACTS

The only part of the human body that has no blood supply is the cornea of the eye. It receives oxygen directly from the air.

Laid end to end, an adult's blood vessels could circle the Earth's equator four times.

The structure of the human body contains only four minerals: apatite, aragonite, calcite, and crystobalite.

More than half of your bones are located in the feet, ankles, hands and wrists,

Like fingerprints, every person has a unique tongue print.

By the age of eighteen your brain stops growing. From that age forward it begins to lose more than 1,000 brain cells every day.

There are virtually no differences in brain anatomy between people with autism and those without.

The average person's scalp  has between 100,000 and 150,000 strands of hair (the entire adult body has 5 million)

Belly buttons grow special hairs to catch lint.

ANIMAL ANATOMY FACTS

An elephant trunk has around 100,000 muscles and tendons.

The giraffe's heart is huge; it weighs twenty-five pounds, is two feet long, and has walls up to three inches thick. 

Horses have bigger eyes than any other mammal that lives on land.

Horses eye by Waugsberg 

A manatee has the smallest brain of all mammals in relation to its body.

The African ostrich is the only two-toed bird (most other birds have three or four toes.) The adaptation to two toes is a running advantage.

Penguins have the highest feather density of any bird, at about 100 feathers per square inch.

An octopus consists of just a head and tentacles. Therefore his stomach etc are in his head.