Mondino de luzzi biography sample format

The Italian anatomist Mondino de' Luzzi ca.

History of anatomy pdf

The date and place of birth of Mondino de' Luzzi, as well as other aspects of his life and writings, have long been subjects of scholarly debate. Certain authorities claim that he was a native of Florence or Milan, but it seems likely that he was born in Bologna, where he lived during his boyhood, studied, and, during his adult years, taught and became famous.

Mondino, also known as Mundinus, whose name was probably a diminutive for Raimondo or Rimondo, registered at the College of Medicine of the University of Bologna in and also is known to have studied in the College of Philosophy. His academic ability is reflected in the fact that he had become a public lecturer at the university by and that he remained in that capacity until During the first decades of the 14th century, Bologna was world-renowned as a center for anatomical studies based on human dissection.

The first such recorded anatomical exploration occurred for medicolegal reasons at Bologna in , but it is generally believed that academic dissections had been carried out previously. In any event, Mondino reports that in January he conducted such a procedure on the body of a woman, affording him the opportunity to examine and study human uterine anatomy.

Before the end of the following year, Mondino completed his Anathomia.

Mondino de luzzi respiratory system

Despite its title, his treatise resembles less a modern anatomical textbook that describes structures in relation to the systems of the body than it does a dissecting manual. In the Anathomia, organs are discussed in the order they appeared to the dissector, and as preservatives were unknown, dissections were performed as rapidly as possible upon the most perishable parts of the body first.

Hence, Mondino's work deals with structures in the abdominal cavity initially, then with those of the thoracic cage, and finally with the head and the extremities. Professors who succeeded Mondino conducted anatomical demonstrations by reading statements, appropriate or not, from classical texts while an assistant actually performed the procedure, but Mondino has been commended for having dissected cadavers himself.

Evidence in the Anathomia of his firsthand experience is rare, however, and the work abounds with accounts of structures found not in the human body but only in authoritative writings. His descriptions of a five-lobed liver, a seven-celled uterus, and of three cardiac ventricles illustrate that often Mondino dissected in order to prove rather than to test the truth of statements in his sources.

These limitations notwithstanding, the Anathomia enjoyed considerable success and was acclaimed as a significant work even before Mondino's death.