World of Anatomy and Physiology on Raymond Vieussens
Vieussens advanced the understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the brain, heart, nervous system, and circulatory system. Many anatomical features in these systems are named after him, such as Vieussens' centrum (the white oval core of each hemisphere of the brain); Vieussens' valve (a sheet of thin white tissue in the brain); Vieussens' ventricle (one of the fluid-filled spaces in the brain); Vieussens' ansa (a loop in the ganglia around the subclavian artery); Vieussens' ganglion (a network of nerves between the aorta and the stomach); Vieussens' anulus, isthmus, or limbus (a ring of muscle in the right atrium of the heart); Vieussens' foramina (tiny openings in the veins of the right atrium of the heart); and Vieussens' veins (small veins on the surface of the heart).
Vieussens was born perhaps as late as 1641, the son of François Vieussens, a townsman of Vigan, France. After receiving his medical degree from the University of Montpellier in 1670, he became chief physician at Hôtel Dieu St.-Eloi, the main hospital in Montpellier. Although very scholarly, he never held a university appointment. His relations with the Montpellier faculty were soured by his long, bitter, public quarrel with Montpellier Professor Pierre Chirac (1650-1732) about which of the two had first discovered an acidic salt in the blood. Ironically, both Vieussens' and Chirac's results were incorrect.
In the late 1670s Vieussens married Elisabeth Peyret, with whom he ultimately had twelve children. Two of his sons and two of his sons-in-law became physicians. Dividing his career between Montpellier and Paris, Vieussens was favored by the French aristocracy and became rich through their patronage. He was the personal physician of the Marquis de Castries, the Archbishop of Toulouse, and the Duchess of Montpensier. He was named "Royal Physician" in 1688 and "State Councillor" in 1707, even though King Louis XIV was not his patient.
Thomas Willis (1621-1675) and Nicolaus Steno (1638-1686) were the two main influences on Vieussens's study of anatomy, especially cerebral anatomy. Although he was a careful, observant, and generally accurate anatomist, Vieussens sometimes allowed dubious contemporary metaphysical speculation to influence his work in physiology. The dualistic iatromechanics of René Descartes (1596-1650) and the mystical iatrochemistry of Franciscus de le Boe Sylvius (1614-1672) shaped his views of bodily processes, rendering his contributions to physiology less valuable than his contributions to anatomy.
Beautifully executed copperplate illustrations make Vieussens' major work, Neurographia universalis (General neurography, 1684), second in importance only to Willis' Cerebri anatome (Anatomy of the brain, 1664) among seventeenth-century books on neuroanatomy. Neurographia universalis contains the first precise description of the centrum ovale. This structure is still sometimes called Vieussens' centrum, but because Félix Vicq d'Azyr (1748-1794) achieved a more refined understanding of it, it is more often called the centrum semiovale or Vicq d'Azyr's centrum.
Vieussens' classic of cardiology, Novum vasorum corporis humani systema (New system of the vessels of the human body, 1705), includes the earliest correct descriptions of the left ventricle and some of the coronary blood vessels, as well as mitral stenosis, aortic insufficiency, aortic regurgitation, and several other heart diseases and circulatory disorders. On related topics he wrote Epistola de sanguinis humani (A letter about human blood, 1698); Deux dissertations (Two dissertations, 1698), both about blood; Traité nouveau des liqueurs du corps humain (New treatise on human body fluids, 1715); and Traité nouveau de la structure et des causes du mouvement naturel du coeur (New treatise on the structure of the heart and the causes of its natural motion, 1715).
His other books include Tractatus duo [Treatise on two subjects] (1688), which first discusses anatomy, then fermentation; Dissertatio anatomica de structura et usu uteri ac placentae muliebris (Anatomical dissertation on the structure and use of the uterus and placenta in women, 1712); and Traité nouveau de la structure de l'oreille (New treatise on the structure of the ear, 1714).
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