The Emerging Practice of Human Dissection
Overview
According to many sources, human dissection was not allowed by the church, so any dissection performed was primarily on animals. Despite the informative works from authors such as Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), Historia Animalium, and Galen (A.D.130-200), On Anatomical Procedure, their experience was primarily with pigs, dogs, and Barbary apes. Two early practitioners that did use humans in their works are Herophilus of Chalcedon (335-280 B.C.) and Erasistratus (fl. c. 250 B.C.). Herophilus wrote On Anatomy where he described parts of the brain, the uterus, arteries, and veins. The only extant proof that he dissected a human is in his description of the liver. Erasistratus was another early dissector who was accused by two religious writers as having performed dissection procedures on the living, not the dead. Altogether, few accurate images of the interior of the body remained.
Background
One reason there was so much controversy surrounding dissections prior to the fourteenth century had to do with bans and prohibitions. Many sources state that dissection was prohibited by the church but more detailed research reveals information that helps to explain this statement.
At least three reasons for this misinterpretation existed. The first was the fear that mutilation of the body to great extents would result in an inability to be resurrected.
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