BOOK REVIEWS AND JOURNAL NOTES 627

HESELER, BALDASAR. Andreas Vesalius' First Public Anatomy at Bologna,

1540. Translation into English and notes by Ruben Eriksson. Upp-
sala, Almqvist & Wiksell, 1959. 343 p. $10.50.
On those rare occasions when a teacher sees the notes taken by his eager
students during one of his lectures, he is either baffled or plainly dis-
concerted. To consider the possibility that one's pedagogic performances
might become known to posterity via this medium could be a chilling
thought.
Few teachers have been as well served in this regard as is A. Vesalius in
the notes taken by Baldasar Heseler, a Silesian medical student who wit-
nessed his dissections in the winter of 1540 at Bologna. As edited and
translated by Ruben Erikkson, Heseler's eyewitness account provides an
interesting and vivid commentary on anatomy and its teaching in six-
teenth century Italy. It tells us much, too, of the intellects and person-
alities of Vesalius and of Matthaeus Curtius, whose lectures on the Anat-
omy of Mondino preceded Vesalius' demonstrations. Most of all, the
greatness of Vesalius as a teacher, whose influence in anatomy still pre-
vails, is here portrayed by a representative of that most mordant category
of critics-one of his own students.
There was some irony in the fact that Bologna was forced to call upon
a faculty member from a rival school to bolster its then declining for-
tunes. Then, as now, the visiting professor was an institutional device
hopefully applied as remedy for faculty torpor.
Vesalius was twenty-five and already well established as an anatomist,
teacher, and author. He was in his intellectual development between the
Tabulae anatomicae of 1538 and the incomparable Fabrica (1543). His
own knowledge of anatomy was deepening, and he was beginning to con-
cern himself with some of the errors in Galen. He was already insisting
on human dissection and direct observation as antidotes to the slavish
teaching of anatomy customary in the medical schools of the time.
When set side by side, as they are in Heseler's account, Curtius' lectures
and Vesalius' demonstrations seem almost contrived to epitomize the con-
ceptional revolution in anatomy, as well as in art and philosophy, which
was coming to its culmination at that time. Curtius' lectures, though re-
garded highly by his contemporaries, are, to be truthful, dull and lengthy
concoctions of anatomical detail, philosophic speculations on the origin
of organs, and crude notions of pathophysiology. His chief aim was a
sturdy defense of Galen against the presumed distortions of Mondino.
There are occasional bits of surprisingly accurate information, such as
an appreciation of the relationship of biliary tract stones to jaundice or
of the function of diaphragm and abdominal muscles in defecation. Never-
theless, the insecure theoretical foundations of medical practice at the
time are amply revealed.
628 BOOK REVIEWS AND JOURNAL NOTES

We should not be too harsh with Curtius, for he well reflected the spirit
of contemporary medical thinking. Whenever it has few verifiable data,
medicine is especially prone to the fructification of fanciful notions.
The students often "ran" from these lectures to Vesalius' demonstra-
tions. Heseler does not say whether they acted from relief, anticipation,
or sheer adolescent spirit. The actual dissections were performed by
candle light in the church of San Francesco before an audience of two to
three hundred. Here Vesalius demonstrated and enlarged upon the points
made by Curtius.
Heseler's admiration for his teacher's dissecting ability is clear, as it is
for his teaching methods. Vesalius usually started with a brief lecture fol-
lowed by a review of the osteology of the part to be dissected. He em-
ployed an articulated skeleton and emphasized the close relation of
structure and function. Vesalius sketched frequently in charcoal on the
dissecting table and used fresh animal preparations to illustrate points
not easily seen on the rapidly decomposing cadaver. Throughout, he en-
joined upon his students the necessity of dissecting for themselves and of
relying on observation rather than texts.
Such an attitude of mind was bound to come into conflict with the
traditionalist views of Curtius. Disagreement flared into open conflict at
several points. In the very first demonstration Curtius interrupted Vesalius
to insist that he confine himself to the subject of the lectures. Vesalius
himself did not shun controversy. He devoted his eighteenth demonstra-
tion to a forcible presentation of his own views on the anatomy of the
azygos vein and its relation to the raging contemporary controversy on
the preferred site of venesection in pleurisy. This was so counter to
Curtius' opinion that he devoted the whole of the twenty-third and part
of the twenty-fourth lectures to refuting the upstart theory. In the twenty-
second demonstration Vesalius in high dudgeon insisted that Curtius
view the azygos veins with him, but he made little apparent impression
on that learned gentleman.
Erikkson produces Heseler's text with only a minimum of changes,
designed for clarity and the convenience of the reader. Even Heseler's
marginalia are reproduced. The notes on the Latin text are excellent, as
is the bibliography.
This book will prove absorbing to anyone interested in the period and
in the history of anatomy. It is a valuable source for the content and the
methods of teaching anatomy. The sense of intimacy and immediacy of
these notes will make them especially attractive. There are amusing side-
lights on the activities of medical students at Bologna and Heseler's per-
sonal reaction to Curtius and Vesalius.
Vesalius' final position in the great constellation of anatomists of the
 BOOK REVIEWS AND JOURNAL NOTES 629
sixteenth century is still a matter of some discussion. Daremberg calls
him a mere copyist of Galen; William Ivins, Jr., considers his fame ex-
aggerated, since in his opinion the illustrations are the heart of the
Fabrica, and they are the work of another man; Roth, Singer, and Cushing
think him the greatest of anatomists.
Whichever view one holds, these notes of Heseler should establish for
all time that Vesalius was a great teacher of anatomy, supremely skilled
in dissection, and the possessor of a highly developed pedagogic tech-
nique. His insistence on observation, human dissection, and demonstra-
tion undoubtedly served the cause of anatomy as well as any original ob-
servation he might have made. After him, the teaching of anatomy was
forever changed, and for this accomplishment alone he truly deserves
Singer's designation as the "Reformer of Anatomy."
E. D. PELLEGRINO, M.D.
Lexington, Kentucky

SELYE, HANS AND PRIORESCHI, PLINIO. Symbolic Shorthand System (SSS)

for Physiology and Medicine. 3d ed. Montreal, Acta, Inc., 1960. 265 p.
Dr. Hans Selye, world renowned endocrinologist, is a major contributor
to the medical literature. Author of more than 700 scientific papers as
well as textbooks, monographs, and at least one "popular" volume, he
has been keenly aware of the problems posed by the "literature explo-
sion." Unlike others who merely deplore the sad state of medical bibliog-
raphy, he and his staff have done something about it. The present volume
represents the latest version of his unique system for codifying the litera-
ture on endocrinology and stress. Since the stress concept embraces prac-
tically all areas of medical science, the SSS is applicable to medicine in
general.
The first fifty-six pages of the mimeographed, paperback volume of 265
pages consists of an introduction and procedure manual. Here, the au-
thors briefly review classification problems in medicine and then proceed
to explain the fundamentals of their system and how it has been success-
fully employed for the development of an "index-in-depth" to some
400,000 documents which comprise the collection of the Institut de Med-
ecine et de Chirurgie Experimentales, at the Universit6 de Montreal. This,
in other words, is a system that really works as an indispensable tool for
the input and retrieval of medical information.
The "Shorthand" is based upon self-evident symbols, using a terminol-
ogy which transcends language barriers. Thus, "Hep" represents the liver
in general and "R," the kidney. It follows that "Hep-duct" must represent
the hepatic or bile duct, while "R-glm" is the symbol for renal glomeruli.
Interrelations between symbols, such as the familiar "effect upon," are