Summary
First reading:
This book discusses the use of pictures in bloodletting controversy. In chapter 10 of this book, Vesalius used pictures to explore ancient anatomical knowledge. One of the famous pictures in this chapter is the title page in the start of the chapter. Vesalius introduces this chapter by explaining three medical practices of the ancient physicians. These ancient physicians concentrated in handling internal medicine and relegated the other duties. Physicians entrusted the practice of cutting to barbers and this made them to lose knowledge about this particular practice. People were subjected to do things that they have never done by committing to memory from other people’s books (Sachiko, 200). They displayed their duties by following instructions from the textbooks.
Vesalius is also depicted as one in charge of dissection. He dissects a woman who had tried to hang. He dissects the forearm of the woman and there, he is able to explain the structure of muscles. From the picture, he is able to show how tendons protrude from the muscles (Sachiko, 200). This act of holding the arm emphasizes that anatomy involves the use of hands. Theophilus is known for his work of urine and pulse, a text book of medicine. In Theophilus’ work, he showed how the body of a human being was more divine compared to any other mammal. It also regarded human body as God’s creation. In his books, he dealt with a number of body parts such as hands, arms, and feet. He also categorized the female and the male generative organs in one of his books. Vesalius’ signal of pointing to heaven indicates his Christianized work (Sachiko, 204). Many artists got involved in producing images in this book. Jan Stephan is one of the artists that got involved in creating some of the images (Sachiko, 206). He created an image showing Brauweiler an Italian Portrait. The images were placed in a way that sitters are able to show their wealth. This image is shown as Brauweiler is wearing a black overdress, black being a color of majority men at the age of 25 years.
This chapter was also associated with two drawings of Sacramento and Munich. The Sacramento drawing shows various collections of bones (Sachiko, 206). Seven bones are depicted I this chapter. There is a drawing of two jawbones that reflect the main point that Vesalius as always concerned about. Vesalius was always concerned about presenting human structure that can show parts very clearly. The lower jawbone gives a clear view of the curvature of the jaw line. There is also Crocker drawing that gives understanding of what Vesalius was aiming to achieve.
The other artist was known as Sebastiano Serlio who was famous in publishing pictorial classical architecture. Serlio constructed a wooden theatre similar to that shown in De fabrica (Sachiko, 209). De fabrica comprised of more than two hundred figures small and large. Each chapter of this book contains smaller decorative initials with scenes relating to surgery, dissection or procuring bodies. The author used different sizes and colors of decorative initials to stand for different levels of text breaks. The author directed readers to look at a muscle in various figures so as to be able to understand what is above and below it. While looking above and below these pictures, a reader is able to understand the depth of the body. The work features figures of small muscles and other parts of the body to explain in a more detailed manner to the reader. Once readers attain a general understanding of the interrelationship of muscles, they can be able to focus on other smaller parts of the body (Sachiko, 210). This chapter also explains how Vesalius offered two ways on how to approach the book, the Epitome. In his work, Vesalius stressed on the great power that is in pictorial representations over textual explanations. His pictures simplified the understanding of anatomy because they placed the subject more exactly in people’s eyes than clear words. Pictorial way of presenting a matter brings things clear to the eyes in such a way that no further explanation may be required. Additionally, Vesalius believed that a picture provides pleasure to those who cannot attend dissection.
Second reading: viruses, plagues and history
This chapter of the book stresses on small pox which is known of killing around 300 million people in the twentieth century. This plague killed many people compared to wars that have ever been experienced in that particular century (Michael, 27). This disease killed generals including kings and their enemies as well. Its virus lacks animal reservoir and its infection cannot be detected medically. The path of small pox leads to an acute disease that produces diverse skin lesions and on recovery, it leaves visible fingerprints, numerous pork marks on the faces off survivors. After ten to fourteen days of incubation, an infected subjected is followed by fever, headache and weakness, thereafter followed by distinctive rash (Michael, 28). When the rash appears, the patient no becomes infectious and the virus can easily spread through the air by the lesions. People in congested communities have higher chances of contracting smallpox virus compared to isolated communities.
Smallpox virus appeared during the establishment of agricultural settlements along the river basins. The first hint of smallpox was seen among the three Egyptian mummies. One of whom was Ramses who died of an acute illness. There was wide spread of smallpox from North Africa to Europe as a result of Islamic expansion between sixth and eighth century (Michael, 30). By the year 1000, this plague of smallpox was recorded in many areas of Japan, Spain and many African countries. By the sixteenth century, Europe recorded multiple outbreaks of smallpox in several of its cities including Geneva, London and Stockholm. This century was a time of exploration and smallpox was being spread across the oceans. European explorers who made discoveries in many continents came along with smallpox. The arrival of smallpox played a big role during colonialism and in America, smallpox destroyed many native Indian populations and it made colonization very easy (Michael, 32). The disease was able to spread from one community to another and it killed many people in those communities. During the time of exploration, as nations went to explore other nations, people contracted the disease and this increased on its rate of spread. On the other hand, other nations were defeated by other nations during colonization as a result of the plague. Smallpox killed both the poor and royal families for example king Hunyg of India died plus his elder son. While at war, many members of the troop died of smallpox and many bodies were observed lying on the streets without a proper method of collecting them. Smallpox killed half of the population in some communities.
Some traditional communities interpreted this as a punishment from the angry gods (Michael, 33). By eighteenth century, smallpox had become the most devastating disease in the world. The disease was also associated with the cases of blindness. The rich and poor were killed alike by this devastating disease; however, the rich started the use of makeup whereby they tried to look for a way of hiding their faces. The easiest time to contract smallpox was during war, for instance, during the war between France and England, commander in chief ordered for the supply of contaminated blankets to the Indian tribes and they contracted the disease. Many soldiers also came back with the disease whenever they went out for the battle (Michael, 27). It was also used as a weapon of war as it delayed some nations to make an attack on others. The introduction of vaccination became a remedy and some infected people were able to survive. In summary, smallpox is a severe disease that is observed through a skin rash with large vesicles that hold pus. The virus enters the body through mouth to nose. Once the virus enters the bloodstream, it enters to internal organs liver, lungs, spleen and lymph nodes. It thereafter manufactures large viral population after cycles of replication. It takes 12 days from the time of exposure to the time of incubation. At this point, the virus attacks the blood again hence terminating the incubation period making the infected person now feel ill (Michael, 35). This is the time when the patient will experience muscle pain, higher temperatures, vomiting headache and abdominal pain.
Work cited
Sachiko Kusukawa, Picturing the Book of Nature: Image, Text, and Argument in Sixteenth-Century Human Anatomy and Medical Botany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012)
Michael B.A. Oldstone, Viruses, Plagues, and History (New York: Oxford University, 1998).
