[The thyroid gland in Anothomia Mundini (1316)]

Andreas Vesalius described the human thyroid lobes very distinctly in his De humani corporis fabrica in 1543 calling them glandulae laryngis. Before him Leonardo da Vinci had depicted the human thyroid gland in his anatomical drawings. The first publication which could be called a textbook of human anatomy, because it was used as the basis for cathedral teaching in human anatomy for about two centuries, was the Anothomia of Mundinus Liucius, Mondino de'Liuzzi, published in 1316. In the chapter on the blood vessels of the neck he describes two glands, which he calls amigdalae, situated under the longitudinal muscles and below the larynx. Their function should be 1) to wet the trachea; 2) to fill the grove below the larynx because the neck was broader above due to the large larynx but much slender below because of the narrower trachea. And 3): they should function as a shield for the deep arteries and veins. Later anatomists at the beginning of the 15th and the 16th century, like Achillini, Massa and Zerbus, all used the text of Mundinus but obviously they tried to locate the glands of Mundinus to the tonsils apparently only because he used the denomination amigdalae. Berengario da Carpi, however, who was a much experienced anatomist, published a large treatise Commentaria super Anothomia Mundini in which he confirms the location of the glands of Mundini below the larynx. Obviously the two glands in the neck Mundinus mentions are the two thyroid lobes. According to his description they cannot be the tonsils because 1) of their location below the larynx, and 2) their function of adequating the appearance of the neck and 3) shielding, at least to some extent, the deep vessels in the neck. Before Mundini there is no similar description of the anatomy of the human neck in the literature, so what he describes must he based upon his own experience. Furthermore, he did the autopsies himself and did not use the assistance of a prosector as the professors after him used to do.