[Anatomia practica: features from the history of early patho-anatomy]

Since the anatomy school of Alexandria during the fourth og third century before Christ dissection of the human body seems not to have been practiced until late Medieval or early Renaissance period, undoubtedly due to ethical and religious aversions. The teaching of anatomy was based on Galen using animal dissection. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, anatomical examinations of the human body slowly began, seemingly for the purpose of describing both the normal structure and the abnormal structure caused by diseases, maldevelopment or trauma. This latter branch of anatomy was called practical, medical or correlative anatomy and corresponds to what we today name as patho-anatomy. Antonio Benivieni of Florence (1442-1502) is the first one to collect (and publish) a series of clinical observations some of which could be correlated to post mortem findings. It is unknown, however, whether the autopsies were performed by himself; and there is no mentioning of technique or circumstances for sectioning. Studies of the dead body by incision for the purpose of displaying diseased organs (autopsy) seem to have been an accepted practice for which relatives consented in those days. Other medical doctors in the years to follow, as for instance Fernel (1485-1558) in Paris, Eustachius (1524-1574) in Rome, Felix Plater (1536-1614) in Basle and Th. Bartholin (1616-1680) in Copenhagen have used the anatomical method for the study of diseases. Further, Schenck (1530-1598) in Freiburg and Bonet (1620-1689) in Genéva collected and published large series of clinical symptoms which had been related to post mortem findings dating back to ancient observers. This is the scientific background for anatomists as Morgagni, Lieutaud, Baillie, Bichât and others who founded the morbid anatomy on which the study of disease flourished in the classical patho-anatomical era of the nineteenth century with names as Rokitanski and Virchow.