Discovering the Prostate: Notes on History and Historiography

The history of the long-unlabeled prostate refers to an aging story of the confrontation of Galen/Herophilos with early modern human anatomy. Attributions of discovery have been made ever since, with a supposedly pivotal role for Niccolò Massa's 1536 description of the organ. However, Massa did not credit anyone and also did not claim to be seeing something new, indeed few did for centuries after.

The historical event of Massa's nomination is revisited in light of the transmission and reception of Galen, especially via Avicenna.

Massa seemingly only reconfirmed Avicenna, who assimilated wisdom by Galen, whose transmission was otherwise imperfect. The subsequent discovery of the seminal vesicles was disputed and missed by Vesalius, but Guillaume Rondelet's work and piloting of this expression (vesiculae) was eventful, not least because it was nominated early on as a novum, and for the first time introduced a physiological as well as an anatomical distinction. Giovanni Filippo Ingrassia is among the first to have moved from anatomy in the direction of anatomical history at this point.

Notables in the modern history of the prostate were all historians: interpreters of past writings and authors of stories of discovery. Writing the prostate's biography requires recalling how such writing got underway in early modern medicine and has been ongoing ever since.