APPENDIX VII. THE ALLEGED VIVISECTION OF MEN IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. THE charge of vivisecting human beings, brought against some of the great anatomists of the sixteenth century, has been recently revived for controversial purposes, and it may therefore be worth while to examine the evidence upon which it is based. The accusation is made against three men, Berengar of Carpi, Vesalius, and Fallopius, in particular, and against the anatomists of the University of Pisa in general. Later writers assert The origin and refuin the preface to his In the treatise De Morbo Gallico, attributed to Fallopius, it is said that Berengar of Carpi so hated the Spaniards that he shut up two of them, suffering from that disorder, intending to dissect them alive, for which thing he was expelled (from Bologna) and died at Ferrara (vivos anatomicis administrationibus destinaverit, qua de re profligatus Ferrariæ obiit). that he actually vivisected two Spaniards. tation of this charge may probably be found Commentary on the Anatomy of Mondino. He begins by saying that his book is founded on observations both of the dead and the living, but he afterwards explains that by "the living" he means only patients whom he has treated surgically “for in our time we do not dissect the living, though much more might be learnt from them than from the dead, did we not desist from such a work because of its cruelty". The story is rejected by all modern historians (see Haeser, ii. 25). The charge against Vesalius was made by his bitter enemies, the Galenists Dulaurent (1599) and Riolan (1624), more than a generation after his death, and the only instance they adduce is the famous case of the Spanish nobleman whom he dissected in the belief that he was dead; a story, which though not without some contemporary evidence, is, to say the least, extremely doubtful. Fallopius is, or is believed to be, his own accuser. The following is from his De Tumoribus, cap. 14. "Fever resists 'cold' poisons, as I found at Pisa while anatomising a man. For the prince commands them to give us a man, whom we kill VIVISECTION OF MEN. 411 in our fashion, and anatomise. To whom we gave two drachms of opium, and an attack of ague coming on (for he suffered from a quartan) prevented its action. He, delighted, requested a second dose, and that we should intercede for his pardon, if he survived it. We gave him another two drachms, when he had no attack, and he died." This is repeated in much the same language in his treatise on compound medicines, where, however, the dose is said to have been one instead of two drachms, and another criminal is mentioned who died seven hours after receiving one drachm. Both these treatises, however, were published after the death of their author, and are known to have been much corrupted. Even should we admit the truth of all three of the above charges, there would still be no proof of deliberate vivisection, at least, so far as contemporary evidence is concerned. On the contrary, they would show that even the intention to vivisect human beings met with an immediate penalty, and that an unintentional vivisector would have been punished with death, had not his sentence been commuted to a pilgrimage by the powerful intercession of Philip II. In the case of Fallopius, we may regret that so amiable a man should have undertaken the office of an executioner, but there is a considerable difference between dissecting a criminal alive, and substituting the action of opium for some probably much more painful form of death. The accusation against the Pisan anatomists is more serious, though, curiously enough, it is made not by contemporary writers, but by a jurist, Alphonso Andreozzi, more than three centuries after the supposed events. In a work, On the Penal Laws of the Ancient Chinese, the author remarks that, though Chinese punishments are often very atrocious, they may be paralleled by mediæval enactments, which, among other things, countenanced human vivisection. To support this he gives thirteen cases from the Florentine criminal archives, in which condemned prisoners are said to have been sent to Pisa for anatomical purposes. The following are the two first of these slightly condensed: "15th January, 1545. A woman, Santa, who had suffocated her two infants was condemned to be beheaded. Under the sentence is written: Dicta Santa, de mente Excellmi. Pisis ut de ea per doctores fieret notomia '." Ducis, fuit missa "17th December, 1547, Giulio Sanese, condemned to death, is to be taken to Pisa to be anatomised (ducatur Pisis pro faciendo de eo notomia).” The other cases are very similar; a criminal is sent to Pisa to the commissario, "who gave her as usual to the anatomist to make anatomy, as was done"; another was to have been sent to the commissario, and by him consigned to the anatomist "in what manner he chose, and at his good pleasure” (in quel modo che lo chiederà, e a suo beneplacito), but he was afterwards hanged instead. The series ends with the year 1570. In no case is there any notice of the execution of the criminals sent to Pisa, whence Andreozzi concludes that they were not executed at all, but vivisected by the anatomists. There seem, however, to be other ways of explaining the above extracts, for though we may admit that some of them have, at first sight, a very suspicious appearance, they nowhere assert that such vivisection actually happened. Here is the decree of Duke Cosmo de Medici under which all this took place. "The inspection of the hidden parts of the human body is very useful and necessary to those who wish to attain the perfect art of healing. Wherefore, with a view to the benefit of the whole human race, we decree that the rector shall to the best of his ability provide every year, in winter time, two dead bodies (cadavera) for anatomy, one male and the other female, if they can conveniently be got, if not, at least one. And that this may be done more easily, we ordain that it shall be the duty of the commissario of Pisa, to consign to the rector the said dead bodies of any condemned criminals, according to all his requirement (ad omnem ejus requisitionem). But if there be no such criminal at Pisa in the anatomy season, then let the rector write to the " Eight" at Florence, to the end that the said cadavers may be conveniently procured. Provided always that no anatomy shall be done on the body of any citizen of Florence or Pisa, or of a doctor or scholar, unless with permission of their relations. Two students shall be elected, who have studied arts and medicine in some university for at least four years, and, if possible, have already seen anatomies. They shall preside over the dissection, provide everything necessary and confer with the rector and consiliarii as to the fees to be paid. None shall be admitted but matriculated scholars and doctors of one of our colleges. The rector and all M.D's. of the college, to VIVISECTION OF MEN. 413 gether with four poor scholars chosen by the rector and consiliarii, shall be admitted free." This edict seems to have been published about the end of 1544, and the resemblance of its terms to those of Andreozzi's extracts is obvious. The most noticeable point is that it asserts three times over that the dead body (cadaver) not the living criminal, is to be given to the university authorities. Now, there were two objects which the anatomists had specially in view first, to get their subjects as fresh as possible, and, secondly, that the mode of execution should not injure any of the bodily structures. These were very good reasons why criminals condemned at Florence, should be sent alive to Pisa, and that they should be executed there in the manner recommended by the anatomists (in quel modo che lo chiederà), and the absence of any notice of such executions in the Florentine archives may be quite as well explained thus, as in the way suggested by Andreozzi. We may go further and say that the former is far the more probable solution. During the period 1545-70 the chief teachers of anatomy at Pisa were (besides Fallopius) Realdus Columbus, and Vidus Vidius, both of whom express their utter abhorrence of human vivisection. According to the former, the criminality and impiety of such a practice could not fail to be obvious to a Christian physician (quod nefas atque impium Christiano medico non videri not posset. De re Anat., 14, published 1559). Vidus Vidius, who was head of the medical faculty at Pisa for twenty years (154969), and physician to Duke Cosmo himself, is still more emphatic, and declares in language evidently based on that of Celsus that "it is too horrible, too inhumane, too cruel, to incise the members, and internal parts of living men, and to convert an art which is for the protection of mankind to the injury of any one, and that a most horrible injury, especially when the matters so sought after can be found in animals, which nature has, moreover, produced for the use of man" (De Anat., i. 6.) Is it probable—I will not say that the above should have been written by men who were themselves notorious vivisectors of their fellows, for that is obviously absurd-that two Pisan professors should have so expressed themselves, if human vivisection had been regularly practised there, under the special sanction and encouragement of their own patron and benefactor, Cosmo de Medici? This may suffice to show that Andreozzi's inference, so far from being "be yond question," is, to say the least, very improbable; but we have still stronger evidence, which may possibly convince even those whose opinions on the matter are somewhat prejudiced. In 1545 Realdus Columbus was professor of anatomy at Pisa, and in the sixth book of his De re Anatomica he tells us that his researches on the uterine veins were made on the body of a woman whom he dissected in the public theatre before a great company of students and doctors: "Her name was Sancta, but should have been Demonica, for she had recently borne twins, which wretched infants she killed by suffocation, and was therefore condemned by just judges to be suffocated herself". In the first book he observes that : "A supernumerary rib was present in the body of a woman called Sancta, whom I dissected publicly in the theatre at Pisa, and afterwards made into a skeleton, now in the possession of my friend Bart. Stratensis, professor of medicine at Bologna. When it was on view, I remember that some idiota were ready to swear that that was the rib which women have more than men ; but men and women have an equal number of ribs." We learn from his pupil Valverda that this dissection took place in 1545. The matter is as plain as possible, Sancta is the Latinised form of Andreozzi's Santa, who, instead of being beheaded at Florence, was suffocated at Pisa by the judicial authorities. Columbus, knowing nothing of the original sentence, naturally concluded that this was the mode of death to which she had been condemned. Such alterations of the death sentence, to suit the convenience of the anatomists, had been made in earlier times. Thus the edict of King John I. of Aragon, in favour of the university of Lerida (1391), provides that once in three years a convicted criminal "notwithstanding any mode or form of death to which he may have been condemned for his crimes, shall, nevertheless, openly in the presence of all who wish to see him die, be judicially submerged in water by our appointed officers, till he is utterly suffocated". This, though repugnant to our modern ideas, was probably favourable for the criminals, for the average mediæval modes of execution were decidedly more painful than drowning. To sum up: the condemned criminals sent to Pisa were usually executed there by the legal officers, probably by drowning or suffocation; there is strong, but not undoubted, evidence that |