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The Middle Ages:

A miniature showing the administration of medicine to a horse via the nose. From Juan Alvares de Salamiella’s Libro de Menescalcia, a mid 14th century manuscript illustrating horse care and one of the first Spanish works of veterinary medicine.

From the same manuscript, the veterinarian (albeytar) on the left is pointing to a seton placed in a fistula while his assistant restrains the horse with a nasal twitch.

The Middle Ages saw few advances in pathology, despite the major advances of the Arab world in pharmacy and surgery.

A page from an Italian copy of the Kitab al-Qanum (Canon of Medicine), the encyclopaedic opus on medical knowledge compiled by the Persian Ibn Sina (known in the West as Avicenna)

Frederick II (1194-1250), crusader, Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the University of Naples, was the first to legally authorise human dissection.

Dissection of diseased human cadavers became a regular part of university teaching at Bologna, Italy in the mid 13th century.

Necropsy scene from the 14th century. Bodleian Library.

For most Europeans, however, dissecting a corpse was regarded as a desecration. No doubt they were influenced by Pope Boniface VIII’s Bull, De Sepulturis, of 1300 which pronounced in response to a common practice amongst crusaders:

“ Persons cutting up bodies of the dead and barbarously cooking them, in order to separate the bones from the flesh for transportation and burial in their own country, are by that act excommunicated.”

It was not until 1556 that theologians concluded that “the dissection of human corpses serves a useful purpose, and is therefore permissible to Christians of the Catholic Church”.

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Back to Prac Classes

The Middle Ages:

A miniature showing the administration of medicine to a horse via the nose. From Juan Alvares de Salamiella’s Libro de Menescalcia, a mid 14th century manuscript illustrating horse care and one of the first Spanish works of veterinary medicine.

From the same manuscript, the veterinarian (albeytar) on the left is pointing to a seton placed in a fistula while his assistant restrains the horse with a nasal twitch.

The Middle Ages saw few advances in pathology, despite the major advances of the Arab world in pharmacy and surgery.

A page from an Italian copy of the Kitab al-Qanum (Canon of Medicine), the encyclopaedic opus on medical knowledge compiled by the Persian Ibn Sina (known in the West as Avicenna)

Frederick II (1194-1250), crusader, Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the University of Naples, was the first to legally authorise human dissection.

Dissection of diseased human cadavers became a regular part of university teaching at Bologna, Italy in the mid 13th century.

Necropsy scene from the 14th century. Bodleian Library.

For most Europeans, however, dissecting a corpse was regarded as a desecration. No doubt they were influenced by Pope Boniface VIII’s Bull, De Sepulturis, of 1300 which pronounced in response to a common practice amongst crusaders:

“ Persons cutting up bodies of the dead and barbarously cooking them, in order to separate the bones from the flesh for transportation and burial in their own country, are by that act excommunicated.”

It was not until 1556 that theologians concluded that “the dissection of human corpses serves a useful purpose, and is therefore permissible to Christians of the Catholic Church”.