Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Viscera and Bloodletting Man 1517 Attributed to Johannes Wechtlin, German, active c. 1506 - 1526. Written by Hans von Gersdorff, German, 1455 - 1529. Published by Johannes Schott, Strassburg. Hand-colored woodcut Currently not on view 1949-97-11b Purchased with the SmithKline Beckman Corporation Fund, 1949 |
LabelHans von Gersdorff's Feldtbuch der Wundartzney, a portable manual for military field surgeons, was first published in Strasbourg in 1517, with subsequent editions in 1528, 1535, and 1540. Whereas the skeleton sheet bears a text stating that its figure was copied from a sculptural relief on a bishop's tomb, the anatomy of Viscera and Bloodletting Man was drawn from observations of a dissection performed in Strasbourg on the body of a hanged criminal. The 1540 edition correctly depicts a three-lobed liver instead of the five-lobed one described by the second-century physician Claudius Galen, as well as showing the accurate placement of the lungs in the thoracic cavity. |
