̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - anatomy

Women in STEM: Dr Cecilia Brassett

sc604 — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 06:00:00 +0000

Cambridge is one of a small number of medical schools where anatomy is taught via hands-on cadaveric dissection. As the ̽��ֱ�� Clinical Anatomist, I am responsible for organising the anatomy teaching programme. This involves running the Human Dissection Room and the body donation programme. My goal is to ensure optimal use of our generous donors in both teaching and research, with a view to improving patient safety and helping students to develop into scholars, scientists and professionals.

After completing my medical training and working in general surgery, I studied field linguistics and worked among an ethnic minority group in China for a few years. I read medicine at Downing College as an undergraduate and later qualified as a general surgeon. During my surgical training, I also worked as an anatomy demonstrator in the Dissection Room in what was then the Department of Anatomy.

Dissection has been taking place in some of the Colleges since 1565. Our Anatomy School celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2016, and, following a successful bid for funding, we have installed state-of-the-art touchscreens and 3D imaging facilities in the Dissection Room, providing our students with a variety of different ways of learning. Our Human Anatomy Teaching Group has a close relationship with clinicians from Addenbrooke's Hospital, and this has been key to the continuing success of our junior anatomy demonstrating programme, as well as providing fertile ground for relevant anatomical research.

I am responsible for ensuring that there is a good demonstrator-to-student ratio and that the teaching resources for both lectures and practical sessions are up to date and clinically relevant. My role also involves meeting with clinicians to discuss future research projects on topographical anatomy; and there are always papers and dissertations to review at various times of the year. I spend time discussing potential research topics with our demonstrators and encourage them to give conference presentations on their research. As a Councillor of both the Anatomical Society and British Association of Clinical Anatomists, and an external examiner for two other universities, I attend a number of regular meetings outside of Cambridge. I also supervise a number of Part II projects, collaborating with clinicians at Addenbrooke's and other hospitals.

A key moment for me was reviving Part II projects in topographical anatomy for third-year medical students. This was one of my goals when I was appointed, and it has been very fulfilling to see how much students have enjoyed the projects, how they have learned research methods and been excited by novel discoveries, and especially to see how their work may have a significant impact on future clinical practice.

In 2017, ̽��ֱ��Secret Language of Anatomy was officially launched. This is an illustrated guide to the etymology of anatomical terms that I co-authored with two very able colleagues, a medical artist and a historian. This was an idea I have had for several years and it was very satisfying to see its fruition.

Scientific discovery in any field is immensely exciting. Never stop asking questions, and pursue higher degrees, especially those courses with a significant research component, to enable you to develop the ability to think and solve problems independently. Most of all, be humble and know that there is always something you can learn from everyone around you.

Dr Cecilia Brassett is the ̽��ֱ�� Clinical Anatomist and a Fellow of Magdalene College. Here, she tells us about teaching anatomy, which has been taking place at Cambridge for more than 300 years.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Blood and bodies: the messy meanings of a life-giving substance

amb206 — Thu, 03 May 2018 12:00:00 +0000

What is blood? Today we understand this precious fluid as essential to life. In medieval and early modern Europe, definitions of blood were almost too numerous to locate. Blood was simultaneously the red fluid in human veins, a humour governing temperament, a waste product, a cause of corruption, a source of life and a medical cure.

In 1628, William Harvey, physician to James I and alumnus of Gonville & Caius College, made a discovery that changed the course of medicine and science. As the result of careful observation, he deduced that blood circulated around the body. Harvey’s discovery not only changed the way blood was thought to relate to the heart but revolutionised early science by demanding that human physiology be examined through empirical observation rather than philosophical discourse.

This turning point, and its profound repercussions for ideas about blood, is one of many strands explored in Blood Matters: Studies of European Literature and Thought,. A collection of essays, edited by Bonnie Lander Johnson (English Faculty, Cambridge ̽��ֱ��) and Eleanor Decamp, it examines blood from a variety of literary, historical and philosophical perspectives.

“ ̽��ֱ��strength of the collection is that, in a series of themed headings, it brings together scholarship on blood to bridge the conventional boundaries between disciplines,” says Lander Johnson. “ ̽��ֱ��volume includes historical perspectives on practical uses of blood such as phlebotomy, butchery, alchemy and birth. Through literary approaches, it also examines metaphoric understandings of blood as wine, social class, sexual identity, family, and the self.”

Contributors include several Cambridge academics. Hester Lees-Jeffries (English Faculty) writes about bloodstains in Shakespeare (most notable, of course, in Macbeth) and early modern textile culture. Heather Webb (Modern and Medieval Languages) looks at medieval understandings of blood as a spirit that existed outside the body, binding people and communities together. Joe Moshenska (English Faculty) examines the classical literary trope of trees that bleed when their branches are broken.

“ ̽��ֱ��idea for the book came from my previous work on chastity. I was struck that early modern writing about the body is all about fluids, especially blood. Blood was perceived as the vehicle for humours, the essence of being and the spirit – and something that could flow between people,” says Lander Johnson.

“I became fascinated by the fact that we use this word all the time but we have no real sense of what we mean. Our predecessors used it even more frequently and yet there was no scholarship that could help me to begin to understand how many things blood meant for them. A conference at Oxford in 2014 brought together a group of people working in related fields. ̽��ֱ��book reflects the excitement of those three days.”

Definitions of blood in Western European medical writing during the period covered by the book are changeable and conflicting. “ ̽��ֱ��period’s many figurative uses of ‘blood’ are even more difficult to pin down. ̽��ֱ��term appeared in almost every sphere of life and thought and ran through discourses as significant as divine right theory, doctrinal and liturgical controversy, political reform, and family and institutional organisation,” says Lander Johnson.

“Blood, of course, was at the centre of the religious schism that split 16th-century society. ̽��ֱ��doctrinal dispute over transubstantiation caused ongoing disagreements over the degree to which the bread and wine taken during Mass were materially altered into the body and blood of Christ or merely symbolic.”

̽��ֱ��role of blood in sex and reproduction meant that it was routinely described as a force capable of both generation and corruption. Menstrual blood is a case in point. Menstruation was seen as a vital and purifying process, part of a natural cycle essential to human life. But menstrual blood and menstruating women were also thought to be corrupting.

In Shakespeare’s plays, blood makes many appearances, both spoken and staged, from bleeding wounds to the rebellious ‘high’ blood of youth. Lander Johnson examines Romeo and Juliet’s love affair in the light of early modern beliefs about weaning and sexual appetites.

“Writing about birth and infancy reveals that early moderns were as anxious about their children’s health as we are but for them the pressing questions were: should I breastfeed my baby myself or give it to a wet nurse? How and when should I wean it to food? What sort of food?” she says.

“ ̽��ֱ��wrong decision at this early stage of life could have a fatal outcome and was thought to not only form the child’s blood in either a healthy or corrupted state but also to shape the child’s moral appetites for the rest of their lives.”

Blood is synonymous with family and, in elite circles, with dynasty. Contributor Katharine Craik (Oxford Brookes ̽��ֱ��) explores character and social class through references to blood in Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V. In these plays about warfare and the relationships between royalty and common men, blood is often a substance that eliminates the differences between soldiers who die together in arms, their blood mingling in the dirt of the battlefield.

“Frequently these same descriptions turn into assertions of an essential difference between aristocratic and vulgar bloods,” says Lander Johnson. “Shakespeare is particularly inventive at building character through distinctions of this kind.”

In contrast, Ben Parsons (Leicester ̽��ֱ��) looks at blood and adolescence in the context of the medieval classroom where ‘too much blood’ was understood to cause wild and unruly behaviour. Medieval pedagogues were concerned about how the ‘full blood’ of students ought to be managed through the kind of material they were asked to read and when, the sort of food they ate while learning, and the style of punishment administered to those who were inattentive.

Blood Matters makes a valuable contribution to the history of the body and its place in literature and popular thought. It draws together scholarship that offers insight into both theory and practice during a period that saw the beginnings of empiricism and an overturning of the folklore that governed early medicine.

Today's scientists understand blood as a liquid comprising components essential to good health. But English remains a language peppered with references to blood that hint at our conflicted relationship with a liquid vital to human life.

A collection of essays explores understandings of a vital bodily fluid in the period 1400-1700. Its contributors offer insight into both theory and practice during a period that saw the start of empiricism and an overturning of the folklore that governed early medicine.

̽��ֱ��book brings together scholarship on blood to bridge the conventional boundaries between disciplines.

Bonnie Lander Johnson

'Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library (Keynes.D.2.7)

Detail from William Harvey's De motu cordis (experiment confirming direction of blood flow)

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Yes

What happens when you donate your body to medical education?

cjb250 — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 09:15:29 +0000

“I feel like I’m in a bit of a daze at the moment as to what just happened,” says Giri Nandakumar. “I have never seen a dead body before. ̽��ֱ��complexion, the expression of the face, the position they’re in, this was all quite new to me.”

Nandakumar is a first year medical student at Cambridge. He has been at the ̽��ֱ�� less than a week, and has barely had time to unpack his belongings and settle in before entering the dissection room and taking his first steps towards a career in medicine. While students in other disciplines are poring over textbooks or listening keenly to a lecture, he has come face-to-face with a tutor of a very different kind: a donated, dead body.

To read more and to find out about the history of anatomy teaching at Cambridge, please see your feature Body of work: the silent teacher helping students learn anatomy.

For over 450 years, students have been studying anatomy at Cambridge through whole body dissection. But students find that they learn far more than just the architecture of the human body during their classes.

Body of work: the silent teacher helping students learn anatomy

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Yes

Lines of Thought: Understanding Anatomy

sjr81 — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 16:54:37 +0000

Since March, some of the world’s most valuable books and manuscripts have been on display as Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library celebrates its 600th birthday with a once-in-a-lifetime free exhibition of its greatest treasures.

̽��ֱ��objects in Lines of Thought: Discoveries that Changed the World, which will close to the public on September 30, communicate 4,000 years of human thought through the Library’s unique and irreplaceable collections. More than 70 per cent of the exhibits are displayed to the public for the first time.

̽��ֱ��exhibition investigates through six distinct themes how Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library’s eight million books and manuscripts have transformed our understanding of life here on earth and our place among the stars.

In Understanding Anatomy, curator Anna Jones reflects on some of the different ways in which the anatomy of the body has been represented over time and for different purposes, both on the page and in 3D.

“For many people the stand-out object of Lines of Thought is Vesalius’ Epitome, published in Switzerland in 1543,” said Jones. “Vesalius specially commissioned for the work to promote his thesis that the practice of dissection was essential to the study of anatomy.

“ ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� Library’s copy of the Epitome is very special because it’s hand-coloured, probably for presentation to an important patron, and the colouring really brings out the detail in the different layers of the manikin.”

Dissection had been practised during ancient times by the great Roman physician Galen, but had fallen out of use as a teaching method in the west during the middle ages until it was revived during the European renaissance. Early 16th century English students commonly travelled to the great centres of medical education in Italy or France to benefit from the influence of Vesalius and others, and eventually the techniques they learnt there were adopted at home.

“In Lines of Thought we also have the earliest-known written record of a dissection in England,” added Jones. “ ̽��ֱ��book belonged to Thomas Lorkyn, who was Regius Professor of Physic in Cambridge. On 28 March, 1565, Lorkyn hosted one at Magdalene College, using the body of former criminal Richard or Ralph Tiple, recently hanged at Cambridge Castle just across the road.

“ ̽��ֱ��dissection was carried out by a professional surgeon from London, while Lorkyn, the ‘instructor’, read out from a book – quite possibly the one on display here – and the students gathered round to watch and learn.”

Lorkyn left his books to the UL in his will at his death in 1591, the same year that exquisite models of a skeleton and musculature, also on display, were presented to the Library by the leading London barber surgeon John Banister. Such objects highlight that from relatively early on the ̽��ֱ�� Library was a place to find current material for teaching and learning, as well as a repository for safe-keeping.

Learning from the body itself may be the ideal, but the limited supply of cadavers and challenges to preservation are some of the reasons people have looked to models to provide good substitutes for learning anatomy. Paper works well as a relatively cheap medium that you can fold, layer, and cut out, and the exhibits in the exhibition give a flavour of the variety across the ̽��ֱ�� collections as a whole.

“ ̽��ֱ��study and practice of anatomy – seeing and doing – remains an important strand in ̽��ֱ�� teaching and research today,” added Jones. “Lines of Thought reminds us of some of the significant points in the development of our understanding of our bodies and how they function, and crucially how the books and objects on display have played a part in shaping the present.”

A hand-coloured copy of Vesalius’ 1543 Epitome – one of the most influential works in western medicine – and the first written record of a dissection carried out in England are among the objects in our latest film celebrating Lines of Thought at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library.

̽��ֱ��study and practice of anatomy – seeing and doing – remains an important strand in ̽��ֱ�� teaching and research today.

Anna Jones

Lines of Thought: Understanding Anatomy

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Yes

Infant bodies were ‘prized’ by 19th century anatomists, study suggests

fpjl2 — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 07:23:45 +0000

A new study of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge anatomy collection suggests that the bodies of foetuses and babies were a “prized source of knowledge” by British scientists of the 18th and 19th centuries, and were dissected more commonly than previously thought and quite differently to adult cadavers.

Historical research combined with the archaeological assessment of collection specimens shows that foetus and infant cadavers were valued for the study of growth and development, and were often kept in anatomical museums.

Researchers say that socio-cultural factors and changes in the law, as well as the spread of infectious disease during the industrial revolution, dictated the availability of these small bodies for dissection.

̽��ֱ��study, conducted by Jenna Dittmar and Piers Mitchell from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, is the first to look specifically at how British scientists investigated the changing anatomy of childhood during the 1800s. ̽��ֱ��findings are published today in the Journal of Anatomy.

̽��ֱ��researchers undertook studies of the skeletal collection retained from the former dissecting room of Cambridge’s department of anatomy, with specimen dates ranging from 1768 to 1913.

While the bodies of adults typically underwent a craniotomy - opening of the top of the skull using a saw - the researchers found that anatomists generally kept the skulls of foetuses and young children in one piece. From a total of 54 foetal and infant specimens in the collection, just one had undergone a craniotomy.

Careful study of the bone surface revealed that soft tissues had been gently removed using knives and brushes in order to preserve as much of the bones of the head as possible, although surgical instruments would have been similar to those used on the fully-grown. Tools for other purposes in adults, such as ‘bone nipper’ forceps, were likely used for dividing diminutive ribcages.

̽��ֱ��research suggests that anatomists kept the skeletal remains of foetuses and infants for further study and use as teaching aids, whereas adults were frequently reburied after dissection.

“Foetal and infant bodies were clearly valued by anatomists, illustrated by the measures taken to preserve the remains intact and undamaged,” says Dittmar.

“ ̽��ֱ��skulls appear to have been intentionally spared to preserve them for teaching or display. This may explain why so few children with signs of dissection on their bones have been recovered from the burial grounds of hospitals or parish churches, compared with adults.”

Literature from the late 18th century shows that the size of infant bodies made them preferable for certain ‘anatomical preparations’ in teaching, particularly for illuminating the anatomy of the nervous and circulatory systems, which required an entire body to be injected with coloured wax and displayed.

“ ̽��ֱ��valuable and unique knowledge that could only be obtained from the examination of these developing bodies made them essential to the study of anatomy,” says Dittmar.

“During much of the 18th and 19th century, executed criminals provided the main legal access to cadavers, and it was previously thought that dissection of young children was relatively rare. However, changes in the law may have resulted in infant dissections becoming more common.”

̽��ֱ��Murder Act in 1752 gave the judiciary power to allow executed murderers - almost entirely men - to be used for medical dissection. These felons hardly made a dent in the growing demand for bodies, and a black market flourished.

Bodies acquired (often grave robbed) by gangs of ‘resurrectionists’, or body-snatchers, were usually sold by the inch, so those of infants were not very profitable, although there are records of ‘smalls’ being traded.

̽��ֱ��Anatomy Act of 1832 allowed workhouses and hospitals to donate the bodies of the poor if unclaimed by family, in an attempt to abate the resurrectionists. Infectious diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis were common killers during the industrial revolution, and a major cause of infant death in hospitals and beyond. Workhouses were desperate places, and nearly always lethal to infants.

Until 1838, a legal loophole did not require a stillborn baby to be registered, and a body could be easily sold to an anatomist through an intermediary. But the New Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 may have had the most significant repercussions of any law for infant material in anatomy collections, say the researchers.

̽��ֱ��Act ended parish relief for unmarried women and the availability of assistance from the father of an illegitimate child. Part of Victorian society’s attempt to curtail the illegitimate birth rate, the law succeeded only in contributing to dire situations for poor unwed women, mainly in service positions, who fell pregnant.

“This left very few options for these women: the workhouse, prostitution, abortion and infanticide - all of which were life-threatening,” says Mitchell. By the 1860s, infanticide in England had reached epidemic proportions.

“Our research shows that the major sources of the bodies of very young children were from stillborn babies of destitute mothers, babies who died from infectious diseases, those dying in charitable hospitals, and unmarried mothers who secretly murdered their new-born to avoid the social stigma of single parenthood,” says Mitchell.

“Poor and desperate women at the time of the industrial revolution could not only save the cost of a funeral by passing their child’s body to an anatomist, but also be paid as well. This money would help feed poor families, so the misfortune of one life lost could help their siblings to survive tough times.”

Top inset image: the only foetal skull in the Cambridge to have undergone a craniotomy.

A study of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge anatomy collection dating from the 1700s and 1800s shows how the bodies of stillborn foetuses and babies were valued for research into human development, and preserved as important teaching aids.

Foetal and infant bodies were clearly valued by anatomists, illustrated by the measures taken to preserve the remains intact and undamaged

Jenna Dittmar

Dissected foetal skull dating from the 1800s, originally held in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Anatomy Museum

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Yes

Sonic hedgehog gene provides evidence that our limbs may have evolved from sharks’ gills

jeh98 — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 11:07:28 +0000

An idea first proposed 138 years ago that limbs evolved from gills, which has been widely discredited due to lack of supporting fossil evidence, may prove correct after all – and the clue is in a gene named for everyone’s favourite blue hedgehog.

Unlike other fishes, cartilaginous fishes such as sharks, skates and rays have a series of skin flaps that protect their gills. These flaps are supported by arches of cartilage, with finger-like appendages called branchial rays attached.

In 1878, influential German anatomist Karl Gegenbaur presented the theory that paired fins and eventually limbs evolved from a structure resembling the gill arch of cartilaginous fishes. However, nothing in the fossil record has ever been discovered to support this.

Now, researchers have reinvestigated Gegenbaur’s ideas using the latest genetic techniques on embryos of the little skate – a fish from the very group that first inspired the controversial theory over a century ago – and found striking similarities between the genetic mechanism used in the development of its gill arches and those in human limbs.

Scientists say it comes down to a critical gene in limb development called ‘Sonic hedgehog’, named for the videogame character by a research team at Harvard Medical School.

̽��ֱ��new research shows that the functions of the Sonic hedgehog gene in human limb development, dictating the identity of each finger and maintaining growth of the limb skeleton, are mirrored in the development of the branchial rays in skate embryos. ̽��ֱ��findings are published today in the journal Development.

Dr Andrew Gillis, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and the Marine Biological Laboratory, who led the research, says that it shows aspects of Gegenbaur’s theory may in fact be correct, and provides greater understanding of the origin of jawed vertebrates – the group of animals that includes humans.

“Gegenbaur looked at the way that these branchial rays connect to the gill arches and noticed that it looks very similar to the way that the fin and limb skeleton articulates with the shoulder,” says Gillis. “ ̽��ֱ��branchial rays extend like a series of fingers down the side of a shark gill arch.”

“ ̽��ֱ��fact that the Sonic hedgehog gene performs the same two functions in the development of gill arches and branchial rays in skate embryos as it does in the development of limbs in mammal embryos may help explain how Gegenbaur arrived at his controversial theory on the origin of fins and limbs.”

In mammal embryos, the Sonic hedgehog gene sets up the axis of the limb in the early stages of development. “In a hand, for instance, Sonic hedgehog tells the limb which side will be the thumb and which side will be the pinky finger,” explains Gillis. In the later stages of development, Sonic hedgehog maintains outgrowth so that the limb grows to its full size.

To test whether the gene functions in the same way in skate embryos, Gillis and his colleagues inhibited Sonic hedgehog at different points during their development.

They found that if Sonic hedgehog was interrupted early in development, the branchial rays formed on the wrong side of the gill arch. If Sonic hedgehog was interrupted later in development, then fewer branchial rays formed but the ones that did grow, grew on the correct side of the gill arch – showing that the gene works in a remarkably similar way here as in the development of limbs.

“Taken to the extreme, these experiments could be interpreted as evidence that limbs share a genetic programme with gill arches because fins and limbs evolved by transformation of a gill arch in an ancestral vertebrate, as proposed by Gegenbaur,” says Gillis. “However, it could also be that these structures evolved separately, but re-used the same pre-existing genetic programme. Without fossil evidence this remains a bit of a mystery – there is a gap in the fossil record between species with no fins and then suddenly species with paired fins – so we can’t really be sure yet how paired appendages evolved.”

“Either way this is a fascinating discovery, because it provides evidence for a fundamental evolutionary link between branchial rays and limbs,” says Gillis. “While palaeontologists look for fossils to try to reconstruct the evolutionary history of anatomy, we are effectively trying to reconstruct the evolutionary history of genetic programmes that control the development of anatomy.”

Paired appendages, such as arms and hands in humans, are one of the key anatomical features that distinguish jawed vertebrates from other groups. “There is a lot of interest in trying to understand the origins of jawed vertebrates, and the origins of novel features like fins and limbs,” says Gillis.

“What we are learning is that many novel features may not have arisen suddenly from scratch, but rather by tweaking and re-using a relatively small number of ancient developmental programmes.”

Gillis and his colleagues are further testing Gegenbaur’s theory by comparing the function of more genes involved the development of skates’ unusual gills and mammalian limbs.

“Previous studies haven’t found compelling developmental genetic similarities between gill arch derivatives and paired appendages – but these studies were done in animals like mice and zebrafish, which don’t have branchial rays,” says Gillis.

“It is useful to study cartilaginous fishes, not only because they were the group that first inspired Gegenbaur’s theory, but also because they have a lot of unique features that other fishes don’t – and we are finding that we can learn a lot about evolution from these unique features.”

“Many researchers look at mutant mice or fruit flies to understand the genetic control of anatomy. Our approach is to study and compare the diverse anatomical forms that can be found in nature, in order to gain insight into the evolution of the vertebrate body.”

This research was funded by the Royal Society, the Isaac Newton Trust and a research award from the Marine Biological Laboratory.

Inset images: Skeletal preparation of an embryonic bamboo shark (Andrew Gillis); A skate embryo that has been stained for expression of the Shh gene - staining can be seen as dark purple strips running down the length of each gill arch (Andrew Gillis); Late stage skate embryo (Andrew Gillis).

Latest analysis shows that human limbs share a genetic programme with the gills of cartilaginous fishes such as sharks and skates, providing evidence to support a century-old theory on the origin of limbs that had been widely discounted.

̽��ֱ��branchial rays extend like a series of fingers down the side of a shark gill arch

Andrew Gillis

Head skeletons of skate and shark showing gill arch appendages in red.

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Yes

Lines of Thought: Discoveries that Changed the World

sjr81 — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 08:36:45 +0000

Lines of Thought: Discoveries that Changed the World, opens free to the public this Friday (March 11) and celebrates 4,000 years of recorded thought through the Library’s unique and irreplaceable collections. More than 70 per cent of the exhibits are displayed to the public for the first time in this exhibition.

Tracing the connections between Darwin and DNA, Newton and Hawking, and 3,000-year-old Chinese oracle bones and Twitter, the exhibition investigates, through six distinct themes, how Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library’s millions of books and manuscripts have transformed our understanding of life here on earth and our place among the stars.

̽��ֱ��iconic Giles Gilbert Scott building, opened in the 1930s, now holds more than eight million books, journals, maps and magazines – as well as some of the world's most iconic scientific, literary and cultural treasures.

̽��ֱ��new exhibition puts on display Newton’s own annotated copy of Principia Mathematica, Darwin’s papers on evolution, 3,000-year-old Chinese oracle bones, a cuneiform tablet from 2,000BC, and the earliest reliable text for 20 of Shakespeare’s plays.

Other items going on display include:

Edmund Halley’s handwritten notebook/sketches of Halley’s Comet (1682)
Stephen Hawking’s draft typescript of A Brief History of Time
Darwin’s first pencil sketch of Species Theory and his Primate Tree
A 2nd century AD fragment of Homer’s Odyssey.
̽��ֱ��Nash Papyrus – a 2,000-year-old copy of the Ten Commandments
Codex Bezae – 5th century New Testament, crucial to our understanding of ̽��ֱ��Bible.
A hand-coloured copy of Vesalius’ 1543 Epitome – one of the most influential works in western medicine
̽��ֱ��earliest known record of a human dissection in England (1564)
A Babylonian tablet dated 2039 BCE (the oldest object in the library)
̽��ֱ��Gutenberg Bible – the earliest substantive printed book in Western Europe (1455)
̽��ֱ��Book of Deer, 10th century gospel book: thought to be the oldest Scottish book and the first example of written Gaelic
̽��ֱ��first catalogue listing the contents of the Library in 1424, barely a decade after it was first identified in the wills of William Loring and William Hunden

̽��ֱ��six Lines of Thought featured in the exhibition are: From clay tablets to Twitter feed (Revolutions in human communication); ̽��ֱ��evolution of genetics (From Darwin to DNA); Beginning with the word (Communicating faith); On the shoulders of giants (Understanding gravity); Eternal lines (Telling the story of history) and Illustrating anatomy (Understanding the body).

̽��ֱ�� Librarian Anne Jarvis said: “It’s extraordinary to think that the ̽��ֱ�� Library, which started in 1416 as a small collection of manuscripts locked in wooden chests, has now grown into a global institution housing eight million books and manuscripts, billions of words, and millions of images, all communicating thousands of years of human thought.

“Our spectacular exhibition showcases six key concepts in human history that have been critical in shaping the world and culture we know today, illustrating the myriad lines of thought that take us back into the past, and forward to tomorrow’s research, innovation and literature.”

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� Library, which is older than both the British Library and the Vatican Library, has more than 125 miles of shelving and more than two million books immediately available to readers – making it the largest open-access library in Europe.

̽��ֱ��first Line of Thought featured in the exhibition: From clay tablet to Twitter begins with a tiny 4,000-year-old tablet used as a receipt for wool, evidence of an advanced civilisation using a cuneiform script and Sumerian language, probably written in Girsu (Southern Iraq) and precisely dated to 2039BCE. ̽��ֱ��tablet is on public display for the first time in this exhibition.

From there, it charts the many and varied revolutions in communications throughout history, taking in Chinese oracle bones, the Gutenberg Bible, a palm leaf manuscript written in 1015AD, newspapers, chapbooks and 20th century Penguin paperbacks, before ending with a book containing Shakespeare’s Hamlet written in tweets.

Objects going on display for the first time during Lines of Thought include: the Book of Deer, Vesalius’s 3D manikin of the human body, William Morris’s extensively annotated proofs of his edition of Beowulf, a wonderful caricature of Darwin, and works by Copernicus, Galileo and Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the discoverer of pulsars.

“For six centuries, the collections of Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library have challenged and changed the world around us,” added Jarvis. “Across science, literature and the arts, the millions of books, manuscripts and digital archives we hold have altered the very fabric of our understanding.

“Only in Cambridge, can you find Newton’s greatest works sitting alongside Darwin’s most important papers on evolution, or Sassoon’s wartime poetry books taking their place next to the Gutenberg Bible and the archive of Margaret Drabble.”

To celebrate the Library’s 600th anniversary, the Library has selected one iconic item from each theme within the exhibition to be digitised and made available within a free iPad app, Words that Changed the World. Readers can turn the pages of these masterworks of culture and science, from cover to cover, accompanied by ̽��ֱ�� experts explaining their importance and giving contextual information.

Lines of Thought: Discoveries that Changed the World opens to the public on Friday, March 11, 2016 and runs until Friday, September 30, 2016. Entry is free.

̽��ֱ��exhibition is also available to view online, and items from the exhibition have also been digitised and made available on the Cambridge Digital Library.

Some of the world’s most valuable books and manuscripts – texts which have altered the very fabric of our understanding – will go on display in Cambridge this week as Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library celebrates its 600th birthday with a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition of its greatest treasures.

What started in 1416 as a small collection of manuscripts locked in wooden chests, has now grown into a global institution housing eight million books and manuscripts, billions of words, and millions of images, all communicating thousands of years of human thought.

Anne Jarvis

Lines of Thought: Discoveries that Changed the World

Graham CopeKoga

Priceless treasures: in a shot commissioned to celebrate Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library’s 600th anniversary, Professor Stephen Hawking is pictured with Newton’s annotated first edition of Principia Mathematica.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) and the books that made the father of anatomy

amb206 — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 07:00:00 +0000

Andreas Vesalius was an ambitious young man who was not shy of self-publicity. Born in Flanders 500 years ago, he had his eye on one of the most prestigious roles in medicine. He sought an appointment as personal physician to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. To optimise his chances, Vesalius set out to demonstrate his extensive knowledge of the workings of the human body. One of the ways he did this was to publish in 1543 an extraordinary tome known as the Fabrica, in reference to its Latin title which translates as ‘Seven books on the fabric of the human body’.

Vesalius dedicated the Fabrica to Charles V and presented the Emperor with a copy of what must be the ultimate CV. “Vesalius was only 28 when he produced the Fabrica and its companion piece the Epitome. He was already an accomplished physician and anatomist. He’d made a name for himself and developed connections all over Europe. His portrayal of himself in his books suggests that he was supremely confident of his abilities. Today we would probably label him as brash,” said Dr Sachiko Kusukawa, who has curated an online exhibition celebrating the 500th anniversary of the birth of Vesalius on the Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library website.

In keeping with his objective of promoting his career, Vesalius appears centre stage in the illustration on the frontispiece of the Fabrica. As the historian Dr Andrew Cunningham explains in a short film for the exhibition, Vesalius shows himself as the star of the show, performing a dissection surrounded by crowds of admirers. Most striking are three figures in togas who represent the learning of the ancient world. They are Galen, Aristotle and Hippocrates and their presence in the picture underlines the way in which the scientists of the Renaissance were reviving the hands-on practice of anatomy in classical times after a long period in which it had fallen from favour.

Almost as remarkable as the Fabrica is the Epitome, also published by Vesalius in 1543 and presented to Charles V’s son, the future Philip II of Spain. Now considered watershed publications in the history of anatomy, these books were innovative in both content and form. By means of his text and illustrations, Vesalius sought to restore the art of anatomy to its rightful place as the foundation of medicine. With their daring use of a range of visual devices – from full-length posed figures to classical sculptures to paper pop-ups to illustrate the positions of the organs – both books are nothing less than works of art.

Scholars have been unable to discover how many copies of the Fabrica or the Epitome were produced – but it is likely to have been between 300 and 500 copies, judging from other scientific books of the period. ̽��ֱ��surviving copies are now scattered worldwide in public and private collections where they are considered rare and precious treasures that capture the essence of an era awakening to scientific endeavour. On the rare occasions that copies come up for sale they change hands for sums that reflect their historical significance as books produced by a man often described as the ‘father of modern anatomy’. In 1998 a copy of the Fabrica that had been presented to Charles V was sold by Christie’s auction house for $1,652,000.

By virtue of Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s 800-year-old history, and its legacy of well-endowed libraries and generous benefactions, the ̽��ֱ�� Library is fortunate to have, in its collection of 16th century medical texts, four copies of the first edition and two copies of the second edition of the Fabrica. In addition, the Library has a unique hand-coloured copy of the Epitome once owned by the Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge, Alexander Macalister (1844-1919).

Everything about these books is designed to impress those who came into contact with them. “ ̽��ֱ��Fabrica and Epitome were lavish productions which reflect the skills of the very best artists and craftsman. ̽��ֱ��wood blocks were cut in Italy and the books were printed in Basel which was then an important centre for printing. These were not text books aimed at students and nor were they made to be taken into the dissection theatre or to the bedsides of the sick or injured," said Kusukawa.

"Rather, Vesalius's books were complex statements about classical ideals of medicine and the role of anatomy. They demonstrated through their beautiful illustrations his grasp of human anatomy, and the detailed knowledge he’d acquired through carrying out dissections. Such books would have been purchased by learned medical colleagues to add to prized collections of weighty tomes of knowledge."

“At a time when most medical texts were small notebooks, Vesalius opted for a big-is-beautiful approach. ̽��ֱ��Fabrica measures 43 cm by 27 cm and the Epitome is even larger at 55.8 cm by 37.4 cm – and their generous dimensions allowed Vesalius to commission illustrations that work on a grand scale. ̽��ֱ��illustrations are wood cuts. It’s a technique in which the space between the lines in finished image is created by using a knife to cut away the surface of the wood block and the skills required to achieve the fine lines in the illustrations are quite exceptional,” said Kusukawa.

No-one knows for certain the identity of the artists whom Vesalius commissioned to produce the 300 or so illustrations that feature in the Fabrica and Epitome – though past scholars have speculated that Vesalius worked with the Venetian painter Titian or one of his pupils. What is certain is that Vesalius must have collaborated closely with his artists and craftsman to translate his first-hand knowledge of the anatomy and morphology of the human body into drawings. As a fusion of science and art, the illustrations reflect the artistic conventions of the Renaissance – for example in the stance of the human figures and the idyllic landscape backdrops in which they are posed.

An ingenious use of paper cut-outs and pop-ups to show the positioning of the organs in the body was developed by Vesalius in partnership with the artists and craftspeople involved in the production of his books. They are a neat solution to the problem of showing how the body is composed of layers and how its component parts work together. Decorated initial letters to the sections of and within the books are another notable feature. Each decorated letter tells a story relevant to the text: one shows grave robbing for corpses to dissect, another suggests how to boil a body in a cauldron, and yet another how to articulate a skeleton.

Vesalius means weasel and it was a name of which the great anatomist was proud. ̽��ֱ��illustration for the frontispiece of the Fabrica is topped by a coat of arms bearing three weasels and held aloft by a pair of chubby putti. Vesalius’s strategy to impress the powerful inner circle of Charles V paid off: in 1543, immediately after the publication of the Fabrica, he was appointed physician to the Holy Roman Emperor. Five hundred years after his birth, copies of the books he produced exist in the collections of one of the world’s most important and extensive libraries. ̽��ֱ��Fabrica and Epitome continue to impress all who see them – and now for the first time they can be viewed online with an accompanying commentary highlighting some of their remarkable features and setting them in historical context.

In her book Picturing the book of nature: image, text, and argument in sixteenth-century human anatomy and medical botany ( ̽��ֱ�� of Chicago Press, 2012) Sachiko Kusukawa discusses some of the images that feature in the Fabrica and Epitome.

Inset images: a portrait of Vesalius in 1543; the multi-layered manikin in the Epitome; an initial from the 1543 Fabrica (Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library)

Born 500 years ago, Andreas Vesalius has iconic status in the history of science. Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library holds several copies of the remarkable books that he published to revive the lost art of anatomy and promote his own career as a physician. Historian Dr Sachiko Kusukawa has curated an online exhibition to celebrate Vesalius's achievements.

Vesalius's books were complex statements about classical ideals of medicine and the role of anatomy. They demonstrated through their beautiful illustrations his grasp of human anatomy, and the detailed knowledge he’d acquired through carrying out dissections.

Sachiko Kusukawa

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

Vesalius undertaking a dissection, in the hand-coloured frontispiece to his 'Epitome' (1543)

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