Chapter 19 Visual images and neurological illustration

The amazing brain

“…He sketched the brain from many different perspectives, looking closely at the ventricles and the origins of the nerves from the medulla. Leonardo's images were considerably more anatomical (14). His brain sketch represents description by Avicenna.…”

“…Vesalius revered Galen highly but very often his studies often matched the anatomies of dogs, apes, sheep or other farm animals. He found 200 discrepancies and publicly broke from the Galenic tradition (14,18).…”

“…Dr. Willis performed necropsies on his patients and made extensive anatomic dissections on the brain. In his included the physicists Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle, Richard Lower, an anatomist, physiologist, and clinician, who Wren, the renowned architect (of Saint Pauls' cathedral in London) and artist who was responsible for the engraved plates from which the illustrations are derived in his book Cerebri Anatome Nervorum Descriptio et Usus published in 1664 in Oxford (13,14) (Fig. 3) (14).…”

“…In his included the physicists Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle, Richard Lower, an anatomist, physiologist, and clinician, who Wren, the renowned architect (of Saint Pauls' cathedral in London) and artist who was responsible for the engraved plates from which the illustrations are derived in his book Cerebri Anatome Nervorum Descriptio et Usus published in 1664 in Oxford (13,14) (Fig. 3) (14). Willis thought that the cerebral cortex covered many subcortical centers, that cortical gray matter was responsible for animal spirits, while the white matter distributed the spirits to the body, governing movement Dikranian and sensation.…”

A midline sagittal brain view depicted in da Vinci’s “Saint Jerome in the wilderness”

“…After a careful analysis of painting we were able to identify a skull which is hidden in an arc represented as a He is credited with the first accurate depictions of the frontal sinus, the anterior and middle meningeal arteries and the anterior, middle, and posterior cranial fossae and in addition, he is considered to be the first scientific illustrator in the contemporary sense (10,13).…”