DISSECTIONS & VIVISECTIONS

Anatomy Performed

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Anatomy was of central importance to Galen’s understanding of medicine and fundamental to his theory and practice. Even today, among all of his other contributions to the medical field, Galen is recognized for his anatomical studies, and his writings on the subject remained the standard into the sixteenth century.

Scene sometimes interpreted as an ancient anatomy lesson. Roman, 4th century CE. Fresco. Catacombs of Via Latina, Rome. H. 168 cm; W. 200 cm. Photo: Album / Alamy Stock Photo.

Galen believed that the best way to learn about the structures of the body and their function was through dissection and vivisection. And the only way to remember anatomy in all its detail was through repetition. A theoretical understanding, while useful, could only take a doctor so far, and practice at dissection was essential to mastery. Galen wrote prolifically on the subject—his masterpiece on anatomy and physiology, On the Use of Parts, was meant to be accessible reading to his colleagues as well as an elite, nonmedical audience—and he also penned several dedicated anatomical texts, including a step-by-step multivolume instruction manual for dissection. The influence of Galen’s anatomical writings cannot be underestimated: even centuries later, as scientific knowledge advanced, Galen’s anatomical writings continued to contribute to a more complete understanding of the body. 

A crab. Aristotle and Ibn Bakhtishu', Kitab Na't al-hayawan (Book on the characteristics of animals; Baghdad?, 13th century), fol. 87r. British Library: Or 2784. Photo: Album / Alamy Stock Photo.

Dissection and vivisection had been a part of ancient medical practice since ancient Greece. Aristotle (384–322 BCE) dissected animals extensively, and Galen cites the physician Diocles of Carystus (mid-fourth century BCE) as author of the first anatomical handbook. The field advanced by leaps and bounds a generation later when the physicians Herophilus (ca. 330–ca. 260 BCE) and his contemporary Erasistratus (ca. 325–ca. 240 BCE) performed the first known human dissections. Their studies were systematic, encompassed the entirety of the body, and were the first in Western medicine that we know to have been based on the examination of actual human cadavers. While they essentially established the discipline of human anatomy (Herophilus is sometimes called the “father” of the field), their contributions would not be built upon in a direct way for centuries: human dissection violated a deeply rooted Greek taboo against touching and interfering with corpses. Although some intellectuals believed that the body was an empty vessel after the departure of an immortal soul, this view was only held by a minority, and most Greeks maintained that the body of the departed continued to represent the deceased. The prohibition against human dissection recurred in different historical contexts for several centuries, and the study of anatomy on cadavers only restarted in the Renaissance.

Woodcut of a dissection. From Fasciculo di medicina (Venice: Johannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis, 1494), possibly edited by Johannes de Ketham or Sebastiano Manili. Metropolitan Museum of Art: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1938; 38.52. Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain.

The prevailing view today is that human dissection was not practiced—at least not openly or systematically—outside the period of Herophilus and Erasistratus. Although dissections had been a part of Galen’s medical education from the very beginning in Pergamon, the procedures he witnessed and those that he performed were always done on animals—primarily pigs, goats, cattle, and monkeys (Barbary macaques), but he also anatomized other species. There is no reason to believe that he ever dissected a human body.

“Performed” is a key term to understanding Galen’s dissections and vivisections. Much in the same way that patient care at the Roman bedside was a social affair and a scene of intellectual conflict, so too was the study of anatomy. Animal dissections and vivisections were frequently conducted in public as educational entertainment. Galen did not invent the practice—public dissections had been a part of medical culture for at least a generation before him—and they also functioned as a type of advertisement for doctors to showcase their knowledge and technical skills. Galen does not specify where, exactly, these performances took place, but it is quite likely that they occurred in public venues—even in the streets—or in some cases, especially for the educated classes, in the courtyards of houses owned by the elite.

Courtyard with peristyle. House of Venus in the Shell (Casa della Venere in Conchiglia), Pompeii. Photo: Azoor Travel Photo / Alamy Stock Photo.

His audiences were often large and extended beyond his medical circles of students, colleagues, friends, and educated gentlemen to also include servants, enslaved people, and other spectators. Galen is explicit about his goal of “amazing” the audience. Indeed, the mood was similar to a sporting event: rival physicians would take each other on, audience members would issue challenges, incompetent doctors would be embarrassed, talented doctors would present dazzling feats. Sometimes doctors even forced each other into impromptu public dissections: a physician would accost his rival and press him to prove his theories by dissecting a goat or other animal. The titles of some of Galen’s now lost anatomical writings underline the competitive nature of these demonstrations and the extent of the debated terrain: What Lycus Did Not Know about Anatomy (four books) and Disputed Points in Anatomy (three books). Dissections and vivisections were unquestionably intellectually edifying, but the combativeness and gruesomeness added an extra dimension of entertainment appeal.  

Galen performing a dissection of a pig. Detail from the title page of Galeni Opera Omnia (Venice, 1550). Photo: Reynolds-Finley Historical Library, the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

These were performances of power—physical and intellectual—illustrating mastery over an animal’s body. In one particularly impressive vivisection of a pig, Galen demonstrated the nerves and muscles involved in the voice. Carefully opening a live swine and tracing the nerves along the spinal cord, he tied off those controlling the vocal cords, thus halting the sound of the animal’s squealing while its breathing and movement continued; when he released the ligature, the pig would squeal loudly once again. With enough tension around the nerve, Galen could induce silence, but he was also delicate enough so as not to crush the fiber, giving him full control of the animal’s voice. The procedure required precision and dexterity, as he wrote:

“Many have often observed it, but few are able to do it.”

The theatrical effect must have been striking—he recommended a pig for this demonstration because its cries were the loudest—but studies of the nerves and vocal cords were also part of Galen’s larger research program: his four-volume book The Voice provided a sustained study of vocal production.

Galen used spectacular public dissections not only to advance new research questions, but to settle long-standing scientific debates. He was prepared to do whatever it took to win an argument. There had been an ongoing dispute about the hearts of large mammals—whether or not they had an internal bone—and Galen insisted that they did. When the occasion to dissect an elephant presented itself, Galen claimed that he found the bone in the animal’s heart by feel while others could not.

Mosaic detail of an elephant from the scene of Orpheus surrounded by animals. Roman, 2nd–3rd century CE. Triclinium, House of Orpheus, Volubilis (present-day Morocco). Photo: Tuul and Bruno Morandi / Alamy Stock Photo.

He took the opportunity to mock his opponents and later sent a friend to retrieve the elephant’s heart bone—a lasting proof of his superiority—from the imperial cook who was preparing the meat as a royal dish. As it turns out, elephants’ hearts do not have bones; scholars have speculated that the trophy Galen kept could have been a piece of the fibrous triangle separating the atria and the ventricles, which can harden in older elephants and may resemble a bone. 

Galen’s dissections and vivisections greatly advanced our understanding of the body through his detailed and incremental refinements.

A taboo against human dissections in the Roman world meant that Galen did not study cadavers. Anatomical research on human bodies restarted in the Renaissance.

Woodcut detail of a dissection. From the title page of Galen, De anatomicis administrationibus libri novem ([Paris]: S. Colinaeus, 1531), edited by Johann Guenther. Photo: Wellcome Collection. Public domain.

Building off of the impressive foundations laid out by forebears including Herophilus and Erasistratus, he brought the anatomical knowledge of antiquity to near completion. He made some mistakes, but most of those errors were not a result of sloppiness and instead followed from using animals as a proxy for the human body. His conviction that anatomy is the foundation for medical knowledge and his dedication to proof provided a holistic, scientific understanding of the body that earned him his legacy as the most influential anatomist of the ancient world.