>> Hello and welcome to the
Penguin Prof Channel in Italia.
This is a part of my Art
and Autonomy in Italy Series
and I have a really
special video for you today.
If you study or teach or
practice in the medical field,
you know how challenge it is.
And with all of the
textbooks and the lab manuals
and the posters and the
specimens and the models
and the digital media,
it's still hard.
But what if you didn't have
access to all of that stuff?
What would it be like to
practice medicine having really
no clear idea of what the inside
of the human body looks like,
let alone how it works?
That's what we're
going to explore today.
We are going to go
to the birthplace
of the modern university
and really the birthplace
of the study of medicine
in the modern sense.
We're going to the
University of Bologna
which was founded
in the year 1088.
It is the oldest
university that has been
in continuous operation
since its inception.
And the collections
there and the things
that you can see
will blow your mind.
And I just want you to
know all of these places
at the University are
open to the public.
So if you find yourself in
Italy, get yourself to Bologna
and see them for yourself.
But for now, I'd like
for you to sit back
and relax and enjoy this tour.
Before you do that,
take a second
and click those buttons below.
Please like, share,
and subscribe.
Also, a shout out to Audible
for sponsoring this project.
Our tour guide today will be
the Anatomist, Dr. Kevin Petty
from Anatomia Italiana.
We are really taking a bit of
a time travel today so thumbs
up if you like time
travel and enjoy.
Andiamo.
>> We're here at the
University of Bologna,
one of the first universities
in the modern sense.
And this is the Department
of Human Anatomy,
a functioning building
at the University
of Bologna Medical School today.
And in this particular
room that we're
in right now is the Luigi Calori
collection of human skulls.
About 2,000 human
skulls composed in one
of the oldest anthropological
collections in the world
where we see skulls
categorized by individuals
with various maladies
such as being deaf
or having various forms of
mental retardation as well
as people who died from
suicide, people who aren't
from the Italian
peninsula, and so forth.
So this collection of 2,000
human skulls is also a very
important aspect of this story
about anatomy along
the Italian peninsula.
Here at the University
of Bologna we're
at the Luigi Cattaneo
Collection of anatomical waxes.
This collection is mostly
19th century and focuses
on pathological anatomy.
Although there is a fair
amount of normal anatomy,
pathology was more of the focus.
Most of the specimens
are wax; however,
there is also a fair
amount of natural specimens
as well, largely natural bone.
Any time you see bone and wax
here, the bone is always natural
and that's the Bolognese
waxing technique,
compared to the Florentine
technique
which uses wax for the bones.
Some of the more
stunning wax anatomicals
at the Luigi Cattaneo Collection
here at the University
of Bologna are the
neuroanatomy pieces done
by Cesare Bettini
in the 18th century.
You could see that these
are maybe 3 times normal
and to get some scale, you
can even look at these skulls
that are at the very
bottom shelf.
These are natural bone so you
could see natural human size
for the head and you can
see these oversized brains
to help teach anatomy to
medical students throughout the
19th century.
Another significant contribution
of the University of Bologna is
that of pathological anatomy.
And we see that wonderfully
illustrated here
with these three
heads over here.
These two are waxes and
this here is natural bone
for the same patient.
The two waxes were molded
from the patient while she was
alive seeing the progression
of this cranial tumor,
and then she was dissected
after her death.
So we see now anatomy being
explored more than just
to understand the
structures of the body,
but to also understand the
progression of diseases.
And pathological anatomy as
a science indeed began here
at the University of Bologna.
And this idea of these
artists doing anatomy,
be it either pathological
anatomy
or normal anatomy
beginning here in Italy,
is just in the long
line of contributions
in anatomy that occurred.
Anatomy and the medical
curriculum began here
at the University of Bologna.
Then we wind up seeing the
first anatomical textbooks
that are richly illustrated
and decorated artistically,
and then that evolving into the
uses of anatomy to be displayed
in waxes anatomically and
artistically together.
Another contribution
of the University
of Bologna is obstetrics within
the realm of medical doctors.
Prior to that it,
was the midwives
that were largely responsible
for the delivery of babies.
But it was Giovanni Galli
here in the 18th century
that we began to train midwives
from a more medical
anatomical perspective.
He commissioned all of these
many anatomical uteruses
to be done out of clay because
it was cheaper than the waxes
that were in other
parts of the museum.
And additionally he also
commissioned the counterstain
of a birthing machine
which is a wooden pelvis
with a glass uterus
on top of it.
And then he would insert
into it a flexible doll
that the training midwives
and training obstetricians
would have to, therefore,
insert their hands to reposition
for a breach presentation.
And then students would
have to do it blindfolded.
So with glass it allowed you to
see it while it was being done,
and then blindfold yourself and
then be able to do it to see
if you could properly position
the fetus for delivery.
And additionally he also
commissioned a birthing chair
which is not unlike what we see
in modern obstetric rooms today
where you could wind up
assisting delivery in that way.
So it was here; Galli was
the biggest contributor
and then eventually it was Luigi
Galvani who was an obstetrician.
Many people think of him largely
as being just strictly
neurophysiology,
but he was also extensively
involved in obstetrics as well
and all of that occurred here
at the University of Bologna.
This room here is dedicated
to the works of Ercole Lelli
who is the original creator
of the first wax
anatomical collection
for medical education here
at the University of Bologna,
so this in the 18th century.
Lelli trained from Zumbo who did
those first heads that we saw
at the University of Florence.
So if you look around, you'll
get to see what he focused
on which was largely
myology and osteology
where he sculpted wax
atop natural bone.
And we wind up seeing
it different
in the Florentine School
where it was wax bone
with wax musculature and
other organs on top of that.
This dissecting table
here was used
by Luigi Galvani in
the 18th century.
It was Galvani that we
consider to be the father
of neurophysiology; this idea
that it's electrical
activity that animates muscle.
His publication about that gave
wide attention all throughout
Europe in the early parts
of the 1800s and it wound
up influencing many people
including in literature.
And it influenced a young
couple, a young woman
in particular who used to
take hikes throughout the Alps
telling scary stories
at night and wound
up probably being the foundation
of a book that she wrote.
You probably know her
name, Mary Shelley
and Frankenstein is largely
influenced by the work
of Galvani and his writings
about how its electrical
activity that animates muscle.
So we see anatomy not
only influencing art,
but also literature as well.
As well as vocabulary because
when you think of the word
to "galvanize," it
comes from Galvani.
To galvanize means
to leap into action
and that's exactly what we saw
when the electrical activity
was used to animate the frog leg
down the sciatica nerve;
it would leap into action.
Again, the University of
Bologna; a perfect place
for the synthesis of
art, science, culture,
literature, and language.
So this room here is
dedicated to the works
of Giovanni Manzolini and his
wife Anna Morandi Manzolini
who were trained by Ercole Lelli
and focused their work largely
on senses and reproduction.
They did many
of the reproductive
biology birthing pieces
that we saw in the other room.
Manzolini and Morandi Manzolini,
both of them together created
quite a significant corpus
of work and we see their
own self-portraits behind us
over here.
And it was a big deal in the day
for Anna Morandi Manzolini
herself to be a woman
who was an anatomist
as well as an artist
and she lectured anatomy at the
University of Bologna as well.
You see in this last room
over here where we'll go,
you get to see the Venus,
the little Venus called a
"Venerina," that was
done by Clemente Susini,
didactic in its purpose
as well as artistic.
The pieces come apart so that
it can be used for teaching
and you can see all
of her pieces
of her organs laid
out about her.
So the University of Bologna
likes to recognize many
of the important faculty
and there are two
examples right here
in these frescoes behind me.
Here we see Antonio
Maria Valsalva.
You probably recognize that
name right away as the initiator
of the Valsalva maneuver, right;
holding the breath, then forcing
to test the patency of
the Eustachian tube.
Many people think that the
Eustachian tube was discovered
by Bartholomeo Eustachi and that
is true, but it was Valsalva
that named it and coined the
term giving homage to Eustachi
for identifying the structure.
He was an important
anatomist in many other ways,
a physician especially.
He was more of an advocate
for the mentally ill
for treating them more humanly.
And also back in the
day when you had injury
and wounds they would
cauterize and burn you to heal
and he was a proponent to stop
doing that particular procedure.
And when you look over
here, this is a fresco
of Marcello Malpighi and you may
be familiar with the eponymous
for Malpighi; the
Malpighian corpuscles,
the Malpighian pyramids, the
Malpighian tubule of the kidney.
We look at Malpighi as
the father of histology.
Although the microscope
had already been invented,
it was Malpighi that
turned it towards
human tissues, ok?
So Malpighi was essential
in that as well
as identifying histological
influences associated
with pathology.
So these are two important
people from Bologna
that are celebrated in a very
beautifully artistic way here.
Welcome to the ancient
dissection theater
at the University of Bologna.
The University of Bologna dates
back to 1088 and we could argue
that it's the first
University in the world.
The University of Bologna that
we see for the first time,
the paradigm that we use
in the modern university
where you see faculty
being paid by students
at an institution that's granted
a charter by a commune for there
to be a series of
courses and a curriculum
for a conferred degree
to practice a particular
discipline starting
with the liberal arts,
grammar, logic, rhetoric,
moving on to law and
eventually medicine.
The Medical School at the
University of Bologna dates back
to the 13th century and by
the year 1306 anatomy began
in the medical curriculum.
The University of
Bologna is the first place
where we see a cadaver
dissection,
human anatomy required for
graduating from medical school
and that occurred here.
Students were required to
participate in at least one male
and one female dissection
prior to graduation.
Initially done very
small and informally,
probably in the professor's
homes and eventually into venues
like we see right here
where it be more formal
public dissection.
This room over here is
actually in response
to other theaters being
built at other universities
like the University of
Padua which we will go
and see in a little bit.
That's the oldest one at 1595.
This room wasn't built
until 1628 and it was used
for over 150 years as
a dissection theater.
And if you look at it
didactically speaking,
it's not particularly effective
as you can see to think
that yes the cadaver
would be here,
but students would
be so very far away.
However, this room is
important in many ways
because we see this
was the paradigm
that it indeed was taught were
the professor would come in
and ascend to the cathedra.
That's where we get words
that we use today in academia;
the chair, the department chair.
The chair was a lofty place
and the professor would wind
up lecturing from there probably
from the books of Galen.
Remember Galen in the
first century AD wrote all
that was necessary to
be known about anatomy.
And the first anatomy
textbook that began
to be the modern
anatomy textbook was
by Mundinus de Luzzi
and we see his statue
over here almost
front and center.
He was the first
anatomist that required it,
as I mentioned before, anatomy
in the medical curriculum.
But Mundinus's book was more
of a recitation of Galen
and really didn't
have much new anatomy.
It was just more, if you will,
a dissection manual as far
as here's the order that
we're going to go through;
the visceral first, then
the peripheral lens,
then the cranial cavity,
and wound up describing it.
Really an anatomy textbook in
the CRO medical curriculum,
yes it's the first one
but no way a modern one.
That didn't come until
Vesalius in the mid part
of the 16th century, ok?
So we see other anatomists
being represented over here,
not just Mundinus, but we
see Galen, we see Hippocrates
as well so all of the
greats are being recognized
in this particular room.
So the University of Bologna,
the first to require anatomy
in the medical curriculum,
one of the first and one
of the oldest ancient
anatomy dissection theaters,
and it's also important maybe
in a more modern context
because this building was bombed
heavily during the Second World
War and damaged and
you could see
by the door they have
photographs of what it looked
like before it was reconstructed
and put back together
from the original pieces, ok?
So this room should be a temple
to people like us who teach
because this is the
beginning of what we're doing
in our anatomy medical
curriculums today.
>> As always, I hope you found
that informative and inspiring.
If you did, please click
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