The Texture of Rare and Common Lesions in Soemmerring and Baillie.

The publications on morbid anatomy by Matthew Baillie and Samuel Thomas Soemmerring put pathological preparations and images center stage. A comparison between their works highlights major shifts from exceptional to more representative cases and significant differences in the art of representation. Initially Baillie provided careful descriptions of internal postmortem lesions (1793). Then Soemmerring's prompt German translation added a wealth of references to the literature and specifically to pathological images available in print (1794). Soon after a second unillustrated edition incorporating some of Soemmerring's comments (1797), Baillie issued ten installments with dozens of pathological plates (1799-1803). His plates differed from those referred to by Soemmerring for their broader scope, representing common and rare conditions alike, and specific attention to the fine changes of texture of the affected parts. Their works document the crucial status of pathological preparations and images at the time and highlight the achievement of Baillie's work at an artistic as well as at an intellectual level.

"Ex Museolo Nostro Machaonico": Collecting, Publishing, and Visualization in Fabricius Hildanus1.

This essay seeks to use the learned surgeon Wilhelm Fabry von Hilden (1560­1634), better known by the Latinized name of Fabricius Hildanus, to establish links among areas that have so far generally been seen by historians as separate. They include the publication of Observationes chirurgicae, the establishment of a surgical museum, and the collection and publication of several images documenting his activities. Fabricius was among the first to embark on these three endeavors. The essay provides an especially rich account of his museum, including its holdings and in some cases the preservation methods he employed.

The Rise of Pathological Illustrations: Baillie, Bleuland, and Their Collections.

This essay examines the illustrated pathological works by Matthew Baillie (London, 1799-1803) and Jan Bleuland (Utrecht, 1826-28). Both works relied on extensive collections of specimens preserved in London and Utrecht, respectively. The essay discusses changing notions of disease, the erosion of the boundaries between surgeons and physicians, the role and significance of pathological collections, and the relations between preserved specimens and their representations.

Introduction: experimenting with animals in the early modern era.

The aim of this special issue is to address issues surrounding the use of live animals in experimental procedures in the pre-modern era, with a special emphasis on the technical, anatomical, and philosophical sides. Such use raises philosophical, scientific, and ethical questions about the nature of life, the reliability of the knowledge acquired, and animal suffering.

The representation of insects in the seventeenth century: a comparative approach.

The investigation and representation of insects in the seventeenth century posed huge problems: on the one hand, their size and texture required optical tools and fixation techniques to disentangle and identify their tiny parts; on the other, the esoteric nature of those parts required readers to make sense of images alien to their daily experiences. Naturalists and anatomists developed sophisticated techniques of investigation and representation, involving tacit and unusual conventions that even twentieth-century readers found at times baffling. This essay develops a comparative approach based on seven pairs of investigations involving Francesco Stelluti, Francesco Redi, Giovanni Battista Hodierna, Robert Hooke, Marcello Malpighi, and Jan Swammerdam. Seen together, they document an extraordinary time in the study of insects and reconstruct a number of iconographic dialogues shedding light on the conventions and styles adopted.

The collaboration between anatomists and mathematicians in the mid-seventeenth century with a study of images as experiments and Galileo's role in Steno's Myology.

Moving from Paris, Pisa, and Oxford to London, Amsterdam, and Cambridge, this essay documents extensive collaborations between anatomists and mathematicians. At a time when no standard way to acknowledge collaboration existed, it is remarkable that in all the cases I discuss anatomists expressed in print their debt to mathematicians. The cases I analyze document an extraordinarily fertile period in the history of anatomy and science and call into question historiographic divisions among historians of science and medicine. I focus on Steno's Myology, showing how his collaboration with mathematician Viviani led to a geometrical treatment of muscular contraction and to an epistemology inspired by Galileo. The collaboration between Steno and Viviani enables us to interpret a major text in the history of anatomy, one whose implications had so far eluded historians.