"The changes have been rung by medical historians upon a casual reference in Mondino's chapter on the uterus to the bodies of two women and one sow which he had dissected, as if these were the first and the only cadavers dissected by him. The context involved no such construction. He is enforcing a statement that the size of the uterus may vary, and to illustrate it remarks that, 'a woman whom I anatomized in the month of January last year (1315 Anno Christi), had a larger uterus than one whom I anatomized in the month of March of the same year.' And further, he says, 'the uterus of a sow which I dissected in 1316 (the year in which he was writing) was a hundred times greater than any I had seen in the human female, for she was pregnant, and contained thirteen pigs.' These happen to be the only references to specific bodies that he makes in his treatise. But it is a far cry to wring out of these references the conclusions that these are the only dissections he made. It is quite true that if we incline to enshroud his work in a cloud of mystery, and to figure it as an unprecedented, awe-inspiring feature to break down the prejudices of the ages, it is easy to think of him as having timidly profaned the human body in his anatomizing zeal in but one or two instances. His own language, however, throughout his book is that of a man who was familiar with the differing conditions of the organs found in many different bodies–a man who was habitually dissecting."
As I think must be clear to any one who knows Mondino's book, no other conclusion than this suggested by Prof. Pilcher can be drawn. This opinion has been frankly stated, by every historian of anatomy in recent years. Puschmann says it very clearly. Von Töply is evidently of the same opinion. These are the latest authorities in the history of anatomy. No other conclusion than this could well be reached by anyone who has studied the question seriously. Pilcher confirms this in the article already quoted in the following paragraph:
"Salernum was not alone in its legalization of the dissection of human bodies before the first public work of Mondino, for, according to a document of the Maggiore Consiglio of Venice of 1308, it appears that there was a college of medicine in Venice, which was even then authorized to dissect a body once every year. Common experience tells us that the embodiment of such regulations into formal law would occur only after a considerable preceding period of discussion, and in this particular field, of clandestine practice. It is too much to ask us to believe that in all this period, from the date of the promulgation of Frederick's decree of 1241 to the first public demonstration by Mondino at Bologna in 1315, the decree had been a dead letter and no human body had been anatomized. It is true there is not, as far as I am aware, any record of any such work, and commentators and historians of a later date have, without exception, accepted the view that none was done, and thereby heightened the halo assigned to Mondino as the one who ushered a new era. Such a view seems to me to be incredible. Be that as it may, it is undeniable that at the beginning of the fourteenth century the idea of dissecting the human body was not a novel one; the importance of a knowledge of the intimate structure of the body had already been appreciated by divers ruling bodies, and specific regulations prescribing its practice had been enacted. It is more reasonable to believe that in the era preceding immediately that of Mondino, human bodies were being opened and after a fashion anatomized. All that we know of the work of Mondino suggests that it was not a new enterprise in which he was a pioneer, but rather that he brought to an old practice a new enthusiasm and better methods, which, caught on the rising wave of interest in medical teaching at Bologna, and preserved by his own energy as a writer in the first original systematic treatise written since the time of Galen, created for him in subsequent uncritical times the reputation of being the restorer of the practice of anatomizing the human body, the first one to demonstrate and teach such knowledge since the time of the Ptolemaic anatomists, Erasistratus and Herophilus."
In order to show that Mondino did not perform only the two or three dissections which he himself for special reasons mentions, but many more, Professor Pilcher has made a series of quotations from the Bolognese anatomist's manual of dissection. It is after all quite easy to understand that if dissections were common, there would be no records of most of them, as they would be too commonplace for chroniclers to mention. Only those that have some special feature are by chance mentioned in some accounts of doings at the university. The records of the actual number of dissections at most medical schools, even a century ago, are not now available in most cases. On the other hand, no one can read these quotations from Mondino's book without realizing that the man who wrote these passages had made many dissections, and that it was a common practice for him to make anatomical preparations in many different ways, under many different circumstances and for many different purposes.
The second quotation shows, in fact, that Mondino had the custom sometimes of boiling his bodies before dissecting them when he wished to demonstrate special features, and he promises to make such an anatomy for his students at another time. If the bull of Pope Boniface VIII. was misinterpreted in any way to prohibit dissection, this would surely be the practice supposed to fall under its provisions. Here we find Mondino, less than twenty years after the promulgation of the bull, writing about this very practice, however, and calmly suggesting that he follows it as a routine, in a book that was published without let or hindrance from the ecclesiastical authorities, and that became for the next two centuries the most used book in the teaching of anatomy in educational institutions that were directly under ecclesiastical authorities. If the bull was misinterpreted so as to forbid dissection, as has been said, surely this flagrant violation of it would not have been permitted. It is clear that, if there was a misinterpretation, it must have come later in the history of anatomy. But of that we shall find no trace any more than at this time.
Here are the quotations from the Anatomy of Mondino which show that he practiced not one but many methods of making dissections, according to the purposes he had in view. The leaf and line references are to the Dryander Edition, Marburg, 1541. (Taken from Prof. Pilcher.)
"I do not consider separately here the anatomy of component parts, because their anatomy does not appear clearly in the fresh subject, but rather in those macerated in water." (Leaf 2, lines 8-13.)
".... these differences are more noticeable in the cooked or perfectly dried body, and so you need not be concerned about them, as perhaps I will make an anatomy upon such a one at another time and will write what I observe with my own senses, as I have proposed from the beginning." (Leaf 60, lines 14-17.)
"What the members are to which these nerves come cannot well be seen in such dissection as this, but it should be liquified with rain water, and this is not contemplated in the present body." (Leaf 60, lines 31-33.)
"After the veins you will note many muscles and many large and strong cords, the complete anatomy of which you will not endeavor to find in such a body, but in a body dried in the sun for three years, as I have demonstrated at another time; I also declared completely their number, and wrote the anatomy of the muscles of the arms, hands and feet in a lecture which I gave over the first, second, third and fourth subjects."
As must be clear to anyone, many of these expressions are, as Professor Pilcher insists, intelligible only if we accept the conclusion that their author had done many dissections, under many and varying circumstances, during his career as an anatomist before writing this volume. We have other evidence, of a much more direct character, for this fact. Mondino uses the expression, that he had demonstrated many times a certain anatomical feature which could only be the subject of demonstration after dissection. The expression occurs in a description of the hypo-gastric region which he calls the sumen. Through this region, he says, there pass to the surface certain veins which transmit fluid in the fetus during the time of its life in utero. For this reason they are better studied in the unborn than in the fully developed, since they lose their function as soon as complete development is reached.