Anatomy

Overview

Leonardo's anatomical studies are among the most extraordinary achievements in the entire history of science. Over a period of roughly 25 years (c. 1487–1513), he dissected more than 30 human corpses and produced hundreds of drawings that would not be surpassed in accuracy for three centuries.

He studied the skeleton, the muscular system, the cardiovascular system, the brain, the eye, the reproductive organs, and the developing fetus. He was the first person to accurately draw the spine with its correct curvatures, the first to identify atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), and the first to describe the moderator band of the heart.

The bulk of these drawings are in the Windsor Castle collection — over 200 sheets of anatomical studies that remained virtually unknown until the 19th century. Had they been published in his lifetime, they would have advanced medical science by generations.

797. OF THE ORDER OF THE BOOK.
This work must begin with the conception of man, and describe the nature of the womb and how the foetus lives in it, up to what stage it resides there, and in what way it quickens into life and feeds. Also its growth and what interval there is between one stage of growth and another. What it is that forces it out from the body of the mother, and for what reasons it sometimes comes out of the mother's womb before the due time.

Then I will describe which are the members, which, after the boy is born, grow more than the others, and determine the proportions of a boy of one year.

Then describe the fully grown man and woman, with their proportions, and the nature of their complexions, colour, and physiognomy.

Then how they are composed of veins, tendons, muscles and bones.

Windsor Anatomical MS.

796. And you, who say that it would be better to watch an anatomist at work than to see these drawings, you would be right, if it were possible to observe all the things which are demonstrated in such drawings in a single figure, in which you, with all your cleverness, will not see nor obtain knowledge of more than some few veins, to obtain a true and perfect knowledge of which I have dissected more than ten human bodies, destroying all the other members, and removing the very minutest particles of the flesh by which these veins are surrounded, without causing them to bleed, excepting the insensible bleeding of the capillary veins; and as one single body would not last so long, since it was necessary to proceed with several bodies by degrees, until I came to an end and had a complete knowledge; this I repeated twice, to learn the differences.

And if you should have a love for such things you might be prevented by loathing, and if that did not prevent you, you might be deterred by the fear of living in the night hours in the company of those corpses, quartered and flayed and horrible to see.

Windsor Anatomical MS.

As to whether all these things were found in me or not, the hundred and twenty books composed by me will give verdict Yes or No. In these I have been hindered neither by avarice nor negligence, but simply by want of time. Farewell.

Windsor Anatomical MS.