The Anatomy Lesson (24 page)

When looking upon his lifeless form, as we shall once I have removed this cloth, we should do well to remember the ancients’ story of Marsyas, the satyr who claimed he could play the flute better than any man, mortal or immortal. He challenged Apollo to a musical contest, which the Muses would judge. Apollo and Marsyas proved both fine musicians, but Apollo outshone his immodest rival. Awarded the right to punish the satyr however he pleased, Apollo flayed Marsyas alive.

Whosoever, like this patient upon the dissecting table, believes that he outshines the Divine must pay the price. Let no man consider himself above moral law, outside the reach of God’s law, else he be sacrificed to God’s purpose.

All is not lost in this tale, gentlemen. This body, which conducted none but evil deeds during its earthly cycle, shall now be
redeemed and made holy by its new purpose, which is to reveal to us the glories of creation.

Gentlemen, to commence my ocular demonstration on this fine winter’s eve, I present you with a single tulip. The Violetten Admirael van Enkhuizen, gentlemen, is, as many of you do know, one of the finest tulips in the entire world round, surpassed in beauty and value only by the Semper Augustus. Note its color, finely striated in red, pink, and white, its faint golden tips a gilded halo to this throne. Behold then, the surprise at the bloom’s center: a black iris within a blue eye! Give ocular testimony, too, to the unusual shape of its petals: they curve and bend like a strange melody.

My only misfortune, dear friends, is that this true specimen of God’s divinity belongs not to me but to my friend here, the good poet and merchant Roemer Visscher. Thank you, Mijnheer Visscher, for lending it to me. This tulip, as you can see, as I walk it around the
theatrum anatomicum
, is the very exemplar of God’s majestic handiwork. Would that I could pass it around for each of you to touch with your own hands, so that you might experience some portion of the pleasure I feel in its presence.

The bulb of an admirael, much like this I hold in my hands, sold this month at the flower auctions for the princely price of one of the new canal houses on the stately Herengracht. This one was cultivated in a hothouse so that it would bloom in time for our fête.

What makes this Violetten so exquisite? No, not its coloration, sires, nor even the delicate shapely petals. Why, if I should desire to do so, I should remove the bloom altogether.

There! It is done!

Gentlemen, what noise is this? Why do you gasp?

Have you never witnessed a tulip plucked from God’s good earth
and arranged in a vase upon the mantel? Gentlemen, I know many of you well enough to have seen your homes and know that all of your wives have done so!

Is it Mijnheer Visscher who would worry you?

No, no, he doth laugh!

Stand, my friend, and assure the crowd that you would not take offense! He knew what I would do!

There, gentlemen, you see! I do not deceive.

Gentlemen, gentlemen, be still! Resume your seats.

Please, honorable gentlemen, resume your seats!

Well, we must have a little fun at the winter fest, must we not?

Still, gentlemen, my amusing demonstration reveals a sober purpose. Why doth Mijnheer Visscher not object to my desecration of his priceless flower? For the life of this tulip lies not in the bloom that, whether planted or not, shall eventually wilt and wither. Rather the value of the admirael lies in its root, the bulb, which is returned to the earth so that it might bloom again. The petals, the iris, and the eye are but the outward manifestations of the glorious bulb. For it is the bulb that shall produce more tulips, the bulb that shall generate new life! The mother bulb lasts several years and may produce two or three clones, or offsets, annually.

In much the same way, gentlemen, human life is separated into two parts. The bloom of our human cycle is our body whilst it is young and strong and able. But as we all have observed, soon we, too, will wilt and wither, and ultimately our bodies are none but petals that do, lifeless, drop.

Our roots, gentlemen—the bulbs that do carry on past our flowering—are our souls. Our bodies are but the envelope of our souls here on earth.

The substance of my lecture is the division and also sympathy
between man’s body and his soul. It’s a topic that should be familiar to those of you who have heard me sermonize here, on this pulpit, in this church of natural philosophy, in the past. Indeed, it was the subject of one of my first orations,
De animi et corporis sympathia
, at Leiden. I did not come to understand this matter on my own, of course. I inherited my understanding from the great ancient philosophers Plato and Aristotle, whose
observationis
have been passed down to us through Hippocrates and Galen.

They tell us to remember the Delphic oracle:
Nosce te ipsum, cognitio sui
. Know thyself. And its correlative:
Cognitio dei:
Know God.

Cognitio sui:
Know thyself.

Cognitio dei:
Know God.

We must understand the human body, our ephemeral encasement that we shed upon our deaths, in order to understand God and his larger purpose, his higher order. Man, as another of our ancients, the Greek philosopher Protagoras, related, is the measure of all things. He is greater than any other beast that walks upon this earth. He is God’s ultimate conception. But what are the markings of our divinity? What separates us from all God’s other creatures?

Let us now bring our attention again to my tulip, which I hold separated from its root. But instead of looking at the flower this time, I would ask you to direct your gaze just a bit lower, to this other remarkable specimen on display: the human hand that holds this stem. See how the hand twists, as I hold the tulip up to the candelabra. Note how the muscles within the arm do gently contract. See, honorable gentlemen, how the fingers do work independently of one another and yet also in harmony. How the thumb finds its way to meet the forefinger, and the remaining fingers open out like a bloom. These fingers grasp, press, and pluck! You have already seen how they plucked this fine bloom from its stem. To hold it aloft.

Like the tulip flower, this hand doth grow upon a stem. That stem, gentlemen, we shall call the cubitus, or forearm, comprised of two very different bones, which we shall call the radius and ulna, as per Vesalius, along with ligaments, nerves, veins and arteries, membranes and skin. Within our skin are flexor tendons and musculature that allow us to grasp this flower’s stem, for example, to hold it betwixt our fingers, to twirl it so that we might observe all sides, as I am doing now.

This motion, this simple twirling of this flower, cannot be accomplished by any other species known on the earth. It is the gift of man and man alone. The horse, for all its strength and speed, cannot hold a gentle bloom with its hoof. The elephant, for all its vastness and power, has no hands to hold nor fingers to wave. Even the Indian satyr, that intelligent wild ape, has not the agility or grace of human hands.

Why would we alone be ordained with this skill? And, more importantly, what do we make of it? The same hand that should let us hold the admirael, or, for example, perform surgery or stroke our fair wives’ hair in tenderness also enables us to steal, to strike, to knife, to kill. How do we use this hand? What do we owe to this appendage that would set us apart from barbarians and brutes?

The human hand, honorable gentlemen: the human arm. Wherefore is it God’s gift? I dare not attempt the answer now, for this question deserves our profoundest consideration. Although this year’s lecture shall explore many parts of the human body, the highlight of my presentation, I assure you, gentlemen, will be my discussion of the human arm and hand. I shall offer a demonstration of the mechanistic operation of the human arm, its major muscle groups, arteries, veins, and tendons—a subject which is particularly dear to my heart.

We shall begin, however, by cutting round with the surgeon’s blade, to remove the skin.

Before I begin, let me make two apologies. First, especially for those standing in the back, I regret that our current chambers are not adequate. The Surgeons’ Guild spent many months searching Amsterdam for new headquarters, and I’m pleased to announce that the governors have now decided to build an expansive new
theatrum anatomicum
right here in Sint Anthoniespoort. It shall be located in a large-bellied room in the new steeple currently under construction, and it shall accommodate twice as many spectators as our present chambers. At least, I hope, the close proximity among bodies shall keep some of you warm!

Secondly, as is the nature of all things corporeal, our patient, the focus of our attention tonight, shall inevitably begin its natural process of decay. That process, unfortunately, shall produce an unpleasant putrescence. As you perhaps have noted already, the many candelabras that hang above you to light the chamber are filled with scented oils and the censers burn with incense that should aid the olfactory experience.

You may have a particular sensitivity to putrescence. In which case, please position yourself closer to one of the small windows in the tower. As required by the Surgeons’ Decree on the Anatomy Issue of 1606, I do ask that you attempt to maintain your seat throughout the proceeding. However, if you feel yourself becoming faint, may I suggest that you avert your gaze toward the anatomical text that you have brought with you or, if you have none, gaze at your hands or feet and contemplate my words rather than the patient.

However, if this doth not suffice and you find yourself overcome, raise your hand to notify our anatomical assistant—please step forward, Jan, so that our audience may know you—and he shall escort
you out of the hall. There are chamber pots downstairs of which you may avail yourself. Once you have left the
theatrum anatomicum
, unfortunately, you shall not be able to return until the next evening’s lesson.

In reverence to the tradition of anatomical lessons established by our worthy counterparts in Padua and Bologna, our discussion shall begin with a
quodlibet
, consisting of my lecture and recitation from the anatomical text. It shall be followed by a
disputatio
, in which members of the audience shall be permitted to submit questions and engage in debate about the material at hand. However, these comments must be respectful of the serious nature of the proceedings. Members of the audience should refrain from laughing or talking—or, indeed, applauding—during the lecture.

As per guild decree, I will pass around the auditorium various human organs that shall be dissected from the anatomical subject, so that you may inspect them at a closer vantage. They will be quite bloody, and though I will ask my
famulus anatomicus
to rinse them before we pass them around the audience, I must warn you that there will still be something of a mess. Please handle these organs carefully, observe them briefly, and pass them along to the person seated beside you. Should a member of the audience be caught attempting to abscond with the heart, kidney, liver, or any other organ, that person shall be fined six guilders and removed from the theater at once.

You laugh, gentlemen, but such attempts are not unknown.

Every year there is at least one foolish soul who seeks to leave with a souvenir. Last year, a young burgher put a liver into the pocket of his cloak. Had not the blood and black bile of this organ seeped through the lining, we would not have discovered the theft.
Let this year be the year that we reverse this trend. These organs would be reunited with the rest of the body for a proper Christian burial.

Now, then, I shall begin by removing this sheet over the patient. If you know yourself to be squeamish, please take a breath now, and breathe deeply for several moments. For the sight of the patient and its deathly pallor may be disquieting. I should prepare you, too, for the fact that this particular patient may prove even more unsightly than our usual fare, for his body is marred by the many markings of so many executioners’ whips, chains, and branding scars. These, friends, are but the outward manifestation of his sinful path.

A final caveat: the right hand of this patient was amputated just above the wrist. This shall not hinder our discussion of his limbs, as we shall simply use the left arm, instead. However, it may prove disquieting to those of you who have never seen an unwhole human form.

Those of you who have brought along anatomical texts should be able to follow along with the demonstration quite easily. I shall be using two different texts to guide my instruction. The first is
De humani corporis fabrica
of Andreas Vesalius. Jan, please bring the text to me now. The useful illustration may be found on page two hundred and twenty-three.

I have removed the cloth. I shall take a moment to allow you all to view the body whole before I cut around with my surgeon’s blade.

Tonight, I shall begin the anatomical lecture with a dissection of the patient’s abdominal cavity, discussing all the major bodily organs. Then, following Vesalius, I will focus on the structure and function of the man’s hand.

You shall see plainly that God has left his footprints here, within
the body of this thief. Whence I begin to dissect the flesh and reveal those footprints, I ask you to think not only upon the appearance of the man, the shape or texture of the organs, but on the functioning of man’s soul. We must give ocular testimony but search, too, with our souls. Observe!