Berenger – the Greatest Scientist of French Anatomical School
Devis Sarah Ekua, the 3d-year student
Scientific supervisor – L.G. Sulim
SumyStateUniversity, Human Anatomy Chair
Berenger of Carpi, in the Modenese territory, flourished at Bologna at the beginning of the 16th century, in the annals of medicine his name will be remembered not only as the most zealous and eminent in cultivating the anatomy of the human body, but as the first physician who was fortunate enough to calm the alarms of Europe, suffering under the ravages of syphilis, then raging with uncontrollable virulence. In the former character he surpassed both predecessors and contemporaries. His assiduity was indefatigable; and he declares that he dissected above one hundred human bodies. He is the author of a compendium, of several treatises which he names Intoductions (ISOGOGAE).
Berenger is the first who undertakes a systematic view of the several textures of which the human body is composed; and in a preliminary commentary he treats successively of the anatomical characters and properties of fat, of membrane in general (panniculus), of flesh, of nerve, of villus or fibre, of ligament, of sinew or tendon, and of muscle in general. He is the first who mentions the vermiform process of the caecum; he remarks the yellow fint passes to the duodenum by the gall-bladder. In the account of the stomach he describes the several tissues of which that organ is composed. He is at considerable pains to explain the organs of generation in both sexes, and gives a long account of the anatomy of the foetus. He gives the first good description of the thymus; distinguishes the oblique situation of the heart; describes the pericardium, the cavities of the heart; but perplexes himself, as did all the anatomists of that age, about the spirit supposed to be contained. He gives a minute and clear account of the brain ventricles, remarks the corpus striatum, and has the sagacity to perceive that the choroid plexus consists of veins and arteries; he then describes the middle, the third and the fourth ventricle, the pituitary gland. Berenger rectifies the mistake of Mondino as to the olfactory or first pair of cranial nerves, gives a dood account of the optic and others. He enumerates the tunics and humours of the eye, and gives an account of the internal ear, in which he notices the malleus and incus.