TabulaThe body, as it was written.

A tour · 5 plates

Beyond Europe

Knowledge of the body was not made in Europe alone, and this tour follows five contributions from Egypt, India, China and the Islamic world. It tells them carefully, because the popular versions are often wrong in both directions. An Egyptian surgical papyrus holds the earliest known written descriptions of the brain's surface and coverings.1 The Sanskrit Suśrutasaṃhitā describes softening a body in water and removing its layers one by one, though it is younger than popular accounts claim.2 The claim that the Huangdi Neijing describes Harvey's circulation does not survive a close reading, and its plate never inks in.3 Ibn al-Haytham argued that vision happens when light enters the eye.4 Ibn al-Nafis described blood passing through the lungs three centuries before any European did.5 Pair this tour with the Traditions lens, which shows Islamic-Galenic, Chinese and Ayurvedic maps of the body on their own terms rather than as early drafts of a modern atlas.

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  1. Tab. I: The first word for "brain" (c. 1600 BCE (copy of an older text))
  2. Tab. IV: The circulation that wasn't (c. 2nd–1st c. BCE (compilation))
  3. Tab. V: Anatomy, layer by layer (Compiled over centuries, from c. the last centuries BCE)
  4. Tab. VIII: Light comes into the eye (1011–1021)
  5. Tab. IX: No pores in the septum (c. 1242)

Sources for this introduction

  1. The Edwin Smith Papyrus, a copy made around 1700–1600 BCE from older material, contains the earliest known written descriptions of the brain's surface, the meninges and the cerebrospinal fluid.

    • M. A. Kamp, Y. Tahsim-Oglou, H.-J. Steiger, D. Hänggi, Traumatic Brain Injuries in the Ancient Egypt: Insights from the Edwin Smith Papyrus. 2012. Journal of Neurological Surgery Part A. doi:10.1055/s-0032-1313635, abstract. Link · Archive scholarly
    • Eric H. Chudler (University of Washington), The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus. n.d.. Link · Archive secondary
    • University at Buffalo, History of Communication Disorders, Edwin Smith Papyrus 1700 BC. n.d.. Link · Archive secondary

  2. The Suśrutasaṃhitā describes preparing a body for study by leaving it in water for several days and then removing its layers one by one; specialist scholarship treats it as a layered text whose composition may have begun in the last centuries BCE, not as a 6th-century BCE work.contested

    Secondary accounts differ on the details of the method and on the dating of the text.

    • (attributed to Suśruta), Suśrutasaṃhitā, Śārīrasthāna. compiled over centuries. primary
    • (review article, PubMed Central), [Review of Sushruta as the Father of Surgery]. 2024, abstract. Link · Archive scholarly · details pending
    • G. Jan Meulenbeld, A History of Indian Medical Literature. 1999–2002. Egbert Forsten, Groningen. scholarly
    • World Journal of Dentistry (review), [Review of Sushruta and ancient Indian surgery]. n.d.. Link · Archive secondary · details pending

  3. In the Huangdi Neijing the vessels carry qi and only sometimes blood, and specialist translators read it as describing neither blood circulation nor a pumping heart.read via summaries

    • Paul U. Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Ideas. 1985. University of California Press. scholarly
    • Nature correspondence, [Letter on Needham's and Unschuld's readings of Chinese circulation passages]. 2000, letter text. Link · Archive scholarly · details pending
    • Dominik Wujastyk (Indology list), Blood circulation (list post). 1999. Link · Archive secondary

  4. Ibn al-Haytham wrote the Book of Optics between about 1011 and 1021 and argued for intromission, in which light from every point of an object enters the eye.read via summaries

    • Ibn al-Haytham; A. I. Sabra (trans.), The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham, Books I–III: On Direct Vision. 1989. Warburg Institute, London. primary
    • A. Mark Smith, Alhacen's Theory of Visual Perception (De aspectibus, Books I–III). 2001. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 91. scholarly
    • Muslim Heritage, Ibn al-Haytham on eye and brain. n.d.. Link · Archive secondary

  5. In the thirteenth century Ibn al-Nafis rejected the septal pores and described blood passing from the right ventricle through the lungs to the left; in Europe the route was described in the 1550s.

    • Ibn al-Nafis, Sharḥ Tashrīḥ al-Qānūn (Commentary on the Anatomy of Avicenna's Canon). c. 1242. primary
    • M. Akmal, M. Zulkifle, A. H. Ansari, Ibn Nafis – a forgotten genius in the discovery of pulmonary blood circulation. 2010. Heart Views 11(1):26–30. Link · Archive scholarly
    • Hektoen International, Ibn al-Nafis and the pulmonary circulation. 2017. Link · Archive secondary
    • Jeremy M. Norman (HistoryofInformation.com), Who Discovered the Pulmonary Circulation? Servetus, Valverde or Colombo?. n.d.. Link · Archive secondary