Timeline

Twenty-six plates and nine beliefs of their time, in order. Beliefs are in red ink.

Tab. I · c. 1600 BCE (copy of an older text)The first word for "brain"
Tab. II · c. 500 BCEThinking happens in the headcontested
Tab. III · c. 300–250 BCENerves are not tendonscontested
Belief from 260 BCEArteries carry pneuma, not blood
Tab. V · Compiled over centuries, from c. the last centuries BCEAnatomy, layer by layercontested
Tab. IV · c. 2nd–1st c. BCE (compilation)The circulation that wasn'trevised
Tab. VI · c. 160s–190sArteries carry blood
Tab. VII · c. 160s–190sThe squealing pig falls silent
Belief from 170Pores in the heart's wall
Belief from 170A "wonderful net" under the human brain
Belief from 170The lower jaw is two bones
Belief from 170The liver makes the blood, and the body uses it up
Tab. VIII · 1011–1021Light comes into the eye
Tab. IX · c. 1242No pores in the septumcontested
Tab. X · c. 1512–13Whirlpools close the valvecontested
Tab. XI · 1543Galen dissected apes
Tab. XII · 1553 · 1556 · 1559Three Europeans and a suppressed bookcontested
Tab. XIII · 1561A trumpet, not a seminal duct
Tab. XIV · 1603Perfectly described, completely misread
Belief from 1603Valves slow the outward flow
Tab. XV · 1622 (seen) · 1627 (published)The milky veins
Belief from 1622The milky veins run to the liver
Tab. XVI · 1628The blood goes round
Tab. XVII · 1661The missing link
Tab. XVIII · 1664An architect draws the brain
Tab. XIX · Aug–Nov 1677A student saw them first
Tab. XX · 1800Twenty-one tissues, no microscope
Tab. XXI · 1869Seen in 1869, understood in 1921
Belief from 1873The nervous system is one continuous net
Belief from 1875The brain has no lymphatic vessels
Tab. XXII · 1888–89Using Golgi's stain against Golgi
Tab. XXIII · 1921–22What the islets docontested
Tab. XXIV · 22 May 1954Two Huxleys, one issue of Nature
Tab. XXV · 2015 (and 1787)Discovered in 2015, described in 1787contested
Tab. XXVI · 2018A new organ?contested