Eustachi
NAME:
ACHIEVEMENTS:
Advances in anatomy
NICKNAME/ALIAS:
None
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
c1500-1510, San Severino, Ancona, Italy
DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH AND AGE AT DEATH:
27 August 1574, on the Via Flamini to Fossombrone, Italy. Aged around 70
DISCIPLINE:
Physician
FIELD:
Medicine
LANGUAGE:
Italy
PARENTS:
Father: Mariano Eustachi
Mother: Francesco Benvenuti
SIBLINGS:
?
SPOUSE:
?
CHILDREN:
?
EDUCATION:
Archiginnasio della Sapienza, Rome
MAJOR WORK:
“Opuscula anatomica” (Anatomical notebook) (1564)
“Tabulae antatomicae Bartolomaei Eustachi quas a tenebris tandem vindicatas” (Anatomical tables) (1714)
LIFE AND TIMES:
Eustachi was the son of a doctor. He was given a good education and became an accomplished classicist. He studied medicine in Rome and practised in San Severino before becoming physician to the Duke of Urbino and then to the Duke’s brother, Cardinal Guilio della Rovere whom he joined in Rome in 1549. Eustachi was given an honorary appointment at the Sapienza school as professor of anatomy and was therefore able to gain access to bodies for dissection. He became a noted anatomist.
His first publications came out in 1561, and in both “Ossium examen” and “De motu capitis” Eustachi criticized his contemporary Vesalius* for his attacks on Galen, the traditional medical authority. In 1562-3 he wrote a series of papers on the kidney, the ear, the venous system and the teeth. His treatise on the kidney was the most detailed and accurate so far produced and includes the first description of the suprarenal gland.
In this paper, Eustachi was the first to stress the significance of anatomical variation. He was also the first to produce a detailed study of the teeth, in which he described the outer and inner structures of the tooth and attempted to explain the sensitivity of the hard outer structure.
In his work on the auditory system, he described the tensor tympani and the stapedius muscles, and the tube linking the throat and the middle ear which is known today as the Eustachian tube.
In 1552 Eustachi, with the help of an artist, prepared forty-seven anatomical illustrations which were produced as copper engravings. The bulk of these went missing after his death and although they were searched for by Malpighi* among others, they were not found until the eighteenth century when they were published under the title “Tabulae antatomicae Bartolomaei Eustachi quas a tenebris tandem vindicatas” (1714).
They include drawings of the abdominal structures, the thorax, the nervous and vascular systems, muscles and bones. Although there are signs that Eustachi’s access to cadavers might have been limited, his observations were astonishingly acute. His illustration of the sympathetic nervous system is regarded as among the finest ever made, and those depicting the vascular system and the laryngeal structures are notably advanced for their time.
His work contributed to the scientific development of anatomy and influenced those who came after him, among whom was Valsalva*.
ASSESSMENT: Eustachi made valuable contributions to new knowledge about anatomy.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None
ONELINER: Eustachi, anatomist discoverer of the Eustacian tubes
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
DSB