The Lessons of the Scalpel: From Femine Anatomy to Physiology in Some Anatomical Texts at the Dawn of Modern Times

Abstract

Perfectly symmetrical and facing each other, the two beautiful nudes depicted in Andreas Vesalius’s Epitome (1543) can be considered an artistic introduction to the anatomical investigation of sexed bodies placed on an equal footing. The dissection shows and explains the internal layout of the human body in general, and thus any differences by virtue of gender. The body depicted and described in Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica (1543) is predominantly male, but observations scattered across the various volumes help to build the morphological identity of a female body, dissected. Descriptions of the female sexual anatomy were relatively sparse in the medical discourse of the early modern era, when scholars approached the autopsy of female bodies from a physiological perspective and covered the female sex, so briefly exposed, with a veil of propriety.