Ivory anatomical manikins.

REPRESENTATIONS OF the human body have been sculptured since prehistoric times, for then our forebears fashioned small female figures with exaggerated breasts and hips. The sculptors of Greece and Rome made commonplace the form of gods, heroes and prominent citizens which were used to decorate public places and buildings. Wealthy patrons of the arts collected statues and statuettes of bronze or marble to enhance the beauty of their private homes. These practices have continued to the present day. It is however the application of sculpture to medical purposes that particularly concerns us in the present context. For many centuries artists have prepared figures to assist in teaching or in diagnosis or have fashioned sculptures with an interest and an appeal to medical men merely for their aesthetic qualities. In China these consisted of acupuncture figures in bronze, ivory or other materials to train students and practitioners in the appropriate points and meridians of acupuncture; these were also in use in Japan. In China, too, originated the 'doctor's lady' a small ivory figure of a naked woman which was used by the doctor or the patient to indicate the site of pain or disease, for it was not seemly for the medical man to make a physical examination of a lady, the only exception being to take the pulse. These small figures were carried by the doctor or kept in the household of every wealthy family. In Japan the toggle or button (netsuke) used to attach the cord of the tobacco pouch (tabako-ire), the medicine case (inro), the writing necessities (yatate) or the purse (kinchaku) to the belt became objects of great artistry and carvers vied with each other in producing these, many of which portray medical scenes of every variety. In Japan, too, small figures, usually ofwood, showed a stylized representation of the thoracic and abdominal viscera. With the renaissance of anatomy in Europe after the publication by Andreas Vesalius of his De humani corporis fabrica in 1543 came the need for some representation of the anatomy of the body, particularly with the scarcity of bodies for dissection and, perhaps even more important, the complete lack of means of preservation of bodies or dissected material. This need was partly met by anatomical prints but in general a single-dimension picture is unsatisfactory in giving the untrained person a true impression of the structure of the body. A three-dimensional figure has obvious advantages even although the detail shown may not be so complete as in the engraving. Both artists and anatomists wanted these, and many musclemen, or gcorche figures were produced in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Mainly of bronze, but also of wood or ivory, these ecorchds were based on figures similar to that of La bella anatomia by Ludovico Cardi called Cigoli (1559-1613), the wax