Bartolomeo Eustachio

1510?-1574

Italian Anatomist

Bartolomeo Eustachio, contemporary of Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) and a major figure in the great flowering of knowledge in gross anatomy that occurred in Italian universities during the sixteenth century, is best known for his account of the auditory organ that bears his name, the Eustachian tube. His treatises on the kidney, venous system, and teeth were superior to anything yet produced, and his copperplate engravings, particularly of the sympathetic nervous system, are of such quality that they alone ensure Eustachio's place of eminence in anatomical history.

Eustachio was born in San Severino, Italy, between 1510-1520. The son of a physician, he received a good humanistic education and knew Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. He studied medicine in Rome at the Archiginnasio della Sapienza and began to practice near his birthplace in about 1540. Thereafter he was invited to become physician to the Duke of Urbino and later to the Duke's brother, Cardinal della Rovere, whom he followed to Rome in 1549. There he joined the medical faculty of the Sapienza as the equivalent of a professor of anatomy, and was permitted to obtain cadavers for dissection from nearby hospitals. In later years Eustachio was so disabled with gout that he had to resign his chair, but continued to serve Cardinal della Rovere. In 1574 the Cardinal requested his services; Eustachio set out from Rome to Fassombrone to attend him, but met death along the way.

Eustachio's first works were directed against Vesalius and his challenges to Galenic theories. Although regarding himself as a follower of Galen (129-199), the renowned Greek physician who was quoted dogmatically for over 1,200 years, Eustachio nonetheless possessed a spirit of scientific inquiry and was an innovator in his anatomical investigations. Since the religious and civil prohibition against human dissection had somewhat eased, human anatomy as both science and art was poised to become a focus of excellence.

In 1562 and 1563 Eustachio produced a remarkable series of treatises on, among other structures, the kidney (De renum structura), the auditory organ (De auditus organis), and the teeth (De dentibus). These were collectively published in 1563 under the title Opuscula anatomica, which can loosely be translated as "Little Anatomical Works." The work on the kidney, the first to be dedicated to that organ, contains the first account of the suprarenal gland and the first detailed analysis of the concept of anatomical variation. The auditory tube, as was acknowledged by Eustachio, had been known to Aristotle (384-322 b.c.), and Alcmaeon (sixth century b.c.), but Eustachio expanded on this earlier knowledge with a careful description of the auditory tube and its anatomic relations. Eustachio's De dentibus was the first detailed study of the development of the teeth, describing the first and second dentitions, the structure of both the hard and soft tissues, and possible reasons for the sensitivity of the hard tissues of the tooth.

In 1552 Eustachio, with the help of the artist Pier Matteo Pini, prepared a series of 47 anatomical illustrations in copperplate engravings. Only eight were published during his lifetime, relating to the discussions of the kidney in the Opuscula anatomica. The others were lost after his death, reappearing only in the early eighteenth century in the possession of a descendent of Pini. They were then purchased by Pope Clement XI and presented to his physician Giovanni Maria Lancisi (1654-1720), a successor to Eustachio's chair of anatomy at Sapienza. Lancisi published the rediscovered plates, along with the previously published eight, in 1714 under the title Tabulae anatomicae Bartholomaei Eustachi. Tabula XVIII, on the sympathetic nervous system, is generally considered even today to be one of the best illustrations ever produced of that structure.

Eustachio's anatomical achievements were great, but much of his influence was posthumous. His work for the most part was not published during his lifetime, and nearly all the text is lost. The copperplate engravings of Eustachio are less beautiful than those of Vesalius, but are in many instances more accurate. They contain a number of discoveries that for originality rank him below only Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and Vesalius. Had these engravings appeared when they were completed in 1552, knowledge of the nervous system and anatomical studies in general would have matured at least a century earlier.

DIANE K. HAWKINS