The first English translation of a seminal book on anatomy in Latin is complete. Tess Redgrave reports.
"Of all the constituents of the human body, bone is the hardest, the driest, the earthiest, and the oldest; and excepting only the teeth, it is devoid of sensation ... for in the fabric of the human body, bones perform the same function as do walls and beams in houses,
poles in tents, and keels and ribs in boats ..."
So wrote Andreas Vesalius in the first chapter of his ground-breaking book De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (On the fabric of the human body), published in 1543.
Considered one of the most important books in the history of medicine, De fabrica revolutionised the science of anatomy and the way it was taught.
Incorporating seven books - sections as we would now call them - and illustrated with hundreds of anatomical drawings from artists at the school of the Renaissance painter Titian, De fabrica led to the eventual overturn of the Galenic system that had dominated medical science for 14 centuries.
Yet most of us would not be able to understand a word of Vesalius' Latin prose, nor appreciate his literary and "often moving" writing if it wasn't for two former University of Auckland academics.
In 1989, alumnus and senior lecturer in classics, Will Richardson (BA 1960, MA 1961, PhD 1977) and the School of Medicine's founding Professor of Anatomy (now Emeritus Professor), John Carman began working in tandem to create the first English translation of Vesalius' book (the only other translation had been into Russian in 1954-56).
Now 20 years later, their fifth and final volume has been published by Norman Publishing in San Francisco.
But the pair's work has already received international accolades.
"Until now, Vesalius has not been well served by translators," said a review in Nature magazine in 1998.
"Some lacked linguistic competence, others anatomical expertise. But, in what must rank as one of the publishing and scientific and literary achievements of the decade, classicist Richardson, in collaboration with anatomist Carman, have produced a quite stunning translation of the first book of De fabrica: The Bones and Cartilages."
In 2003, after publication of Volume 3 on the vessels and nerves, the Auckland academics' work was hailed in the Journal of the American Medical Association for presenting Vesalius "beautifully and harmoniously".
For Carman serendipity has played a big part in the success of the project.
Not all university libraries will have Vesalius' original tome, he points out.
"But Harry Erlam [the then School of Medicine's librarian] bought a facsimile of the original De fabrica in 1967. I then came here as the founding professor in 1968 while Will had joined the Classics Department in 1963."
In the 1970s Richardson began studying the origin of anatomical terms in Latin and Greek for his PhD and Carman worked closely with him. Subsequently, medical researchers delving into Vesalius' book asked Richardson to translate short sections of the Fabrica relevant to their own studies.
Realising there was no translation into an accessible modern language Richardson decided to embark on a translation into English and asked Carman to join him.
"It was remarkable that a classicist who specialised in scientific Renaissance Latin and an anatomist who had known about Vesalius since I was a student and was very keen on anatomical description should come together in the same university," says Carman, "We brought a range of interests and skills to the project and we got tremendous personal pleasure from doing this."
The two scholars followed a careful process: Richardson translated "about a page a day" from the original tome - a huge book weighing 5.5kg which he placed on a customised, slanted stand - and then Carman checked the anatomical terminology and descriptions.
"Will's translation was so accurate that I could follow Vesalius' line of thought and if it wandered off I would question if there was something wrong with the translation or not," says Carman.
"We'd then look at it together. Our version had to first be consistent with good Latin and then with good anatomy."
Moreover, their aim throughout was to let Vesalius speak for himself.
Translator's notes at the end of each chapter and after illustrations provided lists matching Vesalius' usages to modern terminology and gave details of his numerous, though often brief, references to the ancient literature.
For Carman, preparing the lists of modern names for the vessels and nerves was "the hardest thing I have ever had to do".
By 2004 the pair had published three volumes of De fabrica and Richardson had completed the translations for the last two volumes.
However, in October 2004, Richardson died very suddenly.
"That was a big blow," says Carman. "In antique road shows they often ask if an item is one of a matching pair and say how much more valuable the two together would be. We were a matching pair and I miss my colleague greatly."
Carman completed the editing of the last two volumes with help from classics senior lecturer Bill Barnes. Today he sees the completed translation not only as of great value in the field of anatomy and its history but also, as Richardson appreciated, as an important resource for researchers in social history and the history of medicine.
"The section on bones is virtually identical with what's in modern textbooks," says Carman.
"The account of the abdominal organs would be suitable as an introduction for students; the accounts of the thorax and the brain are good; that of the muscles is excellent, but the lack of modern terminology here, and in the case of the vessels and nerves, would make these sections very difficult to use today."'
As Carman and Richardson worked on De fabrica they realised how gifted Vesalius was: "Will found him a superb Latinist and he was undoubtedly a superb anatomist," says Carman.
Born in Brussels in 1514, Andreas Vesalius studied medicine at the University of Leuven and then the University of Paris.
After receiving his doctorate at the University of Padua, he took up that university's chair of surgery and anatomy.
He soon revolutionised the study of anatomy by performing "hands on" human dissections rather than the usual practice of reading aloud from ancient texts while a demonstrator did the dissection.
In 1539, a Padua judge interested in Vesalius' work made bodies of executed criminals available for public dissections.
"Extraordinarily there is diary of one of Vesalius' students, a German, which turned up in Sweden 50 years ago," says Carman.
"He writes of how on one occasion Vesalius said: 'I'd like to show you this but this body's really got too dry. We'll have another one this afternoon.' The students looked out the window and there was the body on the scaffolding.
"I've counted 14 different dissections Vesalius refers to in the book [section] on the abdomen and pelvis," says Carman. "It seems likely that he dissected as many as 30 or 40 bodies, perhaps more."
After the publication of De fabrica, Vesalius became the imperial physician to the court of Emperor Charles V and then to his son Philip II.
In 1564 Vesalius died in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece but his "hands on" approach had already changed the course of anatomy.
"Vesalius was the first anatomist who insisted that you must view the anatomy of a body yourself and not take the word of the ancients," says Carman. "It has been seen as a pivotal step in modern science and certainly in anatomy and modern medicine."
- Reprinted with permission from The University of Auckland's alumni magazine Ingenio
