John Bell from the National Portrait Gallery – London
While reading Nothing Like the Sun the narrator, who hither to now, spoke to the times of Shakespeare, said something betraying. So I thought. In it he says:
There is one, a God-fearing true Christian named F. Lawson Gent., who has been vouchsafed, by God’s holy grace, a vision of these poets screaming in hell, the which he has set down in a treatsie called A Watchword against Wickedness and the Lewd Trumperies of Poetified Sneerers, wherein he recounteth the horror of their deathless punishment in hellfire (as seen by him in his vision), burning stinking brewis of venomed maggots and toothed worms that do gnaw to the very pia mater. Thou dost well to stir and sweat in thine unwholesome sleep.
I perked up to the word pia mater, which is a membrane of the meninges that cover the spinal column and brain. Being set in the 1500s I figured they didn’t know of, let alone have named the pia mater. How could they? This brought me, through Google Books, to John Bell. He, along with his brother Sir Charles Bell and John Davidson Godman wrote a multivolume work entitled The Anatomy and Physiology of the Human Body(with the amazing sub-heading of The Whole More Perfectly Systemized and Corrected by Charles Bell). In it he says that it(the pia mater) is formed by two membranes, one of which(tunica arachnoidea; the upper layer and not the proper pia mater which is the tunica vasculosa) he attributes discovery to the “society formed by Blasius, Sladus, Quina, [and] Swammerdam” in 1665. Though, following in a footnote it says that Varolius had described it “plainly, covering the medulla oblongata.” Some quick notes before moving onto Varolius include the fact that they named the tunica arachnoidea because “…its extreme tenuity, comparing it to a spider’s web. It was called also Membrana Cellulosa, from the appearance it took when they insinuated a blow-pipe under it, and blew it up, separating it from the pia mater.” Now, I don’t know about you but sticking blow-pipes into membranes to separate them is some fantastic science. Maybe I forgot to mention the book was published in 1827? Also, as another note, the arachnoid mater and the pia mater are now typically considered distinct from one another and are sometimes referred to as a single structure called the leptomeninges, there being cerebrospinal fluid separating the two. The pia mater sinks into the sulci of the brain(the folds), riding atop the cerebrospinal fluid is the arachnoid mater, and finally the thick layer above that is the dura mater(from which we get the subdural bleed(between dura and brain) and epidural bleed(between dura and skull) but that could be a post all by itself and Varolius is getting impatient to be outed. Lastly, John Bell is buried behind the poet John Keats. Mhm, small world.
So. Constanzo Varolio, who is this man? He was from Bologna and, aside from being an anatomist, he was the papal physician to Pope Gregory XIII. He was best known for his work with cranial nerves and erectile function. Strange specialities. He falsely attributed the erection to “erector muscles” which kept anatomists fooled for three centuries, yet they still say he was surprisingly accurate with his mechanistic description(and I am unsure how you can be right and wrong like that?). Like the Bell’s, he had some artistic ability and left us with this fine woodcut(show right).
I don’t think that I have ever seen a view of the brain from the bottom up complete with eyes splayed to either side. Finally, there is a note a small ways further into Bell’s anatomy that says Varolius’ assistant, and future professor in Rome, Columbus, explained the pia mater’s intimate connection to the brain back in 1559.
And so, this was all to say that, Burgess, I apologize for doubting your narrator. Secondly, I really hope that the anatomy textbooks are as interesting as this one has been. Maybe I need to merely supplement my modern textbook reading with that great stuff of the 1800s? All in all I am pretty excited for A&P which, well, only further instigates the unverified rumor that I am kind of nerdy.





