“It could be Seen more Clearly in Unreasonable Animals than in Humans”: The Representation of the Rete Mirabile in Early Modern Anatomy

Abstract

In 2005 Japanese neurosurgeons reported the case of a carotid rete mirabile in a 47-year-old male stroke patient. They documented their observation with MRI scans which represented dark ramifications before a light background and described the structure as a net of collateral vessels, caused by an obstruction of the carotid artery, resulting from a malformation of this vessel. However, they had to concede that the “exact pathogenesis and clinical significance of the rete mirabile remains unknown”.1 The 2005 case report was significant in three respects. Firstly, it referred to a phenomenon that had allegedly “evaporated from human anatomy after the seventeenth century”.2 Secondly, pictures were used to support the argument of the authors; and thirdly, the authors showed a great uncertainty about the nature of the phenomenon which they identified as a “carotid rete mirabile”.