Medicine and Disease in Baroque Art

Abstract

In the Middle Ages, medicine experienced centuries of decadence and obscurantism. The humoral doctrines based on the work of Galen in the second century were doggedly repeated, and empirical medicine was practiced, frequently on the basis of unproven suppositions Even the anatomy of the human body was not well understood, as the Catholic Church was opposed to the dissection of cadavers. In the 16th century, in his book De Humani Corporis Fabrica (1542), Vesalius described human anatomy as learned from actual dissections of cadavers. 1 From this moment, training in anatomy became the norm in medical faculties, a development that led to great medical, and above all surgical, advances. In The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp (Figure 1), Rembrandt painted a paradigmatic work, perfectly reflecting medical progress of the time and the interest it aroused. He painted it when he was only 26 years old, recently arrived from Amsterdam. Dr Tulp was a renowned medical doctor who was also a city councilor. He was neither surgeon nor