Misreading Pictures: Fabricius Hildanus (1560–1634) and the Cure of Spinal Dislocation

Abstract

In 1646, Fabricius Hildanus accompanied his description of a new way to apply a setaceum (seton) in the neck with a nicely carved woodcut. In 1951, this same woodcut was used by an author of the History of Neurological Surgery to illustrate Hildanus’s method of “reducing cervical dislocation.” In 1997 this striking misreading found its way into the History of Neurosurgery in its Scientific and Professional Contexts. The paper discusses how this ahistoric interpretation was possible and why it was perpetuated for nearly half a century.