How Accurate Were Leonardo Da Vinci's Anatomy Drawings? 108
antdude writes "BBC News answers how accurate were Leonardo da Vinci's anatomy drawings — 'During his lifetime, Leonardo made thousands of pages of notes and drawings on the human body. He wanted to understand how the body was composed and how it worked. But at his death in 1519, his great treatise on the body was incomplete and his scientific papers were unpublished. Based on what survives, clinical anatomists believe that Leonardo's anatomical work was hundreds of years ahead of its time, and in some respects it can still help us understand the body today. So how do these drawings, sketched more than 500 years ago, compare to what digital imaging technology can tell us today?'"
Re:Impressive. (Score:4, Insightful)
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This is assuming it's actually being run by them, and not by someone who for some reason wants to kill them off via this exact reaction. (disclaimer: I know nothing about this "gamemaker", so I could be horribly wrong).
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Gamemaker is the most expressive and most powerful
programming language ever. To disregard these strengths
is to disregard programming entirely. How can one who
disregards programming be a programmer? The answer is
BURMA SHAVE
Re:OMG! 500 years ago??? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OMG! 500 years ago??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or he just cut up a lot of dead bodies to get the dimensions right. The only difference now is that we can look inside someone without them having to be dead first.
Re:OMG! 500 years ago??? (Score:5, Funny)
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Vivisection is such an interesting word, isn't it?
Re:OMG! 500 years ago??? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:OMG! 500 years ago??? (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine if a doctor went around digging up bodies without permission and dissecting them, he would be imprisioned even today.
Re:OMG! 500 years ago??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly you've not done much dissection. Besides being perhaps the greatest artist of his age, virtually invented from whole cloth 2 and 3 point point perspective, hyper-realistic painting, chiaroscuro, anatomically/proportionally correct artwork (look up the "Grotesques"), he was probably one of the greatest scientific minds of all time. His vision, perception was unrivaled. He sketched water flowing over rocks and captured eddies and micro-currents that we can see today only in super high speed stop motion photography. He broke down the relationships between math and the universe. He observed that art was science and that science was art and that everything was mathematics. His inventions are brilliant even by today's standard. He invented the glider, the helicopter, the tank, the submarine, and a thousand other things we'll never know about.
His dissection and further record of human anatomy was inspired because he saw the engineering of the human body, and appreciated the brilliance of its design. He was able to discern function from form and so rather than simply capturing an amorphous blob of body matter (what you or I might see), was able to distinguish critical structure and functional anatomy and record it in such a way that the information imparted rivals techniques and illustrations based on technology 500 years later. More than a genius, he transcended his own time by centuries, and points to a human potential that is at once shocking and exciting.
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I think ultimately I agree with you. But I was wondering about this question today, having seen it on Slashdot.
How is it the da Vinci was able to get over the "gross factor"?
Most of us living in modern times would, given the chance, not want to cut up corpses. This must serve as a sort of deterrent to the activity of studying anatomy at all. Maybe you can say that for centuries we didn't understand anatomy because centuries worth of would-be da Vincis were too grossed out to cut open these people.
And yet
Re:OMG! 500 years ago??? (Score:5, Insightful)
My absolutely uneducated guess is that people were more used to disgusting smells and sights in those days. People would slaughter, skin and butcher their own animals. Meat was stored for a long time. People shat everywhere. People didn't know how diseases were transmitted.
So I think it wasn't as gross to him as it is to us.
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Hell, there might have been a tanner down the street. I'm sure he wouldn't have known if there was shit on his nose, what with that overpowering odor prevailing.
Re:OMG! 500 years ago??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or he just cut up a lot of dead bodies to get the dimensions right.
It's not as easy as you think. Think of spaghetti code made flesh: Spaghetti nerves, spaghetti arteries, veins everywhere... And then there are the variations. No two bodies are wired exactly the same, especially after they've been cut open. Even with modern references and anatomy books, it takes a lot of studying to make sense of a cadaver.
The summary exaggerates a bit by implying we can still learn anatomy from Leonardo's sketches. Sure, they're prettier than the sketches adorning the walls of my dorm room (I'm a medical student) but they're nowhere near as accurate as, say, Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy. Leonardo had a lot of systems wrong, especially where female anatomy was concerned. His work was amazing for its time, but we've done much better since then.
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His work was amazing for its time, but we've done much better since then.
As they say in the article, his work was 300 years ahead of its time. However, its time was 500 years ago, so we've advanced well beyond it.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OMG! 500 years ago??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Robert A Heinlen - "The Door Into Summer", the character was a grad student of the scientist who invented the time travel machine, named Leonard Vincent. Don't remember the scientist's name, don't remember the protagonist's name, just remember that the protagonist invented CAD - called it "Drafting Dan."
Re:Betteridge's Law of Headlines (Score:5, Informative)
What?
Betteridge's Law of Headlines is an adage that states, "Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'".
For the record, the article concludes that Da Vinci's drawings were better in some respects than the 19th century editions of Gray's Anatomy.
Gray's Anatomy (Score:5, Funny)
I hate that fucking show, oh it was fine for a couple seasons but now were seeing dead boyfriends and supernatural experiences blah blah blah bullshit
Agreed, but she was talking about the 19th century editions of Gray's Anatomy.
Which is a new spin-off, taking place in a Victorian steam punk universe : They use morphine for almost any operation, but only if they like the patient, sniff cocaine to get rid of the cold, and discuss female hysteria in the break room. Oh and the dresses, you should see the dresses.
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I'd watch that, if it was made by HBO and aired between Game of Thrones seasons. It would help if HBO would take my money with out forcing me to bend over and take it from my cable company first.
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I hate to be the one to inform you friend, but the line of folks preparing to bend you over is long, and sadly more than a couple of them are wearing black suits and narrow ties. Look at the bright side... constipation is a thing of the past!
Re:Betteridge's Law of Headlines (Score:5, Funny)
Can any headline which ends in a question mark be answered by the word 'no'?
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The rule should be: "any headline which ends in a question mark and which starts with a verb (or a noun/pronoun perhaps also?) ..."
If the first word is "how", "why", "when", "where", "who"... the words "yes" and "no" make no sense as an answer. Oh, you knew that already?
When We Learned an AC Posted, Did Anyone Care? (Score:2)
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Just to be pedantic, you're answering the "Did Anyone Care?" subclause with "no". Not the "when".
And why all the hate for A/C? Maybe they were moderating and didn't want to lose their mods?
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When you read this question, can you answer it saying no?
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Yeah, but you know what they meant. Besides, your example would make a terrible headline, it has subclauses (although not much worse than /.'s usual standard).
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And why all the hate for A/C? Maybe they were moderating and didn't want to lose their mods?
Then they shouldn't be posting. There's a reason you're prevented from posting and moderating in the same story.
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OK, bad example. But dismissing an argument because the poster is AC is one of the finer examples of ad hominem...
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I will agree with that.
That said, it would be nice if AC's had some kind of identifier - like a hash function of their IP or something - so you could tell if two posts were from the same IP but not divulge what it is.
I've actually seen someone screw up an attempt to reply to themselves as an AC to try and make their original post look valid.
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A hash of the OS/font/IP provides a lot of unique info... turn it into a hash and you have a unique, untraceable ID. I like your thinking.
If people are going to bother with multiple OS/computer setups they might as well have multiple *real* accounts, so all that has to happen is for it to be as difficult as having two separate accounts and the incentive to post AC for nefarious reasons goes away.
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he's still around. this happened to him:
http://xkcd.com/810/ [xkcd.com]
WTF does Leonardo know about the human body? (Score:1, Offtopic)
.. especially considering he's an anthropomorphised turtle.
Offtopic? (Score:1)
.. especially considering he's an anthropomorphised turtle.
Why would anyone mark this offtopic?
I remember watching a British mystery where a little kid told the visiting art expert that he liked Leonardo so much better than Michelangelo or Donatello.
The guy thought that the kid was a genius.
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Everyone thinks of Donatello as the science nerd of the group, but Leonardo had his own hobbies. He kept them quiet, though, which is why we're only just discovering them. Maybe he didn't want to many questions about why he was so interested in the inner workings of the human body...
Risque? (Score:1)
Re:Risque? (Score:5, Funny)
Kinky is using a feather, perverted is using the whole bird. Playing it safe is using a rubber chicken.
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Footnote: Putting punctuation inside of a quotation that it was not part of is counter-intuitive, illogical, unethical, and in some cases dangerous. English standards are incorrect, so I substitute my own.
Thank you!
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Actually English standards are correct. It's American standards that are incorrect. You're following the British English rules.
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An engineer's approach (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest insight I gleaned from the article was when the author described da Vinci's approach to anatomy as being that of an engineer's and an architect, and how that perspective allowed him to interpret the body structures he saw. Remember high school biology dissection labs? Or if you studied anatomy in college, remember the profound disconnect between seeing a perfectly laid-out diagram of an organism, versus actually going in and dissecting one in reality? You think that when you cut a creature open, that you'll see some version of those drawings just sitting there in front of you, labeled and color-coded and all structures clearly defined. Instead, I acutely remember my surprise when cutting open a rat, a frog, and an earthworm, that all I really saw at first was a jumbled pink/brown mess of innards. Things moved around, didn't have the shape I thought they would, and if someone hadn't already drawn the diagrams I would've been at a complete loss as to how to describe what I saw, let alone try to make an anatomically faithful reproduction of it.
That should give you a better understanding of just how amazing da Vinci's observational skills were.
Re:An engineer's approach (Score:5, Insightful)
Much of DaVinci's artwork (most of it) is of people. One of his incredible talents was the ability to draw people in a lifelike pose. That requires a keen eye, good eye / hand coordination and an understanding of anatomical function. I'm not so sure that it was his 'engineer's eye' more than his 'artist's eye'. Of course, we're making an artificial distinction here - art and engineering don't have to be separate and many humans appreciate the intersection of the two concepts.
But I see those drawings as an attempt by DaVinci to understand how the human body works so he can express his vision of human form / function in his art.
He still was a friggin genius, no matter what he was thinking or doing or smoking....
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Leonardo was able to intuit how blood flowed into and out of heart values, including the fluid rotation and corresponding fluid dynamics so many years ago. In fact, it took up until a year or two ago to duplicate the findings Leonardo asserts so long ago. To say he was ahead of his time is an extreme understatement.
Re:An engineer's approach (Score:4, Interesting)
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I took drawing (by hand) and modelling (by CAD). By hand was in first year, with a bit of 2D CAD thrown in for good measure. 3D CAD with the respective drawings for manufacture was 2nd to 4th. This was in South Africa (University of Cape Town) 2008 - 2011.
If a mechanical / mechatronics student doesn't know how to produce drawing of things that will be made, what is the point of learning how to design things? Are you going to find someone else to turn it into something to be manufactured? One of the most imp
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It's of no use otherwise.
Unless, of course, you start doing things outside of the narrow job description for an EE.
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Re:An engineer's approach (Score:5, Insightful)
If all da Vinci had done was make accurate anatomical drawings, he'd be another Renaissance genius. What makes da Vinci possibly the most gifted human being in the history of our species is that while he was dissecting bodies to learn how they functioned, he was also designing hydraulic systems, helicopters, submarines, oh, and being one of the greatest painters in all of history. What has, since his time down to ours made him the most breathtaking of intellects was that his genius truly knew no bounds. Every topic fascinated him, and if he turned his mind to understanding it, he seemed almost effortlessly to do so.
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So he was an engineer with a few hobbies... some of which were expressive (the painting), some of which were an extension of engineering (the anatomy).
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I must bow to your powers of understatement!!!
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Re:An engineer's approach (Score:4, Insightful)
I acutely remember my surprise when cutting open a rat, a frog, and an earthworm, that all I really saw at first was a jumbled pink/brown mess of innards
Since you mentioned architecture briefly, this is surprisingly true there as well, especially if it's an older building and you don't have good documentation of the original plans [slashdot.org]. You cut into things and there's this jumble of wires in the wall going who knows where, some wood or concrete that may or may not be load bearing, a foundation built on top of another foundation that wasn't mentioned in any plans, some pipes that might've been from the previous era's sewer system, etc. Often true even if you do have the plans, especially when it comes to things like what the wiring looks like in the diagrams versus in the wall. And it's even worse in the subterranean space of cities outside of buildings; one of many reasons building a subway line is so expensive.
Re:An engineer's approach (Score:5, Interesting)
That's right, one of the main lessons of biology is that real life doesn't look like the textbooks!
When I was learning to draw, I copied Da Vinci's drawings.
When I studied anatomy, I went back to Da Vinci's anatomical drawings. Comparing them to the modern anatomy books, and the human anatomy I've seen in museums, some of Da Vinci's work was done with uncanny accuracy, but some of his other drawings were just plain wrong. You can see where he was copying from real life, and where he was interpolating and guessing. When he drew from life, he was really good.
I don't fault him for that. We built on his work. Of course we went beyond him. We had 500 years to do it.
But every time I see one of those awesome 3D CT and MRI reconstructions that surgeons use before they operate, I wonder what Da Vinci would have thought if he could see them.
Re:An engineer's approach (Score:4, Interesting)
p.s. I was looking over those drawings again at http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/exhibitions/leonardo-da-vinci-anatomist [royalcollection.org.uk]
One of the fascinating things is the way he drew arteries and veins. He drew them straight. In real life, blood vessels are sinusoidal, like river meanders. (There are good fluid mechanical reasons for that.) So he must have been making quick notes.
I've done that myself, sitting in a lecture with the slides flashing by. I don't have time to make detailed drawings, so I just make quick sketches!
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Skilled Artists Help Explain Reality (Score:4, Interesting)
Da Vinci, The (Score:1)
All this AND he came up with a whole code that 500 years later would make a bestselling book and movie.
AND he helped Ezio Auditore fight off the Templars....
The guy was truly prodigious.
But i have not been to the Exhibition! (Score:3, Interesting)
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In my humble opinion the work done by Leonardo Da Vinci seeded the understanding of Antomy.
I seem to remember that, back in Roman times, there was a doctor that would actually operate and do autopsies on recently killed gladiators and he had a pretty good understanding of anatomy and what we would consider modern medicine. Sadly I cannot remember his name, and of course, it being Roman, his research could easily have been lost or forgotten.
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If that was all he did it would be mind numbing. He also seeded dozens of sciences that wouldn't be sciences for 400 years. Fluid dynamics, aerodynamics and aeronautics, architecture and civil engineering, optics, light study, cognition and behavior, mechanics, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, and fascinating advances in mathematics. He was almost a one man scientific explosion, jump starting the renaissance. There is simply no way to overstate his brilliance.
If Only he'd applied himself... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:If Only he'd applied himself... (Score:4, Funny)
Seems like a lad with a gift like this would've amounted to something.
Not as lucky in love as he was at aquiring corpses, his broken heart left him feable-minded, and he fell in with a bad crowd: the smokers who hang out by the fence.
Andreas Vesalius (Score:5, Informative)
Vesalius made a lot of enemies by going against what amounted to the medical establishment of the time. After repeated challenges his critics actually resorted to the howler that the human body must have changed (evolved?
Vesalius has always been a personal hero of mine - a guy who developed an interest in an an important area (anatomy), and pursued it, at great personal cost, with as much thoroughness and rigor as could be had at the time.
Re:Andreas Vesalius (Score:5, Interesting)
And thank you for sharing this. I had not know about Vesalius before you posted this. Now I have learned something, which means this was a good day. Thank you again for the information.
And this, despite the frosty piss, the trolls and even the gamemaker spam, is why I still read /.
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Amen. Ditto. Mille grazie.
Science imitates art (Score:2)
The drawings of da Vinci influenced our understanding of how the body is put together.
Re:Science imitates art (Score:5, Interesting)
Francis Wells, who is a heart surgeon at Papworth Hospital, has been fascinated by Leonardo’s anatomical drawings for the past 20 years and changed his surgical practice in the light of Leonardo’s observations on the structure of the mitral valve,” he says.
"What Leonardo was observing was how the elasticity of the heart and valves was important. It was common for surgeons to put rigid stents in the mitral valve when reconstructing it and Francis Wells has since been using a more subtle approach and trying to preserve some of that elastic nature and has had less failure in his stents as a consequence." link [express.co.uk]
Incredible (Score:2)