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PubMed2002

[The anatomy of Johann Samuel Eduard d'Alton (1803-1854)--his life and work in Halle (Saale)].

After the death of Johann Friedrich Meckel (1781-1833), Eduard d'Alton was appointed to be his successor. From 1834 to 1854, he was Professor of Anatomy and head of the "Anatomisches Theater" at the University of Halle. In the literature we can only find little details about him. The aim is to investigate his life and work. Before he came to Halle, he was first professor at the Academy of Arts in Berlin. Then few years later he received the professorship of anatomy and physiology at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-University in Berlin. During his work as anatomist and physiologist in Halle he was rector twice, in 1845 and 1846. d'Alton worked very accurately and highly engaged. He supported the students' education very conscientiously but, since he was strict and exacting at the same time, he was not very popular. His extraordinary drawings of human and comparative anatomy earned him great recognition. In 1850, he published the "Handbuch der menschlichen Anatomie". d'Alton was mainly engaged in comparative anatomy, embryology and teratology and performed experimental embryological tests. In 1853, he published a catalogue of teratological preparations many of which can still be found in the Anatomical Collections in Halle.

Anatomy↗
PubMed1997

Some remarks on, and a new case of the rare os intercuneiforme (Dwight).

A new case of the rare os intercuneiforme (Dwight) is presented and compared with the two cases reported by the anatomist first describing this bone. Taking a large series of anatomical investigations into account, the frequency of occurrence for this supernumerary tarsal bone can be given as 0.026%. Furthermore, it is supposed that the os intercuneiforme belongs rather to the medial than to the intermediate cuneiform.

Aged↗
PubMed2003

Zinc, copper and iron concentrations in cerebral cortex of male rats exposed to formaldehyde inhalation.

Retrospective cohort studies and clinical findings have suggested effects of formaldehyde exposure on the central nervous system in anatomists, embalmers and pathologists. On the other hand, harmful effects of formaldehyde inhalation on the nervous system are not well documented. The concentrations of elements such as zinc, copper and iron within the cerebral cortex indicate whether physiological conditions are maintained. In this study, adult male albino Wistar rats were exposed to formaldehyde at different concentrations (0; 6.1; 12.2 mg x m(-3)) and during different periods of time (subacute-subchronic), and body weights were recorded weekly. Zinc, copper and iron concentrations were measured in the parietal cortex using atomic absorption spectrometry after wet ashing. We conclude that subacute or subchronic exposure to formaldehyde may cause growth retardation and alter zinc, copper and iron levels in the cerebral cortex.

Animals↗
PubMed1998

A comparative study of structures comprising the thoracic outlet in 250 human cadavers and 72 surgical cases of thoracic outlet syndrome.

OBJECTIVE: We have hypothesized that variations in fibrous, muscular and osseous structures with the potential to entrap the brachial plexus occur within the thoracic outlet of the normal population; and that these variations are different in pattern and frequency from those in patients presenting with thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS). METHODS: Structural anomalies with potential for entrapping elements of the brachial plexus were examined following dissections of the posterior triangle of the neck in 250 human cadavers (N = 500 thoracic outlet dissections) and catalogued jointly by an anatomist and a thoracic surgeon. The pattern and frequency of anomalies in the 250 cadavers was compared to that encountered in 72 surgical cases of removal of the first rib for relief of symptomatic TOS (N = 72 procedures, 55 patients). RESULTS: Relevant structural variations were encountered in 46% of cadavers, exhibiting no left right or gender preference overall. When compared with the surgical group in which 100% exhibited structurally relevant anomalies, significant differences in pattern of anomalous structures and gender distribution were revealed. Anomalies posterior to the brachial plexus, ranging from fibrous bands to cervical ribs in both groups, were prevalent in the surgical group. A 'scissors-like' pattern, with neural entrapment by anterior and posterior anomalies was frequently encountered in females. CONCLUSIONS: Based on these data and embryological considerations, we propose a revised and simplified classification of impingement mechanisms within the anatomic thoracic outlet. Comparing these data to radiological imaging and observations at surgery, we offer a new perspective for the investigation and management of patients with TOS.

Cadaver↗
PubMed1998

Johann Georg Wirsüng (1589-1643) and the pancreatic duct: the prosector of Padua, Italy.

Although his primacy was subsequently challenged by a student, it is now known that Johann Georg Wirsüng, the prosector of Padua, Italy, discovered the human pancreatic duct in 1642 during the dissection of an executed murderer. Instead of publishing his discovery, he engraved a drawing of the duct on a copper plate, from which he made seven or more imprints. The copies were sent to leading anatomists of Europe with the question, "Should I call it an artery or a vein? I never found blood in it ...." Three and a half centuries later, the copper plate remains well preserved and the authors, to the surprise of European surgeons and librarians, but with their aid, have traced six copies of the "ductus Wirsüngianus" imprints still in existence. This is the story of Wirsüng the man, his subsequent assassination, and finally the recognition that his finding had opened a new field of science.

Anatomy↗
PubMed1998

Adelaide's blackbirding pathologist.

Archibald Watson (1849-1940) was the inaugural Elder Professor of Anatomy at the University of Adelaide. He held the position from 1885 to 1919, having previously trained in Gottingen, Paris, and London under some of the most eminent physicians of those times. Before he started his medical studies, he, Dr James Patrick Murray, and several others were involved in the kidnapping ("blackbirding") of Pacific Islanders (Kanakas) to work on South Sea cotton plantations. A number of the victims were killed. Watson and two others were charged with murder and remanded in Levuka to appear in Sydney. Watson absconded, traveled to Europe, and never stood trial; the other two were convicted and sentenced to death. Watson's life as an anatomist, surgeon, pathologist, member of the Adelaide Club, world traveler, Australian Army doctor during the Boer War and World War I, fisherman, and motorcyclist was full of interest and incidents. The events surrounding the autopsy he performed on a case of fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva and the subsequent preservation of the skeleton in the Anatomy Museum of the University of Adelaide are described.

Anatomy↗
PubMed2004

Todd, Faraday, and the electrical basis of brain activity.

Robert Bentley Todd (1809-60) was the UK's first eminent neurologist and neuroscientist. An anatomist, physiologist, and clinical scientist with an interest in the nervous system, he was the first to confirm the electrical basis of brain activity in the 1840s. He was influenced by his contemporary, Michael Faraday at the Royal Institution, and by two colleagues at King's College, John Daniell and Charles Wheatstone, who were also working at the cutting edge of electrical science. Todd conceived of nervous polarity (force) generated in nervous centres and compared this with the polar force of voltaic electricity developed in the galvanic battery. He brilliantly foresaw each nerve vesicle (cell) and its related fibres (ie, neuron) as a distinct apparatus for the development and transmission of nervous polarity. Epilepsy was the result of periodic unnatural development of nervous force leading to the "disruptive discharge" described by Faraday. Faraday, who studied animal electricity in the Gymnotus (electric eel), and Todd saw nervous polarity as a higher form of interchangeable energy.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

Amphibian respiration and olfaction and their relationships: from Robert Townson (1794) to the present.

The present review examines the developments in the elucidation of the mechanisms of amphibian respiration and olfaction. Research in these two areas has largely proceeded along independent lines, despite the fact that ventilation of the nasobuccopharyngeal cavity is a basic element in both functions. The English naturalist Robert Townson demonstrated, in the 1790s, that amphibians, contrary to general belief, ventilated the lungs by a pressure-pump mechanism. Frogs and other amphibians respire by alternatively dilating and contracting the buccopharyngeal cavity. During dilatation, with the mouth and glottis closed, air is sucked in through the open nostrils to fill the cavity. During contraction of the throat, with nostrils closed and glottis open, the air in the buccopharyngeal cavity is pressed into the lungs. During expiration, the glottis and nostrils open and air is expelled from the lungs 'by their own contraction from a state of distention'. Herholdt (1801), a Danish army surgeon, independently described the buccal pressure-pump mechanism in frogs, his experiments being confirmed by the commissioners of the Société Philomatique in Paris. Haro (1842) reintroduced a suction mechanism for amphibian respiration, which Panizza (1845) refuted: excision of the tympanic membranes prevented lung inflation, the air in the buccopharyngeal cavity leaving through the tympanum holes. Closure of the holes with the fingers restored lung inflation. The importance of cutaneous respiration in frogs and other amphibians was discovered by Spallanzani (1803), who found that frogs might survive excision of the lungs and that the amounts of exhaled carbon dioxide were small compared with those eliminated through the skin. Edwards (1824) confirmed and extended Spallanzani's findings, and Regnault & Reiset (1849) attempted to establish the relative importance of skin and lungs as respiratory organs in frogs. The problem was solved by Krogh (1904a) who measured respiration through the skin and lungs separately and simultaneously. Krogh (1904a) confirmed that carbon dioxide was chiefly eliminated through the skin, correlated with its high diffusion rate in water and tissue, whereas the pattern of oxygen uptake varied seasonally, the pulmonary uptake being lower than the cutaneous during autumn and winter, but substantially higher during the breeding period. Dolk & Postma (1927) confirmed this respiratory pattern. More recently, Hutchison and coworkers have examined the relative role of pulmonary and cutaneous gas exchange in a large number of amphibians, equipped with head masks for the separate measurement of the lung respiration in normally ventilating animals (Vinegar & Hutchison, 1965; Guimond & Hutchison, 1968; Hutchison, Whitford & Kohl, 1968; Whitford & Hutchison, 1963, 1965, 1966). As early as 1758, Rösel von Rosenhof suggested that the lungs of frogs in water functioned as hydrostatic organs that permitted the animal to float at the surface or rest on the bottom of the pond. The suggestion was inspired by observations made in the second half of the seventeenth century by members of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris. The French anatomists demonstrated that a tortoise, presumably the European freshwater turtle Emys orbicularis, could regulate its buoyancy by changing the volume of the lungs, to descend passively or ascend in the water. The hydrostatic function of the lungs has been repeatedly rediscovered, by Emery (1869) in the frog, by Marcacci (1895) in frogs, toads and salamanders, by Whipple (1906b) in a newt, by Willem (1920, 1931) in frogs and Xenopus laevis, by Speer 1942) in several anurans and urodeles, and finally by de Jongh (1972) in Xenopus laevis. In the second half of the nineteenth century a number of important papers appeared which confirmed and extended Townson's (1794) and Panizza's (1845) analysis of the normal respiratory movements in frogs. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)

Amphibians↗
PubMed1998

Role of urinary and cloacal bladders in chelonian water economy: historical and comparative perspectives.

The Parisian comparative anatomist Claude Perrault, dissecting an Indian giant tortoise in 1676, was the first to observe that the urinary bladder is of an extraordinary size in terrestrial tortoises. In 1799, the English comparative physiologist Robert Townson suggested that the bladder functioned as a water reservoir, as he had shown previously for frogs and toads. However, these observations went unnoticed in subsequent reports on tortoise water economy that were made by travellers and naturalists visiting the Galapagos Archipelago and marvelling over the huge numbers of giant tortoises that inhabited these desert-like islands. The first such report was by an American naval officer, David Porter, who was a privateer in the 1812-15 war with England. In his journal he referred to the constant supply of water which the Galapagos tortoises carried with them. References to the location in the body, as well as the amounts and quality of the water stored, were, however, contradictory. The confusion concerning the anatomical identity of the water reservoir in the Galapagos tortoise, Geochelone elephantopus, persisted throughout the nineteenth century, and continued when studies of tortoise water economy and drinking behaviour in arid environments were taken up independently in the desert tortoise, Gopherus agassizii, which inhabits the desert regions in the south-western United States. In 1881 Cox found large sacs filled with clear water under the carapace, but it was half a century later that these sacs were identified as the large bilobed bladder; references to specific water sacs continued to appear in the literature until the 1960s. Since 1970, information on the water economy of desert tortoises has been obtained from extensive field studies. Rates of disappearance of tritiated water injected into the body have shown that during the drought periods of the summer, water turnover (intake) rates do not differ from the rates of metabolic water production. Under these conditions urine is not voided, but is stored in the large bladder. During a drought period the bladder urine increases from initially low osmolality finally to reach isosmolality with the blood plasma. Soluble K+ is the major cation of the urine, but large amounts of K+ are also present as precipitated urates. During a drought period the body is in negative water balance, but despite substantial losses of total body water, the plasma concentrations of Na+ and Cl- can remain constant for many months, indicating regulation of the extracellular fluid and water content of the body tissues by reabsorption of water from the urinary bladder. The bladder thus acts both as a store for nitrogenous waste and K+ and as a water reservoir during droughts. Following rain showers, there is a sharp decline in tritium activity correlated with copious drinking from temporary pools of rain water. The old bladder urine is voided and most of the water drunk is stored as a highly dilute urine. In 1676 Perrault observed that in a freshwater turtle, Emys orbicularis, but not in the giant tortoise, two other bladders opened into the cloaca. By the mid-twentieth century it had been established that these cloacal bladders typically were restricted to species of chelonians that led a semi-terrestrial or semi-aquatic life. The function of the bladders has been debated since Townson observed in 1799 that dehydrated freshwater turtles took up water by anal drinking, suggesting that anal drinking served in the water economy of semi-terrestrial turtles. Since then, the bladders have been ascribed hydrostatic and respiratory functions, but the recent literature mostly argues for a respiratory function. The possible role of the cloacal bladders as a water reservoir in amphibious turtles is still open. Terrestrial amphibians and tortoises are unique among vertebrates in possessing large urinary bladders that may function as water reservoirs in dry environments. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)

Animals↗
PubMed2003

Skulls, brains, and memorial culture: on cerebral biographies of scientists in the nineteenth century.

In this paper, I will argue that the scientific investigation of skulls and brains of geniuses went hand in hand with hagiographical celebrations of scientists. My analysis starts with late-eighteenth century anatomists and anthropologists who highlighted quantitative parameters such as the size and weight of the brain in order to explain intellectual differences between women and men and Europeans and non-Europeans, geniuses and ordinary persons. After 1800 these parameters were modified by phrenological inspections of the skull and brain. As the phrenological examination of the skulls of Immanuel Kant, Wilhelm Heinse, Arthur Schopenhauer and others shows, the anthropometrical data was interpreted in light of biographical circumstances. The same pattern of interpretation can be found in non-phrenological contexts: Reports about extraordinary brains were part of biographical sketches, mainly delivered in celebratory obituaries. It was only in this context that moral reservations about dissecting the brains of geniuses could be overcome, which led to a more systematic investigation of brains of geniuses after 1860.

Biographies as Topic↗
PubMed2004

Developmental mechanism and evolutionary origin of vertebrate left/right asymmetries.

The systematically 'handed', or directionally asymmetrical way in which the major viscera are packed within the vertebrate body is known as situs. Other less obvious vertebrate lateralisations concern cognitive neural function, and include the human phenomena of hand-use preference and language-associated cognitive partitioning. An overview, rather than an exhaustive scholarly review, is given of recent advances in molecular understanding of the mechanism that ensures normal development of 'correct' situs. While the asymmetry itself and its left/right direction are clearly vertebrate-conserved characters, data available from various embryo types are compared in order to assess the likelihood that the developmental mechanism is evolutionarily conserved in its entirety. A conserved post-gastrular 'phylotypic' stage, with left- and right-specific cascades of key, orthologous gene expressions, clearly exists. It now seems probable that earlier steps, in which symmetry-breaking information is reliably transduced to trigger these cascades on the correct sides, are also conserved at depth although it remains unclear exactly how these steps operate. Earlier data indicated that the initiation of symmetry-breaking had been transformed, among the different vertebrate classes, as drastically as has the anatomy of pre-gastrular development itself, but it now seems more likely that this apparent diversity is deceptive. Ideas concerning the functional advantages to the vertebrate lifestyle of a systematically asymmetrical visceral packing arrangement, while untestable, are accepted because they form a plausible adaptationist 'just-so' story. Nevertheless, two contrasting beliefs are possible about the evolutionary origins of situs. Major recent advances in analysis of its developmental mechanism are largely due not to zoologists, comparative anatomists or evolutionary systematists, but to molecular geneticists, and these workers have generally assumed that the asymmetry is an evolutionary novelty imposed on a true bilateral symmetry, at or close to the origin of the vertebrate clade. A major purpose of this review is to advocate an alternative view, on the grounds of comparative anatomy and molecular systematics together with the comparative study of expressions of orthologous genes in different forms. This view is that situs represents a co-optation of a pre-existing, evolutionarily ancient non-bilaterality of the adult form in a vertebrate ancestor. Viewed this way, vertebrate or chordate origins are best understood as the novel imposition of an adaptively bilateral locomotory-skeletal-neural system, around a retained non-symmetrical 'visceral' animal. One component of neuro-anatomical asymmetry, the habenular/parapineal one that originates in the diencephalon, has recently been found (in teleosts) to be initiated from the same 'phylotypic' gene cascade that controls situs development. But the function of this particular diencephalic asymmetry is currently unclear. Other left-right partitionings of brain function, including the much more recently evolved, cerebral cortically located one associated with human language and hand-use, may be controlled entirely separately from situs even though their directionality has a particular relation to it in a majority of individuals. Finally, possible relationships are discussed between the vertebrate directional asymmetries and those that occur sporadically among protostome bilaterian forms. These may have very different evolutionary and molecular bases, such that there may have been constraints, in protostome evolution, upon any exploitation of left and right for complex organismic, and particularly cognitive neural function.

Anatomy↗
PubMed2000

Ancient views on the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis: an historical and epistemological perspective.

The modern views on the anatomical and physiological interactions between the hypothalamus, pituitary and thyroid gland have emerged only in the last fifty years, although their historical roots may be found in a number of ancient and still not widely known ideas and observations. The regulation of energy body stores and temperature by the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis, for example, is a classical case of "fixitè du mileu interieur" in the sense originally suggested by Claude Bernard in the late 1800s, i.e. a homeostatic mechanism, but already 2100 year previously Aristotle had stated that the brain was necessary for the maintenance of body integrity by regulating food intake and behavior in relation to body temperature, the latter primarily determined by the heat of the blood. Five hundred years later Galen of Pergamon reported fundamental discoveries in the anatomy of the third ventricle region, including the location of the pituitary gland inside the sella turcica embodied in a vascular network, the rete mirabilis, and observed nerves adjoining the "soft flesh" in the neck, i.e. the thyroid gland. He first proposed that the energy of the body (the vital spirit) was carried through the arteries at the level of the rete mirabilis, where it was transformed into nerve impulse (the animal spirit), eventually transferred by the nerves to the periphery of the body, "glands" included, raising implicitly the possibility for a nervous influence over the thyroid activity. The Galenic model remained virtually unaltered up to the beginning of the 14th century, when the mediaeval anatomist Mondino de' Liuzzi put forth the idea that the thyroid gland interacted with the heat of the blood present in the internal carotid arteries due to their anatomical relation with the thyroid. This interaction enriched the vital spirit, i.e. the energy of the body, prior to its transformation into animal spirit, i.e. to nerve impulse directed to the periphery of the body. In addition, Mondino envisaged the possibility that the third ventricle was implicated in the regulation of the animal behavior by processing sensory, cognitive and emotional informations. No trace of these Mondino's ideas can be found throughout the Renaissance, despite the leading anatomical work of the period, the Fabrica by Andreas Vesalius, remained apparently inclined to the Galenic dogma of the rete mirabilis. After Vesalius, the Galenic anatomy and physiology of the infundibular region survived for at least two more centuries, and we owe Luigi Galvani, the discoverer of animal electricity, the first detailed anatomical observation that in humans the nasal secretions were not a "drainage" waste of the brain ventricles, as postulated by Galen, but the product of nasal mucous glands. From an epistemological standpoint, Aristotle anticipated the possibility that the "set point" for energy intake and behavioral adaptation was determined by the interplay between the brain activity and a thermogenic principle present in the blood, in a manner very close to a circuitry devoted to maintain the energetic and thermic steady state of the living organism (homeostasis). The Galenic modelling of brain-thyroid interaction is an evolution of the Aristotelian one, since it postulates an anatomical and functional loop linking the transport of body energy to the brain through the arteries, and the transformation of this energy into neural output directed to the peripheral glands, "thyroid" included, by the mediation of the pituitary gland. Finally, the proposal by Mondino de' Liuzzi provides a scheme of brain-thyroid interaction that merges together the "homeostatic" Aristotelian with the "pituitary/autonomic" Galenic models, suggesting that the thyroid plays a "thermoregulatory" role linked to the control of body energy. This remarkable set of ideas has never been credited to Mondino by the modern historical critique, possibly due to the impact that the methodological reform of anatomy by Vesalius, resulting in the denial of much Galenic tradition, had on the way to interpret Mondino's work from the late Renaissance up to the 20th century. The current concepts of the regulation by peripheral nerves of the thyroid blood flow and/or secretion seems to have been anticipated by anecdotal observations in the Egyptian and Roman times. In the second half of the 18th century the belief by Luigi Galvani that the peripheral nerves were carrying electrical impulses can be considered the first theoretical statement derived from an empirical evidence, i.e. the animal electricity, supporting the Galenic idea that autonomic fibers might influence the secretion of "humors" from peripheral glands, thyroid included. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)

Animals↗
PubMed2002

Representation of the microcosm: the claim for objectivity in 19th century scientific microphotography.

Microphotography was one of the earliest applications of photography in science. The first monograph on tissue organization illustrated with microphotographs was published in 1845. In the 1860s, a large number of introductions to scientific microphotography was published by anatomists. They argued that microphotography was a means of documenting the results of microscopic analysis, uncontaminated by subjectivity of the observer. In the early decades of the 19th century, before the general acceptance of cell theory, such a technique was of special importance, so no criteria were available to distinguish between important and superficial characters in the description of tissue microstructures. Microphotography was praised as the method of choice for documenting the scientific observations of microscopic material. Some of the microphotographic practices described in these early manuals, however, did not conform with the idea of a purely mechanical process of documentation. The authors of these manuals saw photography not as a technique which produced artifacts, but as a complete and reliable substitute for the original preparations. Thus, according to these authors, the artificial world of photography was seen as the actual representation of the microworld. Consequently, they tried to understand the microcosm by analyzing photographs instead of the microscopic preparation themselves. Such attitudes discredited the use of microphotography in the sciences. Consequently, the definitive breakthrough of scientific microphotography was delayed until the 1880s and was largely due to the efforts of Robert Koch, who made microphotography a central tool of bacteriology.

Bacteriology↗
PubMed2003

Histologic findings in left ventricle papillary muscle arteries from human hearts.

We describe original histologic findings of left ventricle papillary muscle (LVPM) arteries in people under 30 years of age. We examined 666 samples taken from the tip, mid-portion and base of papillary muscles in 56 males and 55 females, as well as several samples from the rest of the left ventricle. The number of smooth muscle cells (SMC) in the tunica media of the LVPM arteries led us to divide the samples examined into three groups: (i) group 1, 355 samples (53%) with a normal number of SMC and a normal lumen (the number of group 1 samples increased from the tip (21%) to the base (47%)); (ii) group 2, 252 samples (38%) with a mild to moderately increased number of SMC (the number of these samples decreased from the tip (44%) to the base (22%)); and (iii) group 3, 59 samples (9%) with abundant SMC that were more than twofold greater in size and number of normal arteries, in contrast with the other two groups. The shape of the SMC in group 3 samples was round and the extremely narrow, centrally located lumen of these SMCE had a round or oval shape. These changes were restricted only to papillary muscle arteries and the number of group 3 samples decreased from the tip (63%) to the mid-portion (37%). No inflammatory reaction or chronic ischemic changes were found in the LVPM arteries and surrounding area. The SMC changes in groups 2 and 3 were found in subjects aged more than 2 months. These findings will provide anatomists, cardiologists, pathologists and physiologists with valuable knowledge and will trigger further investigation into the etiology of the structural changes observed and their evolution with age.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Running a life drawing class for pre-clinical medical students.

AIM: To explore the learning possibilities of linking art and anatomy learning. METHOD AND RESULTS: First- and second-year medical students at Southampton University were offered the chance to take part in 3-hour life drawing classes with a life drawing tutor and an anatomist. Attempts were made by the anatomy tutor to link the muscles and bones of the living body in front of the students with their previous learning. The sessions were successful, and enjoyed by students. CONCLUSIONS: Whilst this type of learning cannot take the place of more formal instruction, there does seem to be value in increasing students' interest by providing new points of view and contexts for dry pre-clinical learning. A greater knowledge by the students of anatomy, physiology and clinical medicine at a later stage in their course might have provided further ways to exploit this learning opportunity.

Anatomy↗
PubMed1999

Macroscopic cryosectioning: a simple new method for producing digital, three-dimensional databases in veterinary anatomy.

Using a new method derived from the 'visible human project' (Spitzer et al., 1996, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 3, 118-130), we were able to establish a simple and low-cost tool which produces high-quality cryosections of macroscopic specimens down to 1-mm slice thickness, based on a milling process. For the first time, a macroscopic cryotome is available to veterinary anatomists, which can be used on cutting faces up to 25 cm high and 50 cm wide and with a minimal slice thickness of 1 mm without any gap. The method employs a modified wood circular saw. Recording of the cutting faces is carried out 'online' by a high-resolution digital camera. The process has been tested extensively and produces high-quality sections of very hard material (teeth) as well as of very soft tissues (brain). It is now possible in veterinary medicine to provide three-dimensional anatomical databases of high resolution and of tissue-specific colour as an additional tool for high-quality two- and three-dimensional anatomical reconstructions for use in science and education.

Anatomy↗
PubMed2001

Demonstration of the nerve distribution of the masticatory muscles in rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus).

Two methods can be used in order to demonstrate the nerve distribution of an organ. One is the three-dimensional reconstruction of the innervation pattern of the organ by tracing images of that organ from serial histological sections. The other is the in toto staining of the organ with subsequent clearing of the muscles. In the present study, in order to visualize the nerve distribution of the organ, that organ was completely cleared and the nerve fibres were stained. Detailed morphological structure of the intramuscular nerve distribution of a certain region and its functions are of importance not only for anatomists and physiologists but also for clinicians. In this study eight New Zealand rabbits were used to visualize the intramuscular nerve distribution of the muscles involved in mastication (temporalis m., pterygoideus medialis m., digastricus m., retractor mandibulae m. and masseter m.). The main nerve bundle was observed entering into the muscle as a single trunk and dividing into three branches in the muscle. These branches were also observed dividing into several subbranches while going to the periphery. When the samples were examined under a stereomicroscope, 'Y'-, 'I'- and 'O'-shaped communications between those branches were observed.

Animals↗