Getting to the heart of the matter
Event review: Wellcome Trust Exhibition
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| Leonardo's heart drawing (image Wellcome Library) |
A guided tour of an exhibition at the Wellcome Trust linking Art and Culture explored how important the heart was to ancient Egyptians, not only as a physical organ but as the centre of intellect. Separate hieroglyphs were used for ‘Haty’ the physical and ‘Ib’ the spiritual in preparation for the afterlife.
Galen, an ancient Greek physician and philosopher, theorised about the working of the heart and the movement of blood and a wider understanding of how the whole body worked. He considered the heart, brain and liver to be equally important, unlike Aristotle who thought the heart to be the controlling influence.
Leonardo’s drawings of the heart are very beautiful and accurate and like other drawings provide key data in heart surgery now. William Harvey, who worked at St Bartholomew’s hospital, was a passionate believer in dissection and accurately demonstrated the relationship between arteries and veins and showed the heart was used to pump blood round the body.
In 1967 Christian Barnard was the first surgeon to perform a heart transplant, though there were initially problems with rejection by the immune system. Cardiac transplantation is now common and over 3000 operations are made each year.
Primitive cultures like the Aztecs believed that sacrifices were necessary to keep the sun in the heavens and it is thought that over 20 000 prisoners’ hearts were removed for this purpose.
Sir Henry Wellcome (1853-1936) amassed a considerable fortune in his lifetime, which is widely used in medical research. He was also a prolific collector and much of his collection can be viewed in the permanent exhibition recording his life. Two examples are the collection of surgical saws used for amputation before anaesthetics and forceps used in child birth. There are too many other examples to mention but they include a picture of Daniel Lambert, the fattest man in the country, showing that obesity was a problem even going back many years.
Events are held regularly in this new building in Euston Road, London, UK, which are free to all.
Carl Martin
Health and Safety Group
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