Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/398

 century, by men of exceptional cleverness. Thus, for example, in 1490, Alexander Benedetti, Professor of Anatomy at Padua, invented a method of preserving muscles, nerves and blood-vessels as permanent dry specimens, and it is said that he sold such preparations for large sums of money. As already stated on a previous page, the injection of blood-vessels with certain fluids was also employed to a very limited extent at this early period as a means of distinguishing them more easily from the surrounding structures; but this practice gave place, during the seventeenth century, to the better method of employing, as an injecting material, a semi-fluid preparation which became quite solid soon after it had penetrated well into the interior of the vessels, and to which any desired opaque color might be given. This method was invented by the Hollander, John Swammerdam (1627-1680) and perfected by Van Horne. It was largely by the employment of this procedure that Friedrich Ruysch of Amsterdam (1638-1731), Professor of Anatomy and Botany in the university of his native city, gained such celebrity throughout Europe for the great beauty of his permanent anatomical preparations. Hyrtl mentions the fact that Peter the Great of Russia, who resided for a certain length of time at Zaandam, near Amsterdam, in order that he might familiarize himself with the art of ship-building, was in the habit of visiting Ruysch from time to time in his museum and laboratory; and finally (in 1717) bought from him, for the sum of 30,000 florins, his entire collection of specimens, together with the formula of the mixture which he employed in making his injections. The collection itself, it should be stated, contained not only specimens illustrative of normal human anatomy (e.g., the various solid and hollow organs, the organs of special sense, and objects belonging to the vascular, muscular, nervous and osseous systems), but also many specimens illustrating pathological and comparative anatomy, and a great variety of monstrosities.

Ruysch also attained remarkable success in restoring the rosy color and soft flexibility of the skin and the natural facial expression in certain dead bodies by the employment