Berengario da Carpi: a pioneer in neurotraumatology.
Berengario da Carpi was one of the most famous physicians of the 16th century, a recognized master of anatomy and surgery, an emblematic "Renaissance man" who combined his medical experience and engineering knowledge to design new surgical instruments, and effectively used the arts of writing and drawing to describe state-of-the-art medicine and provide illustrations of anatomical structures. His greatest contribution to medicine was to write the most important work on craniocerebral surgery of the 16th century, the Tractatus de Fractura Calvae sive Cranei (Treatise on Fractures of the Calvaria or Cranium), in which he described an entire set of surgical instruments to be used for cranial operations to treat head traumas that became a reference for later generations of physicians. This was a systematic treatise covering the mechanisms, classification, and medical and surgical treatment of head traumas, and can be considered a milestone in the history of neurotraumatology.
Center for Anatomy and Cell Biology, Department of Systematic Anatomy, Medical University of Vienna, Austria. diieva@hotmail.com
Antonio
A
Di Ieva
Paolo
P
Gaetani
Christian
C
Matula
Camillo
C
Sherif
Manfred
M
Skopec
Manfred
M
Tschabitscher
D006259:Craniocerebral Trauma / Q000266:history*; D003399:Craniotomy / Q000266:history*; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D009445:Neuroanatomy / Q000266:history*; D009493:Neurosurgery / Q000266:history*; D012887:Skull Fractures / Q000266:history*; D013525:Surgical Instruments / Q000266:history*; D014207:Trephining / Q000266:history*