title: Andreas Vesalius' 500th Anniversary: Initial Integral Understanding of Voice Production.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Voice production relies on the integrated functioning of a three-part system: respiration, phonation and resonance, and articulation. To commemorate the 500th anniversary of the great anatomist Andreas Vesalius (1515-1564), we report on his understanding of this integral system.
  
  
  METHODS
  The text of Vesalius' masterpiece De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septum and an eyewitness report of the public dissection of three corpses by Vesalius in Bologna, Italy, in 1540, were searched for references to the voice-producing anatomical structures and their function. We clustered the traced, separate parts for the first time.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found that Vesalius recognized the importance for voice production of many details of the respiratory system, the voice box, and various structures of resonance and articulation. He stressed that voice production was a cerebral function and extensively recorded the innervation of the voice-producing organs by the cranial nerves.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Vesalius was the first to publicly record the concept of voice production as an integrated and cerebrally directed function of respiration, phonation and resonance, and articulation. In doing so nearly 500 years ago, he laid a firm basis for the understanding of the physiology of voice production and speech and its management as we know it today.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Romy J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Brinkman
authors.affiliation: Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Netherlands Cancer Institute-Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: j.hage@nki.nl.
authors.forename: J Joris
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Hage
mesh_terms: D000846:Anniversaries and Special Events; D001298:Audiology / Q000266:history*; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D004210:Dissection / Q000266:history; D049669:History, 16th Century; D006801:Humans; D010699:Phonation; D012014:Reference Books, Medical; D012119:Respiration; D012137:Respiratory System / Q000294:innervation; D014732:Vibration; D014831:Voice
keywords: Andreas Vesalius; History of anatomy; Larynx; Phonation; Voice production