Observations on some of the plates used to illustrate the lymphatics section of Andrew Fyfe's Compendium of the anatomy of the human body, published in 1800

✍ Scribed by M.H. Kaufman

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 457 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0897-3806
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1098-2353(1999)12:1<27::aid-ca5>3.0.co;2-3

✦ Synopsis

An engraving displaying A General View of the Absorbent System was used as one of many plates illustrating the Lymphatics section of Andrew Fyfe's Compendium of the Anatomy of the Human Body published in 1800. It is a scaled-down version of a life-size engraving displayed in the museum of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Edinburgh, and is based on a cadaver specially dissected and injected with mercury in 1788 by Alexander Monro secundus, probably with the assistance of Fyfe, who was his 'dissector'. Only recently has the relationship between these two engravings been established, and the Figure Legend in Fyfe's Compendium now provides the missing key to the features illustrated in the life-size engraving. The source and very variable quality of some of Fyfe's other plates, both in the Lymphatics section and elsewhere in the book, are discussed.