Bartolomeo Eustachi

Bartolomeo Eustachi (1500–1510 – 27 August 1574), also known as Eustachio or by his Latin name of Bartholomaeus Eustachius (), was an Italian anatomist and one of the founders of the science of human anatomy.

Biography

Bartolomeo was born in San Severino in the province of Ancona, where his father, Mariano Eustachio, was a wealthy and prominent physician. Bartolomeo received the required broad humanistic education typical of that time, and then studied medicine at the Archiginnasio della Sapienza in Rome. He was also well versed in Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek, which gave him access to original medical treatises written in those languages. As a physician, Eustachius enjoyed great prestige among the upper classes, having among his patients the Duke of Urbino, the Cardinal della Rovero, and the Duke of Terranova. He became a member of the Medical College of Rome and in 1549 was appointed Professor of Anatomy at the Papal College, the Archiginnasio dell Sapienza. He soon obtained papal dispensation to dissect cadavers from patients from the Santo Spirito Hospital.

During 1562 and 1563 Bartolomeo Eustachio (writing under the Latin surname Eustacius) wrote a remarkable series of scientific works on the anatomy of the kidney, the hearing apparatus, the teeth and their structure, and the circulatory system, including the lower vena cava and its valves (now known as the Eustachian valve). These works were organized and published (illustrated with eight plates) as Opscula Anatomica in 1564.

Eustachius was deeply interested in understanding the anatomical structures of the human body through direct observation, instead of accepting the many a priori theories current among other physicians.