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Abstract: ‘The anatomy lesson of Dr. Frederik Ruysch’ (1683) belongs to the famous collection of group portraits of the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons. In this painting, Ruysch is portrayed with a dissected corpse of a newborn, which was still attached to its placenta. Several guild officials as well as his son, who is holding a skeleton of an infant, are surrounding him. Dissection of a child instead of an executed criminal was very uncommon at that time. We therefore investigated the medical background of the painting, with the question why Ruysch was depicted with these obstetrical subjects. To this end, the contents of Ruysch's original works and his over 300-year-old anatomical specimens in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) in St. Petersburg were studied and described in the context of the painting. Major contributions to anatomical knowledge and to human development should be attributed to Ruysch, and these provided the essentials of the composition depicted in this painting. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary: Sir Charles Ballance (1856–1936) was the first surgeon in history to perform a facial nerve crossover anastomosis in 1895. Although, recently, several papers on the history of facial nerve surgery have been published, little is known about this historically important operation, the theoretical reasoning behind the operation or the surgical perspective in which Ballance developed this method. An original document on the operation, dated in 1895, is not known. The earliest report of the operation is a paper by Ballance, published in 1903. Study of this 1903 paper reveals that Ballance stopped performing the operation after his first attempt in 1895 until he resumed in December 1901. What was the reason for this interruption? Why did Ballance start doing it again in 1901? Between 1895 and Ballance''s 1903 paper, several other surgeons had published the results of their facial nerve crossovers. Were they inspired by Ballance''s operation from 1895 to do the same or did they invent the method independently? To enhance our knowledge about the early history of facial nerve surgery, the original manuscripts by Ballance and his contemporaries have been studied. Ballance''s first facial nerve crossover from 1895 is described in the surgical perspective of the end of the 19th century. The theoretical reasoning for the operation is discussed. It was discovered that Ballance''s operation was first recorded in St. Thomas''s Hospital Report of 1895, which was published in 1897. However, this report was probably hardly known by Ballance''s contemporaries and consequently could not have stimulated them to perform the operation themselves. Jean Louis Faure (1863–1944), from France, appears to have been the first to have performed the operation until Ballance''s 1903 paper was published. In 1903, after Ballance''s paper had been published, many other accounts of this method were reported in the literature. At that moment facial nerve crossover seems to have been widely regarded as a potential successful technique, a technique which, a century later, is still part of our repertoire. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632) is considered a masterpiece and is a group portrait of the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons in the form of an anatomy lesson. Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, Doctor of Medicine and Praelector Anatomiae to the Amsterdam Guild of Surgeons, showed an anatomic dissection of a forearm on the corpse of an executed criminal. The anatomic accuracy in Rembrandt’s famous painting has been discussed in the literature for decades without any general consensus. In 2006, on the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt’s birth, a forearm dissection of a cadaver and a comparison with the anatomy in the painting are presented to analyze the anatomic accuracy of Rembrandt’s famous painting. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]