CHM Seminar Series, Octo - PDF document

Leona rdo Da Vinci @ Warwick CHM Seminar Series, Octo ber 2013 Professor Peter Abrahams, Warwick Medical School A 15 th century anatomist whose conceptal ideas anticipated 21 st century radiology ? Abstract Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest anatomists ever to have lived. He personally dissected more than thirty human corpses to explore every aspect of anatomy and physiology, and recorded his findings in drawings of unparalleled beauty and lucidity. Ha d he published his researches, Leonardo would have transformed European knowledge of the human body. Sadly at his death his studies remained unpublished and among his personal papers, and were almost unknown (unseen ) until around 1900. Leonardo’s survivin g anatomical drawings are preserved in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. The current exhibition at Holyrood Palace present s thirty of his finest sheets of studies, concentrating on his extraordinary campaign of dissection during the winter of 1510 - 11, when he was repo rtedly working alongside the professor of anatomy at the University of Pavia. This was the period that Leonardo came closest to completing his intended anatomical treatise. He was fascinated by the challenge of depicting a complex, layered, three - dimension al and mobile structure – the human body – in a static two - dimensional image, and devised many unique illustrative techniques to achieve his aims. Many of Leonardo’s drawings are strikingly similar to modern medical images, and the exhibition will display his studies alongside CT and MRI scans and state - of - the - art computer animations to show how astute and accurate were Leonardo’s researches, and how little the detailed knowledge of human anatomy has changed in 500 years. Professor Peter Abrahams, Clinical Anatomist at Warwick Medical School and co - curator of the exhibition , will show how many new concepts in anatomical artistic design were unique to Leonardo’s work and how these concepts and ideas have now developed into many modalities of modern medical images. Biography for Prof Peter H Abrahams  T rained in London as a physician after Peace Corps teaching (VSO) in the jungles of Sarawak, Borneo. Intended to become a surgeon but was side - tracked into anatomy after writing "Clinical Anatomy of Practical Procedures". This led to a Fulbright Scholarship to Iowa, USA  Clinical Anatomist at UCL (London) for 15 years and then held the Clinical Anatomist post at The University of Cambridge (UK) before moving to the new Chair of Clinical Anatomy at Warwick Post - Grad Medical School in 2006.  Life Fel low of Girton College, Cambridge. I also do a couple of days a week in "real metropolitan, inner city medicine" as an NHS GP in London.  Awarded the BMA electronic publishing prize and the IAMS prize for "Inte ractive Skeleton" CD - ROM. And i n 2005 with Crave n and Lumley won The Richard Asher Prize from the Royal Society of Medicine, London for the best new medical text book.  Major works include the McMinn and Abrahams "Clinical Atlas of Human Anatomy" now in its 7th edition – it won the BMA book aw ard 2008 als o Weir and Abrahams "Imaging Atlas of Human Anatomy" now in its 4th edition.  In 2006 the American Association of Clinical Anatomists recognized my contributions as its "Honoured Member" - "for authorship of anatomical textbooks and electronic resources in many languages  Gained top teaching award ( WATE) in my first year at Warwick and in 2011 won the National Teaching Fellowship from HEA in UK - made FHEA  R eceived an educational grant of £ 1.5 million from SHA to set up the West Midlands Surgical Training C entre which is a cadaver operative suite and plastinate teaching centre for all international health professionals where I am now Director  Art history is a hobby of 30 years standing . For a decade taught at the Sl ade school of Fine Art teaching a course “ Anatomy fo r Artists” which still runs to this day.  Was consultant to the Buckingham Palace Exhibition this last summer “Leonardo - Anatomist “ and was appointed to co - curate the “Mechanics of Man “ exhibition which opened this summer in Holyrood Palace.