JRSM > Volume 96, Number 5 > Pp. 256

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Michelangelo and medicine

Atti-La Dahlgren

Department of Community Medicine, Travel and Migration Unit, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland

E-mail: ism-ne{at}bluewin.ch

Dr Strauss and Dr Marzo-Ortega (October 2002 JRSM¹), discussing the work of Michelangelo (1475-1584) in relation to medicine, refer to a suggestion² that the left breast in the sculpture Notte has features of locally advanced breast cancer.² Michelangelo's contemporary Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520) is thought to be the first to have depicted an advanced stage of breast cancer in the painting La Fornaria.³ Breast cancer has probably been prevalent since antiquity, but the search for historical evidence is difficult for lack of verifiable descriptions or graphic representations of the disease.^4,5 In the chapter on pre-Hippocratic medicine in Meyer-Steineg's Geschichte der Medizin I found an illustration showing a female torso (Figure 1) with contracted cancer in the left breast.⁶ The torso dates from 2nd to 1st century BC and was found in Izmir, Turkey. A plaster cast of the original terracotta torso is in the collections of the Institute for Medical History at the Friedrich-Schiller University in Jena, Germany.⁷ This torso is perhaps not in the same artistic league as the work of Michelangelo, but it may well be the earliest historical evidence of breast cancer.

View larger version (110K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 1. Female torso, 2-1 century BC

 

REFERENCES

1. Strauss R, Marzo-Ortega H. Michelangelo and medicine. J R Soc Med 2002;95:514 -15[Free Full Text]

2. Stark JJ, Nelson JK. The breasts of ‘Night’: Michelangelo as oncologist. N Engl J Med2000; 343:1577 -8[Free Full Text]

3. Espinel CH. The portrait of breast cancer and Raphael's La Fornaria. Lancet2002; 360:2061 -3[Medline]

4. Wolff J. The Science of Cancerous Disease from Earliest Times to the Present (transl Ayoub B Canton). Science History Publications, 1987: 3-45

5. Haagensen CD. Physicians' role in the detection and diagnosis of breast disease. In: Haagensen CD, ed. Diseases of the Breast, 3rd edn. Philadelphia: W B Saunders, 1986:516 -76

6. Meyer-Steineg Th, Sudhoff K. Geschichte der Medizin, 3rd edn. Jena: Fischer Verlag, 1927:49

7. Zimmerman S. Theodor Meyer-Steineg (1873-1936) Medizinhistoriker und Angenarzt in Jena. In: Würzburger Medizinhistorische Mitteilungen, Vol. 10. Wurzburg: Verlag Dr Johannes Königshausen & Dr Thomas Neumann,1991 :90,194

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This Article Figures Only Full Text (PDF) Send a Quick Comment Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when Quick Comments are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Dahlgren, A.-L. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Social Bookmarking                      What's this?