The beautiful drawings of the sagittal sections of the male and female trunk and of the pregnant uterus by leonardo da vinci (1452–1519) are well known.
Among his figures,which were based on some 30 dissections, are a number of transverse sections of the lower limb.these constitute the first known examples of the use of cross-sections for the study of gross anatomy and anticipate modern technique by several hundred years.
In the absence of hardening reagents or methods of freezing, sectional anatomy was used seldom by leonardo (o’malley and saunders, 1952).
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