London: Octavius Pulleyn, 1654

Glisson was Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge and an early supporter of Harvey’s doctrine. Like Harvey, he had studied medicine at Gonville and Caius College. His important treatise on rickets, De rachitide (London, 1650), was followed by Anatomia hepatis, which documented the normal and morbid anatomy of the liver. Galenists had long held that venous blood was produced in the liver and used up by the body; Glisson’s acceptance that the blood circulated meant rethinking the liver’s role. The fibrous sheath of the portal tracts identified in Anatomia hepatis was named Glisson’s capsule. The folding plate shown here illustrates the dissected liver.

Keynes.D.2.24