Browne MS P.21 (c.1600)

This figure from the end of Mansur’s Anatomy shows a female with a fetus in the womb. If it were not for the fetus it would be hard to tell if the figure was male or female. This figure may be the only one devised by Mansur ibn Ilyas himself, as he seems to have had a particular interest in the ideas of Aristotle and Galen on the development of the embryo, as well as what Prophetic medicine had to say on the subject. The figure is very simple; it is the arterial system figure with labels removed and an oval gravid uterus imposed. There is a counterpart to this gravid female in fifteenth century western depictions of the so-called disease woman, who is often represented with a fetus in the womb, and in a similar crouching pose.

Peter Murray Jones