ANATOMICA

ANATOMICAL DETAILS

[199] Galenus[1] Gal<l>inaceos ossium consistentiam, laxam, cavam, et levem habere testatur. Πρόλοβος, ut ait Suidas, avium ingluvies est, quae ab aliquibus Φύοσα dicitur. Haec autem in his avibus, teste Aristotele[2] ventriculo praeposita est. Appendices habe<n>t infra, qua desinunt intestina. Atque ita intelligenda sunt verba Plinii[3] alioqui satis obscura. Gallinae ultra ventriculum habent ingluviem. Pellicula[4] ceu cortex quidam intra ventriculum gallinae stercori destinata, echinus[5] ab aspredine Graecis appellatur. Huius pelliculae, cum apud Medicos in primis, tum etiam ad lac coagulandum usus est. Sunt qui magna fraude medicamentarios institores nobis imponere dicant, quia ex ventriculo, quo nihil in alitibus istis carnosius est, panniculos detractos, et exiccatos pro ingluvie vendant: hanc autem esse causam, cur nemo hodie cognoscatur, qui se feliciter in ventriculo roborando pelliculis istis usum profiteatur: inter quos Gyb. Longolius, non ex ventriculo, sed ex primo cibi in Gallinis receptaculo, quod stomac<h>um, et ingluviem vocat, hanc membranam decerpendam sentit. Atqui veteres hanc vim non ingluviei, aut stomacho, id est, ori ventriculi <galli gallinaeve, sed ipsius ventriculi,> quem κοιλίαν proprie vocant, interiori membranae tribuerunt. Nam et Dioscorides[6] κοιλίαν nominat de hac membrana agens, et Galenus[7] post κοιλίαν, id est, ventriculum Mergi, statim huius membranae meminit, intus adverbium ponens, pro eo, quod est in ventriculo. Uno tanto in loco Galli gulam[8] (scribitur autem Graece etiam γούλαν) una cum larynge iis auxiliari, qui strata permingunt, legimus, tertio nempe parabilium libro[9], sed qui falso illi ascribitur. Plinius[10] etiam ventris membranam vocavit. Gallicum vulgus, quod tanquam parergon interiectum esto, inquit Laurentius Ioubertus[11], Gallinarum ventriculum, si bene memini, periè vocat a petris, quas patria lingua peiras dicunt: quoniam raro absque lapillis reperitur.

Galen affirms that chickens have a delicate, hollow and light structure of bones. Prólobos, as Suidas says, is the crop of birds which by some people is called phýosa. Now, in these birds, according to Aristotle, it is placed before the stomach. At the bottom they have appendices, where the intestines end. And the words of Pliny, otherwise rather obscure, must be understood as follows: Hens have the crop in addition to the stomach. That membrane or kind of peel within the stomach of the hen and which is devoted to produce the excrement, because of its roughness is called echinus – hedgehog - by Greeks. This membrane is used not only especially by physicians, but also for coagulating milk. There are those who say that drug dealers deceive us with a great fraud, being that they sell as crop the dried membranes drawn from the stomach, in comparison with the latter  nothing in these birds is more fleshy: and that this is the reason why today no one is known stating that he successfully uses these membranes to strengthen the stomach: among these Gisbert Longolius feels that in hens this membrane must be plucked off not from the stomach but from the first receptacle for food, which he calls stomach and crop. However the ancients attributed this power not to the crop or to glandular stomach, that is, to the first section of the stomach of rooster or hen, but to the inner membrane of the so properly called stomach which they correctly call koilían – hollow, i.e. muscular stomach or gizzard. For also Dioscorides quotes the koilían when dealing with this membrane, and Galen after the koilían, i.e. the stomach of the merganser, soon after he mentions this membrane, placing the adverb intus – inside - because it is inside of the stomach. Only in one point we read that the gullet of the cock (in fact in Greek it is also written goúlan) together with the larynx is helpful to those who wet their beds with urine, and precisely in the third book of De remediis parabilibus, but which is wrongly ascribed to him. Pliny also called it membrane of the stomach. Laurent Joubert says that common people in France, and let this be as a side addition, if I correctly remember, call the hens’ stomach periè from petrae - stones, which in their native tongue they call peiras: since it is rarely found without pebbles.

Alexander Myndius[12] apud Athenaeum Gallinaceis testes sub iecore esse dixit, et revera mulierculae nostrae eos castraturae digitos admodum profunde in inflicto prope anum vulnere infigunt. Albertus faeminis supra caudam esse tradit, et exteriori parte corporis: maribus vero interius, ubi aliis animalibus renes siti sunt. Plinius[13] alibi calculi remedia recensens, inter alia lapillorum quorundam meminit, qui in Gallorum vessica reperiuntur: quasi vero aves vesicam habeant. Recentiores quidam teste Ornithologo[14], non ex Gallo mare, sed castrato (quem Gallinacei nomine imperite intelligunt[15]) hunc lapidem haberi putant, et Germanice interpretantur, kapunenstein, hoc est, Capi lapidem, sed qua in parte reperiatur, minime addunt. Forte tales lapillos Plinius intellexerit, quos semper in harum avium ventriculo reperiri paulo ante diximus.

Alexander of Myndos in Athenaeus said that in roosters the testicles lie under the liver and in fact, when our farm women are about to castrate them, they stick their fingers quite deeply into the wound made near the anus. Albertus says that in females - the ovary - is before the tail and in the peripheral part of the body: but in males the testicles are more inside, where in other animals the kidneys are located. Pliny in a point, checking the medicinal properties of a pebble, among others things he mentions certain stones found in the bladder of roosters: as if birds really had a bladder. Some more recent writers, according to the Ornithologist, think this stone is obtained not from the male rooster but from the castrated (which they mistakenly define by the name of rooster) and call it in German Kapunenstein, that is, capon’s stone, but do not in the least add in which part it is found. Probably Pliny meant that pebbles which, as I said a short time ago, are always found in the stomach of these birds.

Nos in commune{m} virorum studiosorum, atque maxime eorum, qui naturae arcana perscrutantur, aliquot Gallinas Excellentiss. M. Antonio Ulmo secandas exhibuimus, ut admirabile naturae in generandis ovis artificium indagaremus. Is itaque vir praestantissimus diligentissima sectione naturales partes examinans, novem iconibus omnia in iis observatione digna complexus est: quarum tres subsequenti pagina pictae ad uteri conformationem quodammodo, reliquae ad ovorum generationem pertinent: quas post suo etiam loco daturi sumus. Quod ergo ad uterum spectat, forma eius plurimum a viviparorum animalium utero differt, cum hic unum duntaxat foramen habeat extrinsecus respiciens, alter vero oviparorum duplex obtineat foramen, infernum, per quod ovum ad externa respiciens egreditur iam perfectum: alterum internum, et supernum, per quod ovum ingreditur iam sub septo transverso inchoatum seu conceptum ad formam perfectam suscipiendam: cuius positum, substantiam, figuram, consensum, nunc declarabimus.

To advantage of all students and especially of those who search for the secrets of Nature, I supplied the most excellent Marco Antonio Olmo with some hens for dissection, in order to discover the admirable ability of Nature in generating eggs. Then this very excellent man, when examining the natural segments by a very careful dissection, included in nine pictures everything was worthy of remarks in them: three pictures, reproduced in the following page, in some way are dealing with belly conformation, the other ones with eggs generation: and later I shall give these pictures in their proper place. Then, as far as the oviduct is concerned, its shape differs greatly from the uterus of viviparous animals, since this one has only an opening facing outwards, the other one, i.e. that of the oviparous, has a duplex opening, one facing downward through which the already completed egg comes out facing outward: the other one internal and facing upward, through which comes in the still outlined or fertilized egg under transverse septum, in order to receive its complete shape: and I shall now notify its position, structure, shape, relations.

Uteri itaque totius (intelligimus nunc uterum proprie dictum, et eius extensionem) positus est in parte sinistra ad spinam, cum intestina ipsa obtineant dextram abdominis regionem, et centrum. Exitus vero est in superna parte ad spinam desinente, cum inferiorem partem teneat podex ad ventrem positus. Utraque vero foramina cum intestinorum tum uteri adeo in proximo sitam membraneam substantiam obtinentia coniunguntur, ut arctissime conniventia sensum ipsum fallere quandoque possent, ut ex subiecta icone videre licet. Quam rem pariter adiunctae binae aliae non parum etiam explicant, ut ex adiectis literis est videre. Podicis itaque atque uteri foramina invicem ita, ut dictum, est, proxima cute, ac musculo subiecto communiter obteguntur: quod praeputium nymphas ex similitudine dicere possumus. Correspondet enim cutis haec Gallinae podicem, ac uteri os obtegens, cuti glandem penis virilis cooperienti [201] et cutaneis faeminarum.

Then, the location of the entire uterus (I speak now of the properly called uterus and its extension) is in the left side near the spine, while intestinal loops occupy the right section and the center of the abdomen. Its opening is in the upper part which ends near the spine, while the anus, placed near the belly, represents the lower part. Both foramina of the intestine and of the oviduct, provided with a membranous formation located near them, are so joined that, closing themselves in a very tightly-shut way, they can sometimes deceive the sight, as one may see from the picture ahead. This situation is very well explained by two other added pictures, as it is possible to see from the attached captions. Therefore the foramina of the anus and of the uterus, as I said, are so close each other that they are covered together by the skin and the underlying muscle: and for similarity we can call this prepuce as nymphs - labia minora of the vulva. For this skin covering the anus and the mouth of the uterus of the hen corresponds to the skin which covers the glans of a man's penis and to the cutaneous formations of the females - prepuce of clitoris.