FRANCIS GLISSON (1597-1677). Anatomia hepatis. London: Typis DuGardianis, 1654.

Glisson was a graduate of Cambridge and Regius professor of physic there for more than forty years, although he was almost never in residence, as he carried on a busy medical practice in London.

Glisson was a founder of the Royal Society and one-time president of the Royal College of Physicians. In this book he gives the first description of the capsule of the liver and describes its blood supply. Here, too, is the description of the sphincter of the bile duct.  In its time, the Anatomia hepatis was the most important treatise thus far on the physiology of the digestive system.

Our library owns a first edition of this work, as well as a 1681 edition published in The Hague.  Other editions came out in 1659 and 1665. Glisson also wrote books on rickets and the intestines.  For more information about Francis Glisson see the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

You may view this book in the John Martin Rare Book Room, Hardin Library for the Health Sciences. Make a gift to the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences by donating online or setting up a recurring gift with The University of Iowa Foundation.