By Christopher de Souza

There has been a major revival of Rembrandts paintings at the Hague this year. Among the many paintings opened for viewing was the one picture that I was most familiar with: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicholaes Tulp. It was introduced to many doctors in Mumbai more than 30 years ago. And they were introduced to anatomy and Rembrandt.

Anatomy is taught to students in their first year in medical college. It is mistakenly thought that anatomy is a dead subject since it is taught on cadavers and skeletons, on lifeless, glass slides viewed through a monocular microscope and on brightly coloured, luridly painted, inanimate charts. Once the euphoria of getting into the MBBS course has worn off the study of anatomy in all its aspects is viewed as a necessary evil in order to get to the clinical sciences where the real living action is.

Still, one man changed all that. All the famous doctors of the past and present addressed him as sir. That man was Dr Eustace J de Souza. First trained at the Seth GS Medical College as a general surgeon. A scholarship; The Rockefeller Scholarshipto the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, changed his destiny. Over there under the mentorship of the famous Dr Arnold Seligman he learned histocytochemistry- then a brand new and emerging science. He also learned genetics and its applications.

These skills brought him into the department of Anatomy of the BYL Charitable Nair Hospital and later he became the Dean of the Nair Hospital. There he infused his students with his knowledge and wit.

He would begin with a question, How do you know the sex of a chromosome? No one knew the answer to that.

By pulling down its genes, he would say with a twinkle in his eye pointing to the Levi and Wrangler jeans that the students wore which were the rage at that time.Needless to say there were plenty of guffaws and right to this day many of his students remember that statement.

When teaching the study of bones, he would hold the bone in his left hand and enquire, To which side of the body does it belong?

The left side sir, would be the reply. Right, he would say with an impish smile. He made it a point to find out what a student knew rather than dwell on what they didnt. This was atypical of examiners of that time where examiners looked for lacunae in your knowledge and used that to hammer home your weaknesses and fail you.

Dr Eustace would pepper his teachings freely with references to art, literature and music and so exposed us all to the importance of the study of anatomy as a frame of reference.

Spend a night with Venus and a lifetime with Mercury, was one of his favourite aphorisms regarding the once primitive treatment of syphilis. Most of the students who had no understanding of Roman mythology were carefully explained the connotations and play on words. Venus the god of love transmitted syphilis which was treated long agoby administering mercury a dreadful and painful medicine (the god given the healing caduceus by Apollo). The lifetime of the patient was brief because the cure was worse than the disease.

Dr Eustace de Souza informed us that artists like Leonardo Da Vince spent lifetimes dissecting human bodies in secret to get a better understanding of the human body. Their studies were responsible for now making the study of human anatomy an art and a science.

Da Vincis illustrations of the fetus in the womb and the Vitruvian man were shown to us to better understand how privileged we were to get an actual human body to dissect and appreciate its intricacies. This sense of privilege has stayed with me and nearly all my colleagues,all our lives enhancing our appreciation of the sanctity of life and its residence; the human body.

He had in his office on the third floor, a picture titled The anatomy lesson of Dr Nicholaes Tulp by Rembrandt. The students were asked to find out what was wrong with the picture. None of us could identify the flaw in this marvellous painting. He then showed us that the muscles in the corpses left hand were shown to be arising from the outer side (lateral epicondyle) of the hand when actually they should have arisen from the inner side (medial epicondyle). We were also treated to a short informative discourse on Rembrandt and his other paintings.But, this image remained vividly with us. Whenever I visited his office it was on prominent display.

I moved to the USA to do a fellowship and many years later I had the good fortune to be appointed a professor at the State University of New York in Brooklyn. Following a series of lectures, a dinner was hosted for me at an exclusive black tie event near the Hudson river. Incredibly, there were pictures of Rembrandt on the wall. There was the Nightwatch, Bathsheba at her bath and I saw the one picture with which I was most familiar, The anatomy lesson of Dr Nicholaes Tulp. Dr Lucente my host, saw me get excited and was amazed that I was able to correctly identify this painting and I also pointed out to him the flaw in this picture. He was amazed because he was unaware of this facet of the painting. I spent the evening talking to him about Dr Eustace J de Souza. By then a crowd had gathered around us. When I finished recounting my experiences he raised his glass of wine and said, It appears that you received more than just a lesson in anatomy by this great man Dr Eustace de Souza. I think you received more than mere lessons. You received,what is now extremely rare and what I would call,an extraordinarily good education.

(Dr Christopher de Souza is editor-in-chief of The International Journal of Head and Neck Surgery and honoray ENT Head and Neck Surgeon at Tata Memorial Hospital)

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's own. The opinions and facts expressed here do not reflect the views of Mirror and Mirror does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

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The anatomy lesson of Dr Nicholaes Tulp and other lessons - Mumbai Mirror