Leonardo da Vinci as a Paradigm for Modern Clinical Research

929-994
In 2003 I began collaborating with the cardiothoracic surgeon, Francis Wells (Papworth Hospital), to study the anatomical drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. Mr Wells is regarded as one of the world’s leading heart surgeons and lectures and publishes extensively and internationally. Drawing on my expertise on Leonardo da Vinci and Francis Wells’s medical expertise we examined the drawings and notebooks anew to discover their relevance to science and medicine today. We were invited by Andrew Wechsler, editor of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, to write this article on our initial findings. The Journal is the official journal of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and the Western Thoracic Surgical Association and ranks in the top 3.4% of the 5,684 scientific journals most frequently cited (Science Citation Index).
Our collaborative research reported in this paper contributed new knowledge to the field of Leonardo scholarship and showed its relevance to modern medicine. As part of the research, I applied my knowledge of how Leonardo approached his investigations of anatomy. Leonardo explored how the heart functions by studying how it is formed. In an exercise of lateral thinking, he then applied his knowledge of hydrodynamics to work out how blood flows through the heart. Francis Wells’s expert knowledge of the anatomy and function of the heart allowed us to confirm that much of what Leonardo concluded through observation was correct. Our conclusions were that Leonardo was far more accurate in his findings than was previously assumed. This collaborative exercise has encouraged Mr. Wells to carry our further studies into Leonardo’s anatomical notebooks on which he is currently writing a book to be published in 2008. My own research on Leonardo continues to develop through collaborations with other leading Leonardo scholars.
Note: This output was published under my maiden name Crowe.