Episode 4.8. Warm Bodies. The Life and Times of a Renaissance Anatomist

Dirty Sexy History

Gabrielle Falloppia is credited with inventing the condom. He didn’t, but he did discover the fallopian tubes, all while battling academic rivals, accusations of heresy, a syphilis epidemic, and the pirates who kidnapped his boyfriend. He has been accused of vivisecting the criminals given to him by the Medicis—that is, dissecting them while they were alive—but he didn’t do that. To be clear, he *did* kill them…just not in that way. It’s all in a day’s work for legendary anatomist Gabrielle Falloppia. Our guest today is medical doctor and historian Dr Michael Stolberg, retired chair of the history of medicine at the University of Würzburg, Germany. Dr Stolberg’s new book is Gabrielle Falloppia 1522/23-1562: The Life and Work of a Renaissance Anatomist, and it’s out now from Routledge.