(ANSA) - Leonardo da Vinci's Renaissance genius has trumped centuries of learning once again, helping a leading British heart specialist revolutionize the way he performs surgery.
Francis Wells was studying Leonardo's meticulous diagrams and observations of the heart, when he realized the 500-year-old documents contained a valuable insight into the functioning of the mitral valve.
"What Leonardo was saying about the shape of the valve is important," explained Wells, a consultant surgeon at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge. "It means we can repair this valve in a better way."
According to Wells, Leonardo's grasp of how the valve mechanism worked was extraordinary.
The diagrams feature minutely detailed observations of the opening and closing of the mitral valve, which controls the direction of blood flowing into the heart. The valve's two flaps are meant to let blood into the heart and stop it flowing out. However, when problems develop, it stops working properly and starts operating like a swing door, letting blood flow back out.
This means the heart has to pump extra hard to keep the blood going in the right direction. Until now, there was no solution for the problem. At best, surgery was able to narrow the valve opening but this restricted the blood flow, leaving the patient breathless and tired.
But Leonardo's drawings gave Wells an idea of how to modify the procedure so that the valve was restored to full working order. According to the specialist, Leonardo understood the fundamental importance of the valve's opening phase, an element that had been overlooked in the intervening
centuries. Using this knowledge, Wells has been able to perfectly repair the hearts of 80 patients, who are now able to lead full and active lives.
Although Leonardo had toyed with anatomical studies before, his study of the human body only began in earnest in 1508. He dissected about 30 corpses in total, painstakingly sketching his discoveries and making wax and plaster moulds of various body cavities.
He looked at limbs, muscles, the brain and various other organs, and his Vitruvian Man - showing an anatomically perfect male figure - has become a commonplace image in modern society.
His studies of the heart took him to slaughterhouses. Watching pigs being killed by a skewer through their heart, he realized that the heart beat coincided with the movement of blood into the main arteries. He eventually made a glass model of the heart and combined with his drawings and diagrams, showed that it was an organ like any other. This was a revolutionary idea at the time, when it was still widely believed that the heart was the source of the "vital spirit", heating the blood, which then carried this spirit around the body.
Wells made his discovery while poring over papers in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. This is the world's largest private collection of Leonardo's drawings, comprising some 600 working designs for hundreds of projects.
