Guinter, Johannes (1505–1574)

German physician. He was professor of medicine at the University of Paris. His Latin translation of Galen's On Anatomical Procedures (1531), written by the Greek physician in the 2nd century AD, changed the study of human anatomy. The work had been unavailable in Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire in AD 476 but preserved in Arabic by Muslim scholars. Considered Galen's most important work on anatomy, it contained detailed descriptions of animal dissections made at a time when human dissection was forbidden. Galen's regret that he could not dissect a human corpse, which was previously unknown, challenged the ban on dissection imposed by the Catholic church and encouraged the proper investigation of human anatomy. Flemish physician Andreas Vesalius subsequently proved many of Galen's theories to be incorrect.

Galen had previously been considered infallible, even though his works on human anatomy were based on studies of the barbary ape. Since the foundation of the modern universities of Europe from the 11th century, dissection had either been banned or only carried out to prove Galen's known theories, such as the existence of three-fold circulation. Proper investigation was considered unnecessary, and professors of anatomy usually instructed a student or doctor to carry out the dissection while they read from Galen's On the Use of Parts, a work translated by Mondino de Luzzi and published in de Luzzi's Anathomia Mundin/Anatomy in 1316.

One of Guinter's pupils was Vesalius, who later became professor of surgery at the University of Padua, Italy, and revolutionized anatomy with his postmortem dissections. Like Guinter, Vesalius had previously been a strong believer in Galen's anatomical theories, but Guinter's translation of On Anatomical Procedures and his stress on the importance of detailed dissection and anatomical observation had a profound impact on his work. He eventually overturned Galen's authority in the field of human biology.