ANDREAS VESALIUS

Nationality: Flemish
Job: Anatomist/medical academic
Specialism: Anatomy
About me:
1. 1514-1564
2. Switched his views on Galen
3. Revolutionary anatomy textbook

The situation before Vesalius’ discovery:

The work of Galen (Medieval dissections) –
Galen's work was based on incorrect dissections and religious Dogma. These
inaccuracies, which were upheld by religious authorities, hampered medicine
severely throughout this time.
The purpose of dissections –
Dissections were performed to uphold Galen’s work.
The work and discoveries of Vesalius
Initially he was a strong believer in Galen's theories, however when he
performed his own dissections(unlike other doctors who left it to assistants) in
order to improve his blood lettings he realized that Galen’s work contained a
litany of errors in its understanding of human anatomy. He later published his
ground-breaking textbook the fabric of the human body, the book’s translation
by Pare combined with its incredibly accurate illustrations and diagrams
(produced by the studio of the famous renaissance master Titian) and made
possible to reproduce on mass scale by the development of woodcuts.

How were Vesalius’ discoveries viewed…

a) at the time
Vesalius’ work soon found an appreciative audience across Europe,
especially after it was translated into French by Pare. Due to Vesalius’
evidence based his theories quickly became accepted among the learned
medics of Europe

b) after
His discoveries caused many guilds of barber-surgeons to require their
members to observe and perform dissections to improve their knowledge of
the human body. For example Henry VIII gave the guild of barber-surgeons four
corpses a year for public dissection.
 How significant were the discoveries of Vesalius?

Ideas made a positive contribution to Ideas had a limited impact on medicine

medicine
The Fabric of the Human Body
• First mostly accurate textbook • No new treatments resulted from it
immediately.
Compendiosa & training of barber-
surgeons
• widely available, in a local
language.
• Enabled training of surgeons