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Here are my notes summarising Vesalius and Anatomy.


Andreas Vesalius and Modern Human Anatomy.
“I could have done nothing more worthwhile than to give a new description of the whole human body, of which nobody understood the anatomy, while Galen, despite his extensive writings had offered very little on the subject, and I don’t see how I could have presented my efforts to the students differently.”
-Andreas Vesalius
Anatomy as a field of medical science has progressed considerably in the last five decades, and will continue to do so for some time to come. However, prior to Andreas Vesalius’ 1543 publication, Tabulae anatomicae sex, human anatomy had failed to significantly establish itself as a branch of medical knowledge.

Why was this?
Of those that preceded Vesalius, Hippocrates and Aristotle, while vaguely knowledgeable about human anatomy, derived almost all their knowledge from the dissection of animals.
And In the fourth century B.C., the recordings of Herophilus of Alexandria, who was able to dissect a number human corpses, were destroyed by fire.
Some suggest that prior to the Renaissance, ‘lethargy had captured the medieval mind.’ In other words, centuries passed whereby Western civilization lost interest in preserving the characteristics of a ‘fully alive civilization,’ albeit fragments of Greek and Roman literature, the Latin language, and the bible.
In Roman times, human dissection was apparently forbidden, and an almost universal prohibition continued well into the Renaissance era. Only a few executed criminals could be dissected during this period. As a student Vesalius would challenge this rule, however it was these individuals, it could be argued, that gave birth to modern anatomy.
However, we may consider the writings of the Greek physician Galen to be the leading failure of anatomical science.

Galen, DeLuzzi, and da Carpi
The anatomical observations of Galen, who made his observations in the second century A.D., took on a ‘Christian sacredness so fervent that to criticize any of them was life-endangering heresy.’ Furthermore, by his own admittance, many of the human organs he described were derived from the anatomy of various animals.
Yet well into the era of Andreas Vesalius, anatomists were still accustomed to ‘sitting on a chair far above the body being dissected by a barber, reading a Galenical text-book to their students, and paying no attention whatsoever to the tissues and organs of the body beneath them.’
The first text based on the actual dissection of human bodies, Mondino DeLuzzi’s Anothomia, served for two hundred years as the chief source of human gross anatomy. Yet the ‘sacred but erroneous anatomical observations of Galen so blinded Mondino,’ that we could associate his writings more closely to the anatomy of an animal than that of mankind.
Berengario da Carpi reportedly dissected more than one hundred human corpses. He also was the first to depict the human anatomy through crude illustrations and, importantly, was the first to challenge the observations of Galen.

Andreas Vesalius:
‘At present I shouldn’t willingly spend long hours in the Cemetery of the Innocents in Paris turning over bones... I shall no longer petition the judges to delay the day of an execution of a criminal to a time suitable for my dissection... Nor shall I advise the medical students to observe where someone has been buried or urge them to make note of the diseases of their teacher’s patients so that they might later seize their bodies. I shall not keep in my bedroom for several weeks bodies taken from graves or given me after public execution... However too young to gain financially from the art and wishing to learn and to advance our common studies, I readily and cheerfully supported all these things.’
Such a statement reveals that determination of a young man to learn the secrets of the human anatomy. It also indicates a desire to contribute to the public good. However, his ambition was also to become so distinguished in his chosen field as to be appointed a physician to the Roman Emperor, Charles V. He was a pragmatist.

1533: Vesalius began his medical studies in Paris. So adept at dissecting animals, he caught that attention of Jacob Sylvius and John Guinter. The former taught Vesalius the art of dissecting animals, while the latter used him as an assistant to dissect human corpses. It was also during this period that Vesalius frequented the cemeteries of Paris to gather human bones.
1536: Vesalius continued his training in Louvain while secretly dissecting human bodies alone.
1539: he completes his Medical degree at the University of Padua. Despite being only twenty-three, Vesalius was quickly appointed head of the Department of Surgery and Anatomy at Padua given his mastery of dissection. Even following his appointment, Vesalius continued to dissect not only animals and executed criminals, but also the bodies stolen from cemeteries.

Tabulae anatomica sex:
1538: A year before his appointment, Vesalius publishes Tabulae Anatomicae sex. While the writings of Galen still influenced Vesalius’ image of the human body, Tabulae was the first to point out a number of Galen’s errors in almost fourteen centuries. Tabulae also depicted human bones and muscles in artistic and realistic representations unlike any before.
Unlike his predecessors, Vesalius fervently believed that for a person to know the human body, that person must dissect it. He passed on this idea to all he taught. During the sixteenth century, protective gloves and antiseptics, let alone knowledge of the existence of lethal bacteria and viruses, did not exist. Unsurprisingly, Vesalius, along with his three most notable students, Columbus, Eustachius, and Fallopius, all died before reaching fifty-five.
1543: In this year, Vesalius published De humani corporis fabrica, libri septem, more commonly referred to as the Fabrica.
1544: Just one year after publishing Fabrica, Vesalius left the University of Padua and entered into the imperial court of Charles V. Many were puzzled that at the age of 29, he would abruptly end his academic career when he was the most esteemed anatomist in Italy, Paris and Brussels. However, he was a pragmatist, whose lifelong ambition was to become a physician in the imperial court. In fact, at only age 23 he dedicated himself to producing the finest, revolutionary publication, with the aim of dedicating and presenting it to the emperor himself.
It took 5 years dissecting dozens of corpses to gain the encyclopaedic knowledge need for his text. It also contained over 200 illustrations by various artists willing to sketch the organs and tissues of decaying bodies with such anatomical precision.

The outcome for anatomical medicine:
‘The greatest book in medicine.’ William Osler, the father of American medicine.
Some consider Fabrica to have given birth to modern scientific medicine. However, many deplored its publication and the way it came about.
Vesalius’ former anatomy teacher wrote an open letter to the Emperor imploring “His Imperial Majesty to punish severely, as he deserves, this monster born and bred in his own house, this worst example of ignorance, ingratitude, arrogance, and impiety, to suppress him so that he may not poison the rest of Europe with his pestilential breath.’
- Jacob Sylvanius

This response was down to the fact that no medical professor ever dissected human bodies. In this respect, Vesalius was an innovator, and the outcome of his actions meant that the centuries old custom of observing bodies from afar and relying on Galen’s text was dead within a decade.
His hands on approach, teaching directly beside corpses, and the subsequent publication of the Fabrica revealing the tools and the methodology of dissection, was responsible for creating three successors who each made similarly remarkable anatomical discoveries within a few decades.
More importantly, it is argued that Fabrica is credited with reawakening medicine from fourteen years of ‘deep sleep.’
After the publication of the Fabrica, Vesalius’ life was slightly less remarkable. He undertook no scientific studies while in the royal service despite keeping his reputation as one of the most esteemed physicians in Europe.
In 1559, Henry II of France suffered a blow to his head, and splinters from a lance. Other physicians, in an attempt to determine how far the splinters had entered, took the fragmented lance and forced it into the heads of four decapitated criminals. The experiment, while extraordinary, proved useless. On his arrival, Vesalius recognised and announced the injury was fatal.
Don Carlos, the crown prince of Spain, was another to summon Vesalius alongside five other physicians. Having fallen and sustained a small contusion at the back of his neck, Don Carlos subsequently suffered infection. This was most likely the result of unsterile dressings. He was bled and purged as was the custom. Several strange things happened during Don Carlos’ worsening condition. Most notably, citizens of Alcala carried the mummified corpse of a Franciscan Friar, Fra Diego, to the bed of Don Carlos. As the days passed the prince recovered from his delirium and fever, however. It is recognised that every deadly complication ensuing after a simple concussion was of iatrogenic origin. In other words, the complications were a result of medical treatment and advice.
These are the only two items recorded of Vesalius’ history within the imperial service.
Andreas Vesalius died by the age of fifty-five having been a royal physician to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and then Philip II, King of Spain. It was after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem that Vesalius died. One rumour is that his pilgrimage was the result of a dreadful error rather than his spiritual convictions after having begun the dissection of a supposedly dead nobleman whose heart was found to be still beating.