Vesalius - Father of Anatomy
known for his compendium on anatomy, the Humani Corporis Fabrica
Vesalius was one of the chief figures in the field of medicine during the Renaisssance. He is best known for his contributions to the field of anatomy.
Vesalius – The Father of Modern Anatomy
Like all other branches of human knowledge, medicine underwent dramatic and impressive advances during the Renaissance. Old ideas and theories were questioned and new approaches and methods, both in the study and practice of medicine, were developed. One of the branches of medicine that went through a sea change during this period was the field of Anatomy.
Anatomy is the science of the structure of the various parts of the human body. In the ancient world, knowledge of the human body and its various parts was sketchy and, in many cases, simply wrong. The ancient Egyptians, for instance, had a rough idea of the different parts of the human body such as the liver, heart, spleen, etc.; however, they erroneously believed that all the fluids in the body such as blood, tears, urine and semen were carried to the heart through different vessels.
The earliest attempts to understand the various parts of the body and their functions were done by observing sacrificial animal victims. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, described the various parts of the body in his treatises by performing dissections on animals. Attempts to understand anatomy by conducting dissections on human cadavers were extremely rare due to social and religious taboos.
In the Middle Ages, Anatomy was not considered an important part of medical science. Doctors in Medieval Europe had very little knowledge of the human body. Prior to the Renaissance, Anatomy was, primarily, a subject that was founded on speculation and faulty conclusions based on the observation of animal specimens. During the course of the Renaissance, it would mature into an exact science that gained information from actual dissection of human cadavers combined with the precise recording of the observations.
The Renaissance was noted for many celebrated anatomists who challenged the old schools of thought and made new discoveries and developed new procedures. Andreas Vesalius, considered by many to be the father of modern anatomy, was one of them. Vesalius introduced the practice of making detailed and accurate drawings of observations made during dissections. He specially commissioned professional artists who were present during the dissections and made drawings of the different parts of the body. Until then, drawings were not considered to be necessary for the study and practice of medicine.
Andreas Vesalius was born Andries van Wesel in Brussels in the year 1514 A.D. He joined the University of Louvain to study arts. From there, he moved to the University of Paris to study medicine.
The professors at the University of Paris taught their students by dissecting fresh human cadavers — something that was new for the age. The cadavers were usually the bodies of executed criminals. In the absence of refrigeration, the bodies would decompose quickly. Hence, dissections were usually carried out in winter. At the University, the genius of Vesalius was immediately obvious. Vesalius was the first to describe the spermatic vessels and, while still a student, he began conducting his own dissections under the supervision of his teachers.
The basic text of anatomy during the middle ages was the writings of Galen, the Greek physician who lived during the 3rd century A.D. Since human dissection was illegal during Galen’s time, he performed his dissections on the Barbary ape, a tail-less monkey found in the regions of Morocco, Algeria and Gibraltar. Since the anatomy of the Barbary ape is not exactly similar to that of humans, Galen’s writings contained numerous factual errors that went undetected till the time of Vesalius.
While conducting his dissections, Vesalius found that many of the observations that he made during the dissections were contradictory to the writings of Galen. For instance, he observed that the lower jaw was made up of a single bone and not of two bones as Galen had assumed. However, he had difficulty voicing his apprehensions to his teachers and peers. Galen was considered to be a colossus in the field of medicine and held iconic status in the medieval world. His writings were, therefore, considered to be infallible.
In 1537, Vesalius completed his doctorate from the University of Padua. His ingenuity and skill were well known by then, for he was appointed lecturer in surgery and anatomy shortly afterwards.
During his time, dissection sessions were usually presided over by a physician who would lecture to the students and read from texts written by ancient anatomists such as Galen. The actual dissection would be conducted by a barber-surgeon (The first surgeons were barbers who would perform surgical operations such as amputations, tooth extractions, etc. and tend to wounded soldiers in the battlefield). Vesalius made a radical departure from this style of lecturing. He would personally dissect the bodies, while his students clustered around the table — a practice that is still in vogue.
During his dissections, Vesalius would make detailed and precise drawings of the different parts of the body. He, first, circulated those drawings amongst his students and his peers. The drawings were instantly popular and were in great demand. In 1538, Vesalius published his drawings under the title Tabulae anatomicae sex. That year, he also published a treatise on venesection or bloodletting, a medical procedure, which was popular in his day. The procedure involved bleeding the patient from specific points in the body to cure disease. It was falsely believed that bleeding the patient could cure illness.
However, Vesalius is best remembered for his magnum opus, De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (Seven books on the construction of the human body). Vesalius was just 28 when he published it. The books were a compilation of his lectures, accompanied by detailed drawings specially made by artists he had commissioned. The publication of these books was greatly aided by the invention of printing, which enabled making exact and exquisite copies in large quantities. The old Galenic school of anatomy was, forever, superseded by the new ideas and concepts of Vesalius.
Soon after the publication of the De Humani Corporis Fabrica, Vesalius joined the imperial court of the emperor Charles V as physician. In the years that followed, he published many other treatises on diverse medical subjects. He traveled across Europe along with the Court of Charles V. He died in 1564 while returning from a visit to Jerusalem.
We owe our knowledge of the human body and its intricate processes to people like Vesalius. Their innovation and courage to take on accepted notions and challenge existing concepts were what enabled them to make such great discoveries in their field — discoveries we take for granted today. However, the greatness of Vesalius lies not just in his discoveries, but in the new approaches and methods he developed — methods that are still in use today in medical schools around the world.
