What was andreas vesalius childhood like

In , Vesalius moved to Padua in northern Italy, which at that time was known as a thriving environment for scholars from all over Europe. He graduated in December of the same year, and a day later was appointed to a lectureship in surgery and anatomy at the University of Padua.

The 18 months that followed confirmed his anatomical reputation. He published the Tabulae anatomicae sex , six anatomical plates drawn by painter and woodcutter Jan van Calcar as an aid for students. At the age of 24, Vesalius was bold enough to free himself of the traditional methods of Galen and his followers, and held the belief that the study of human anatomy should be based on visible proof gained from dissecting human bodies.

He probably started writing in and was almost finished by the summer of Vesalius benefited from the intellectual climate in Padua and Venice and made use of the time to concentrate on this publication. In autumn , the illustrated woodcuts of the book were transported to Basel, Switzerland, where it was printed by Johannes Oporinus — who was gaining fame for the quality of his printing.

Vesalius even obtained privileges that protected the Fabrica from unauthorized copying. It is not clear why he published his work in Basel: even though the city was an important center of printing during the Renaissance, Vesalius would have found excellent printers in Venice as well, without having to transport the woodcuts.

In January , Vesalius arrived in Basel to oversee the printing of his magnum opus, but did not neglect his core skill as an anatomist: during his stay, he dissected the body of an executed criminal; the skeleton can still be seen at the Anatomical Museum of the University of Basel.

He also prepared Andreae Vesalii suorum de humani corporis fabrica librorum epitome , a condensed summary of his works for students consisting of six chapters and nine illustrations. The illustrations in the original Fabrica were lavish, but not in color. However, a most beautiful, richly hand colored and expensive copy of the Fabrica was prepared for Charles V. The Emperor was pleased with the book, which featured a florid dedication to him, and appointed Vesalius to his medical staff.

Vesalius believed that while working at the court he would not have enough opportunity to continue his working and writing on anatomy. Although he — and Vesalius scholars to come — came to regret it, he disposed of most of his library and destroyed his notes on Galen. The book was based largely on human dissection, and transformed anatomy into a subject that relied on observations taken directly from human dissections.

Vesalius now left anatomical research to take up medical practice. Maintaining the tradition of imperial service, he became physician to the imperial court of Emperor Charles V and in took service with Charles' son, Philip II of Spain. In , he left for a trip to the Holy Land but died on 15 October on the Greek island of Zakynthos during the journey home.

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But Vesalius soon became embroiled in disputes with faculty members, evidencing both his genius and his quarrelsome character. He was practically compelled to go the next year to the University of Padua. There Vesalius passed his doctoral examination with such honors in December that he was immediately appointed professor of surgery and anatomy. In he published six sheets of his anatomical drawings under the title Tabulae anatomicae sex. The publication was a signal success.

Because of the great demand the sheets soon were reprinted, without Vesalius's authorization, in Cologne, Paris, Strasbourg, and elsewhere. In there followed his essay on bloodletting in which he first described the veins that draw blood from the side of the torso. This opened the way to the study of the venous values and led ultimately to the discovery of the circulation of blood by William Harvey.

Vesalius's commitment to actual observing was much in evidence in his edition of some of Galen's works in but especially in his epoch-making De humani corporis fabrica libri septem Seven Books on the Construction of the Human Body , published in in Basel.

Book 1 on the bones was generally correct but represented no major advance. Book 2 on the muscles was a masterpiece. Book 3 on blood vessels was exactly the opposite. Somewhat better was book 4 on the nerves, a great advance on everything written on the topic before, but it was largely outmoded a century later. Excellent was his treatment in book 5 of the abdominal organs. Book 6 dealt with the chest and neck, while book 7 was devoted to the brain.

Some of the woodcut illustrations of the Fabrica are among the best of 16th-century drawings and probably were executed by Jan Stephan van Calcar. Vesalius's own drawings were of moderate value. The revolutionary aspect of the work was the dominating role of observation as the very foundation of progress in anatomy.