Andreas Vesalius was one of the most influential medical scientists of all time. His ideas and descriptions of the human body changed medicine drastically during the scientific revolution. He used the scientific method and began dissecting corpses himself in order to find out the details of anatomy. He drew exquisite drawings of his findings and created the first illustrated book of anatomy. Figure 1: Andreas Vesalius
Andreas Vesalius was born on December 31, 1514 in Brussels, Belgium. His family was involved in medicine and science for many generations and therefore he expressed interest at a very young age. He went to college in 1528, (only 14 years old) and studied medicine. He was very interested in anatomy and studied the bones and corpses in the cemetery in the Saints Innocents Cemetery. He left Paris in 1536, due to the war and later acquired his Doctors degree in 1537.
He tested many of the ideas and thoughts of the Greek physician, Galen. He found out that many of the assumptions that Galen had made, a thousand years ago, were not true. For instance, Galen said that the breastbone is made of seven segments; we now know that there are only three. Galen also said that humerus was the longest bone in the body, where Vesalius saw that both the tibia and the fibula were longer. After pondering why Galen’s work was so off, Vesalius discovered that Galen didn’t even experiment on humans, he used oxen. If Vesalius hadn’t used the scientific method, we may still be walking around today thinking that we have the same anatomy as an oxen. Vesalius went on to launch the first book of anatomy in 1543, called De humani corporis fabrica livri septem (the seven books on the structure of the human body)
Vesalius wasn’t afraid to go against what was established in medicine. By doing experiments, he proved many of Galen’s theories to be false. He also created the first full book of anatomy. This book launched a new way of thinking in the world of medicine. If it weren’t for the discoveries of Vesaluis, we would have the wrong ideas of how the body looked and worked. Having the right information has saved millions of lives in the past 500 something years.
Figure 2: Modern Human Body
This journal article is about the changing of medicine during the scientific revolution. Before the Scientific Revolution, Aristotle’s theory of the four humours was used to explain medicine. The four humours was a theory to describe the makeup and the workings of the human body. The four humours were all liquids in the body, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood. The theory stated that the body was filled with these four substances, which are in balance when a person is healthy. The imbalance of these four humours was the cause of all disease. These humours were also associated with the four seasons. This meant that it was possible there would be too much of the connected humour in a particular season.
No scientists dared to challenge this theory for over a thousand years. It wasn’t until the Scientific Revolution, beginning in the late 1500’s that anyone had a second thought about whether or not the theory of the four humours was true. But in the 1500’s, students such as Andreas Vesalius started to challenge these ideas. He was so enthusiastic about his work that he inspired his fellow peers to do the same. They did experiments and made observations that changed the world of medicine.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/287/9/1180.full.pdf+html
http://www.experiment-resources.com/andreas-vesalius.html
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0/history_02
