Andreas Vesalius
Andreas Vesalius (31 December 1514 – 15 October 1564) was a 16th-century anatomist, physician, and author of De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (On the fabric of the human body in seven books). Vesalius is widely regarded as the father of modern human anatomy.
On December 31, 1514, Vesalius was born Andries van Wesel to his father Anders van Wesel and mother Isabel Crabbe in Brussels, which was then part of the Habsburg Netherlands. Jan van Wesel, his great-grandfather, was probably born in Wesel and got a medical degree from the University of Pavia before teaching medicine at the University of Leuven. His grandfather, Everard van Wesel, was Emperor Maximilian's Royal Physician, and his father, Anders van Wesel, was Maximilian's apothecary and afterward valet de chambre to his successor, Charles V.
He taught at the University of Padua from 1537 until 1542 and then served as an Imperial physician at Emperor Charles V's court. After Emperor Charles V abdicated, he remained at court and enjoyed the Emperor's son Philip II's favor. Andreas Vesalius is the Latinized version of Andries van Wesel. Latinizing one's name was a frequent practice among European academicians during his time. Andrea Vesalius, André Vésale, Andrea Vesalio, Andreas Vesal, Andrés Vesalio, and Andre Vesale are all variations on his name.
Anatomies had already been published, but Vesalius's were in a different class. They were based on actual human body dissections (after death). And the drawings were of the finest caliber. For many centuries, dissections of cadavers (dead human bodies) were prohibited, which constrained earlier work on anatomy. Galen provided the majority of information about the human body prior to Vesalius. Vesalius demonstrated that many of the things Galen wrote about were incorrect by dissecting human bodies. Galen's primary misconceptions included the human heart, liver, and lower jaw bones. Galen's work was discovered to be based on Barbary apes, but he also dissected pigs, which resulted in more incorrect observations.
