Andreas Vesalius (Brussels, December 31,
1514 - Zakynthos, October
15, 1564) was an anatomist, physician, and author of one of the most influential books on human
anatomy, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Workings of the
Human Body). Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy.
Vesalius' name is also referred to as Andreas Vesal or Andreas van Wesel, depending on the source.
Early life and education
Vesalius was born in Brussels, then in the Holy Roman
Empire, to a family of physicians. His father, Andries van Wesel, was the illegitimate son of the Emperor Maximillian's Royal Physician, Everard Van Wesel. Andries went on to serve as
apothecary to Maximillian, and later a Valet de Chambre to his successor Charles V. He
encouraged his son to continue in the family tradition, and enrolled him in the Brethren of the Common Life in Brussels to learn Greek and Latin according to standards of the era.
In 1528 Vesalius entered the University of Louvain (Pedagogium
Castrensis) taking arts, but when his father was appointed as the Valet de Chambre in 1532, he decided to pursue a career in
medicine at the University of Paris, where he moved in 1533. Here he studied the
theories of Galen under the auspices of Jacques Dubois
(Jacobus Sylvius) and Jean Ferne. It was during this time that he developed his interest in
anatomy, and was often found examining bones at the Cemetery of the
Innocents.
He was forced to leave Paris in 1536 due to the opening of hostilities between the Holy Roman Empire and France, and returned
to Leuven. Here he completed his studies under Johannes Winter von Andernach and graduated the
next year. His thesis, Paraphrasis in nonum librum Rhazae medici arabis clariss ad regem Almansorum de affectum singularum
corporis partium curatione, was a commentary on the ninth book of Rhazes. He remained at
Leuven only briefly before leaving after a dispute with his professor. After settling briefly in Venice in 1536, he moved to the University of Padua (Universitas
aristarum) to study for his doctorate, which he received in 1537.
On graduation he was immediately offered the chair of Surgery and Anatomy (explicator chirurgiae) at Padua. He also
guest lectured at Bologna and Pisa.
Previously these topics had been taught primarily from reading classic texts, mainly Galen,
followed by an animal dissection by a barber-surgeon whose work was directed by the lecturer. No attempt was made to actually
check Galen's claims; these were considered unassailable. Vesalius, on the other hand, carried out dissection as the primary
teaching tool, handling the actual work himself while his students clustered around the table. Hands-on direct observation was
considered the only reliable resource, a huge break with medieval practice.
He kept meticulous drawings of his work for his students in the form of six large illustrated anatomical tables. When he found
that some of these were being widely copied, he published them all in 1538 under the title Tabulae Anatomicae Sex. He
followed this in 1539 with an updated version of Galen's anatomical handbook, Institutiones Anatomicae. When this reached
Paris one of his former professors published an attack on this version.
In 1538 he also published a letter on venesection, or bloodletting. This was a popular treatment for almost any illness, but there was some debate about where to
take the blood from. The classical Greek procedure, advocated by Galen, was to let blood from a site near the location of the
illness. However, the Muslim and medieval practice was to draw a smaller amount blood from a distant location. Vesalius' pamphlet
supported Galen's view, and supported his arguments through anatomical diagrams.
In 1539 a Paduan judge became interested in Vesalius' work, and made bodies of executed criminals available for dissection. He
soon built up a wealth of detailed anatomical diagrams, the first accurate set to be produced. Many of these were produced by
commissioned artists, and were therefore of much better quality than those produced previously.
In 1541, while in Bologna, Vesalius uncovered the fact that all of Galen's research had been based upon animal anatomy rather
than the human; since dissection had been banned in ancient Rome, Galen had dissected Barbary
Apes instead, and argued that they would be anatomically similar to humans. As a result, he published a correction of
Galen's Opera omnia and began writing his own anatomical text. Until Vesalius pointed this out, it had gone unnoticed and
had long been the basis of studying human anatomy. However, some people still chose to follow Galen and resented Vesalius for
calling attention to such glaring mistakes.
Vesalius, undeterred, went on to stir up more controversy, this time disproving not just Galen but also Mondino de Liuzzi and even Aristotle; all three had made
assumptions about the functions and structure of the heart that were clearly wrong. For instance, Vesalius noted that the heart
had four chambers, the liver two lobes, and that the blood vessels originated in the heart, not the liver. Other famous examples
of Vesalius disproving Galen in particular was his discovery that the lower jaw was only one bone, not two (which Galen had
assumed from animal dissection) and his proof that blood did not pass through the interatrial septum.
In 1543, Vesalius conducted a public dissection of the body of Jakob Karrer von Gebweiler, a
notorious felon from the city of Basel, Switzerland. With the
cooperation of the surgeon Franz Jeckelmann, he assembled the bones and finally donated the
skeleton to the University of Basel. This
preparation (“The Basel Skeleton”) is Vesalius’ only well-preserved skeletal preparation today, and is also the world’s oldest
anatomical preparation. It is still displayed at the Anatomical Museum of the University of
Basel.[1]
De Corporis Fabrica
Vesalius's
Fabrica contained many intricately detailed drawings of human dissections, often in allegorical poses.
In 1543, Vesalius asked Johannes Oporinus to help publish the seven-volume
De humani corporis fabrica (On the fabric of the human body), a
groundbreaking work of human anatomy he dedicated to Charles V and which most believe was
illustrated by Titian's pupil Jan Stephen van Calcar. A
few weeks later he published an abridged edition for students, Andrea Vesalii suorum de humani corporis fabrica librorum
epitome, and dedicated it to Philip II of Spain, son of the Emperor.
The work emphasized the priority of dissection and what has come to be called the "anatomical" view of the body — seeing human
internal functioning as an essentially corporeal structure filled with organs arranged in three-dimensional space. This was in
stark contrast to many of the anatomical models used previously, which had strong Galenic/Aristotelean elements, as well as
elements of astrology. Although modern anatomical texts had been published by Mondino and Berenger, much of their work was
clouded by their reverence for Galen and Arabian doctrines.
Besides the first good description of the sphenoid bone, he showed that the
sternum consists of three portions and the sacrum of five or
six; and described accurately the vestibule in the interior of the temporal bone.
He not only verified the observation of Etienne on the valves of the hepatic veins, but he described the vena azygos, and discovered the canal which passes in the fetus between the umbilical vein and the vena
cava, since named ductus venosus. He described the omentum, and its connections with the stomach, the spleen and the
colon; gave the first correct views of the structure of the pylorus; observed the small size of the caecal appendix in man; gave the first good account of the
mediastinum and pleura and the fullest description
of the anatomy of the brain yet advanced. He did not understand the inferior recesses; and his account of the nerves is confused
by regarding the optic as the first pair, the third as the fifth and the fifth as the seventh.
In this work, Vesalius also becomes the first person to describe mechanical
ventilation.[2]
Though Vesalius' work was not the first such work based on actual autopsy, nor even the first work of this era, the production
values, highly-detailed and intricate plates, and the fact that the artists who produced it were clearly present at the
dissections themselves made it into an instant classic. Pirated editions were available almost immediately, a fact Vesalius
acknowledged would happen in a printer's note. Vesalius was only 30 years old when the first edition of Fabrica was
published.
Imperial physician and death
Soon after publication, Vesalius was invited as Imperial physician to the court of Emperor Charles V. He informed the Venetian Senate that he was leaving his post in Padua,
which prompted Duke Cosimo I de' Medici to invite him to move
to the expanding university in Pisa, which he turned down. Vesalius took up a position in the court, where he had to deal with
the other physicians mocking him as being a barber.
Over the next twelve years Vesalius travelled with the court, treating injuries from battle or tournaments, performing
surgeries and postmortems, and writing private letters addressing specific medical questions. During these years he also wrote
Radicis Chynae, a short text on the properties of a medical plant, whose use he defended, as well as defense for his
anatomical findings. This elicited a new round of attacks on his work that called for him to be punished by the emperor. In 1551,
Charles V commissioned an inquiry in Salamanca to investigate the religious
implications of his methods. Vesalius' work was cleared by the board, but the attacks continued. Four years later one of his main
detractors published an article that claimed that the human body itself had changed since Galen had studied it.
After the abdication of Charles he continued at court in great favour with his son Philip II, who rewarded him with a pension
for life and by being made a count palatine. In 1555 he published a revised edition of De Corporis.
In 1564 Vesalius went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He sailed with the Venetian fleet under James
Malatesta via Cyprus. When he reached Jerusalem, he received a message from the Venetian senate requesting him again to accept the
Paduan professorship, which had become vacant by the death of his friend and pupil Fallopius.
After struggling for many days with the adverse winds in the Ionian Sea, he was wrecked on
the island of Zakynthos. Here he soon died in such debt that, if a benefactor had not paid for
a funeral, his remains would have been thrown to the animals. At the time of his death he was scarcely fifty years of age.
For many years it was assumed that Vesalius's pilgrimage was due to pressures of the Inquisition. Today this is generally considered to be without foundation (see C.D. O'Malley Andreas
Vesalius' Pilgrimage, Isis 45:2, 1954) and is dismissed by modern biographers. It appears the story was spread by
Hubert Languet, who served as de Saxe under Charles V and then the prince of Orange. He
claimed in 1565 that Vesalius was performing an autopsy on an aristocrat in Spain when it was found that the heart was still
beating, leading to the Inquisition condemning him to death. The story went on to claim that Philip II had the sentence
transformed into a pilgrimage. The story re-surfaced several times over the next few years, living on until recent times.
See also
References
- ^ http://www.vhsbb.ch/asp/pdf/senuni_07021213_zf_kurz.pdf
- ^ Vallejo-Manzur F et al. (2003) "The resuscitation
greats. Andreas Vesalius, the concept of an artificial airway." Resuscitation" 56:3-7
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
| Persondata |
| NAME |
Vesalius, Andreas |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES |
|
| SHORT DESCRIPTION |
Early anatomist |
| DATE OF BIRTH |
December 31, 1514 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH |
Brussels, Belgium |
| DATE OF DEATH |
October 15, 1564 |
| PLACE OF DEATH |
Zakynthos, Greece |
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