Andreas Vesalius

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Andreas Vesalius (31 December 1514 – 15 October 1564) was a 16th century Flemish Renaissance physician and anatomist who published a massive groundbreaking textbook of human anatomy, entitled De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body).

Vesalius

Quotes[edit]

By not first explaining the bones, anatomists delay the inexperienced student.


De Fabrica[edit]

  • I strive that in public dissection the students do as much as possible.
    • O'Malley, p. 144
  • By not first explaining the bones, anatomists delay the inexperienced student and, because of the difficulty of the subject, deter him from a very worthy examination of the works of God.
    • O'Malley, p. 150
  • Passing over the other arts in silence, I shall speak briefly of that which concerns the health of mankind; indeed, of all the arts the genius of man has discovered it is by far the most beneficial and of prime necessity, although difficult and laborious.
    • O'Malley, p. 317
  • In our age nothing has been so degraded and then wholly restored as anatomy.
    • O'Mally, p. 320
  • I have done my best to this single end, to aid as many as possible in a very recondite as well as laborious matter, and truly and completely to describe the structure of the human body which is formed not of ten or twelve parts-- as it may seem to the spectator-- but of some thousands of different parts.
    • O'Mally, p. 323
  • ...but also perhaps you sometimes delight in consideration of the most perfectly constructed of all creatures, and take delight in considering the temporary lodging and instrument of the immortal soul, a dwelling that in many respects corresponds to the universe and for that reason was called the little universe [microcosmos] by the ancients.
    • O'Malley, p. 324
In our age nothing has been so degraded and then wholly restored as anatomy.

Letter on the China Root[edit]

  • I am not accustomed to saying anything with certainty after only one or two observations.
    • O'Malley, p. 201
  • I could have done nothing more worthwhile than to give a new description of the whole human body, of which nobody understood the anatomy, while Galen, despite his extensive writings, has offered very little on the subject.
    • O'Malley, p. 222

Sources[edit]

O'Malley, Charles Donald (1964). Andreas Vesalius of Brussels 1514-1564. University of California Press.

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