I <3 Vesalius! Life: 1514- 1564

Before Vesalius Before Vesalius, all of Europe relied on the anatomical knowledge (knowledge of the human body) of a man named Galen who lived over 1,300 years before Vesalius and the Scientific Revolution. Needless to say, Galen had a lot of inaccuracies in his understanding of how the human body operates. Biggest misconceptions about the human body leading up to the Scientific Revolution: The liver produces blood Men have more teeth than women Women have one more rib than men Holes existed in the middle of the heart, allowing blood to go from one chamber to another

Vesalius– Son of a Pharmacist Decides to go to Medical School By the 1500s, the church and society had started to become more accepting of the dissection of human bodies Vesalius would scour alleys and streets, and sometimes found rotting corpses that he dissected to better understand human anatomy Vesalius used relationships with judges and government officials to gain access to the bodies of executed criminals Through countless dissection of human corpses, combined with a life devoted to research at the best Universities in Italy, Vesalius was able to create the first accurate/detailed study of human anatomy, best known as De humini corporus fabrica – The Structure of the Human Body. This is possibly the most famous medical text in the history of the world.

Medical contributions that I don’t understand (http://www There is no bone at the base of the heart – Galen’s description of this bone was in reality referring to cartilage found at the base of the heart in deer and other animals which hardened as the animals aged. The sternum has three parts, not seven as Galen claimed on the basis of ape dissections. The heart’s septum is not porous. It has no holes in it. The origin of the vena cava (de-oxygynated blood) is the heart not the liver as Galen stated. There is no such thing as the rete mirabile – a series of internal arteries which supposedly led from the heart to the brain. Men and women have an equal number of ribs – men do not have a missing rib, as was commonly believed. Men and women have an equal number of teeth – men do not have more, as stated by Galen