1. The anatomist Andreas Vesalius at 500 years old
Justin Barr, PhD 
Journal of Vascular Surgery 
Volume 61, Issue 5, Pages (May 2015)
DOI: /j.jvs
Copyright © 2015 Society for Vascular Surgery Terms and Conditions

2. Fig 1
A medieval anatomy lesson is portrayed in this painting from Johannes de Ketham's Fascicolo di Medicina (1491). The professor is seated high above the body and directs the dissection, although he gazes at the viewer, not the corpse. The green-frocked man is actually performing the dissection. His waist-length garment distinguishes him as belonging to a lower social class. Medical students, in long red and black robes, gather around to observe.
This image is in the public domain, scanned from a facsimile copy housed in the Historical Collections and Services of the Claude B. Moore Health Sciences Library at the University of Virginia and used with their permission.
Journal of Vascular Surgery  , DOI: ( /j.jvs )
Copyright © 2015 Society for Vascular Surgery Terms and Conditions

3. Fig 2
Frontispiece of the original 1543 edition of Fabrica. The man performing the dissection is Vesalius. Notice that the cadaver is a woman—incredibly rare for the era (Vesalius only dissected two in his career)—and is disproportionately larger than all the other humans in the picture. The three weasels at the top are the Vesalius family shield. The “IO” to its left are the initials of the publisher, Johannes Oporinus, whose likeness appears as the old man peering down from the balcony. The frontispiece is replete with symbolism. The dog and the chained monkey signify Galen's dependence on animals for anatomy. The classically dressed figures are at the same level as Vesalius, demonstrating that modern medicine was equal to that of the ancients. (The man in Greek robes on the right staring at the dog is believed to be Realdo Colombo). The skeleton in the center highlights the importance of osseous anatomy, and the nude figure clinging to the column on the left signifies the salience of surface anatomy. Perhaps most significantly, the lithograph portrays Vesalius performing the dissection himself, in stark contrast to most of his predecessors and contemporaries (depicted in Fig 1) who would sit on high and dictate the anatomy as another, lower-class individual, actually exposed the assigned structures.7
This image is in the public domain. Scans of every plate in the first edition, including this frontispiece, are freely available from the National Library of Medicine at
Journal of Vascular Surgery  , DOI: ( /j.jvs )
Copyright © 2015 Society for Vascular Surgery Terms and Conditions

4. Fig 3
Plates 44 and 45 of Fabrica. Left, Plate 44 displays the veins of the body and (right) plate 45 shows the arteries. The additional detail and attention in plate 44 indicate the importance of the veins over the arteries in the 16th century. As the images display and O'Malley and Saunders describe, Vesalius did not have a perfect grasp of vascular anatomy. In plate 44, the right renal vein is mistakenly superior to the left (a relationship more common in animals), the azygos is abnormally dilated, and the veins at the base of the neck follow a nonhuman mammalian pattern. The continuity of the vena cava reflected the contemporary understanding of the role of the atria (considered part of the vessel and not of the heart). In plate 45, the aortic arch appears as a bovine variant, the lateral thoracic artery is disproportionately large for humans, and the branches of the internal and external carotid arteries are confused.7 These picayune errors aside, Vesalius' mapping of the vasculature was a quantum leap beyond anything previously produced and served as the standard reference point for generations of physicians.
The images are in the public domain. Electronic images scanned with permission from the 1555 edition housed in the Historical Collections and Services of the Claude B. Moore Health Sciences Library at the University of Virginia.
Journal of Vascular Surgery  , DOI: ( /j.jvs )
Copyright © 2015 Society for Vascular Surgery Terms and Conditions