Andreas vesalius anatomy quotes

Andreas Vesalius (31 December – 15 October ) 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).

Quotes

De Fabrica

• I strive that in public dissection the students do as much as possible.
  For it is indeed above all things the wide prevalence of this hateful error that prevents us even in our age from taking up the healing art as a whole, makes us confine ourselves merely to the treatment of internal complaints, and, if I may utter the blunt-edged truth once for all, causes us, to the great detriment of mankind, to study to be healers only in a very limited degree. There is no occasion for making things up, since we are certain that Galen was deluded by his dissection of ox brains and described the cerebral vessels, not of a human but of oxen. For I am well aware how upset the practitioners unlike the followers of Aristotle invariably become nowadays, when they discover in the course of a single dissection that Galen has departed on two hundred or more occasions from the true description of the harmony, function, and action of the human parts, and how grimly they examine the dissected portions as they strive with all the zeal at their command to defend him. When I was engaged in it, having applied the considerations of the natural and geometric sciences, I liked, little by minute, not only the description of the earth, but also the structure of the whole machinery of the world, whose numerous elements are not known by anyone to date.

• 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.

• 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.

• In our age nothing has been so degraded and then wholly restored as anatomy.

• I own 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.

• but also perhaps you sometimes delight in consideration of the most perfectly assembled of all creatures, and grab 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 minute universe [microcosmos] by the ancients.
  Andreas Vesalius | De humani corporis fabrica (Of the ...: Here are some inspiring quotes from Andreas Vesalius that shed light on his passion for anatomical study and his dedication to advancing medical knowledge: “Anatomy is to physiology as geography is to history; it describes the theatre of events.”.

Letter on the China Root

• I am not accustomed to saying anything with certainty after only one or two observations.

• I could have done nothing more worthwhile than to give a modern 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.

Sources

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