Advances in anatomy

Like that of botany, the beginning of the modern scientific study of

anatomy can be traced to a combination of humanistic
learning, Renaissance art, and the craft of printing. Although
Leonardo da Vinci initiated anatomical studies of human cadavers,
his work was not known to his contemporaries. Rather, the
appellation father of modern human anatomy generally is accorded
to the Belgian anatomist Andreas Vesalius, who studied initially at
the rather conservative schools in Leuven (Louvain) and Paris,
where he became a successful teacher very familiar with Galen’s
work. In 1537 he went to Padua, where he became noted for far-
reaching teaching reforms. Most important, Vesalius abolished the
practice of having someone else do the actual dissection; instead, he
dissected his own cadavers and lectured to students from his
findings. His text, De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (1543;
“The Seven Books on the Structure of the Human Body”), was the
most extensive and accurate work on the subject of anatomy at the
time and, as such, constituted a foundation of great importance for
biology. Perhaps Vesalius’s greatest contribution, however, was that
he inspired a group of younger scientists to be critical and to accept
a description only after they had verified it. Thus, as anatomists
became more questioning and critical of the works of others, the
errors of Galen were exposed. Of Vesalius’s successors, Michael
Servetus, a Spanish theologian and physician, discovered
the pulmonary circulation of the blood from the right chamber of
the heart to the lungs and stated that the blood did not pass through
the central septum (wall) of the heart, as had previously been
believed.
Vesalius, Andreas; anatomy
Woodcut depicting Renaissance physician Andreas Vesalius teaching anatomy, from the title
page of the first edition of De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (1543).
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