Andreas Vesalius: Turning Point In History

Often called the “Father of Anatomy”, Vesalius was one of the most prominent scientists during the Renaissance, along the likes of Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton. His accomplishments impacted the scientific revolution and reintroduced anatomy to the people. Vesalius emphasized that research should be done first-hand and compiled his own findings into a detailed book that was the first of its kind (“Andreas Vesalius”). The work of Vesalius was a turning point in history because of the impact his efforts had on medicine, standardized anatomical texts, and people’s attitudes toward anatomy.
Andreas Vesalius was born in Flanders, Belgium in 1514 CE to a family of physicians (“Andreas”). Vesalius enrolled at the University of Paris in 1537, where he studied science and anatomy

There, Vesalius departed from tradition and began teaching anatomy and surgery in a new way. Vesalius emphasized the importance of discovering things by hand and from scratch. Instead of surgeons dissecting cadavers, or corpses, while professors lectured from a textbook, which was what normally happened at the time, Vesalius himself worked with the bodies. The professor made very detailed drawings of the human body to help his students learn, which was a rarity during the Renaissance. When Galen’s writings were edited in the sixteenth century, anatomical drawings were omitted. Even his old professor Sylvius pressed that students use only text. However, Vesalius continued to draw diagrams. In 1543, the drawings culminated into the ground-breaking book, De Humanis Corporis Fabrica-- On the Fabric of the Human Body, or the Fabrica (“Andreas”). The Fabrica was a huge success in art and printing, because students could cheaply cut and paste diagrams to form a three-dimensional body (“Andreas”). As the appeal of anatomy soared, demand rose for the already low supply of cadavers to work on (“Human”). Students and professors, including Vesalius, took