What did Andreas Vesalius contribute?

Modern medicine is forever in debt to the efforts put forth by Vesalius and his ethic to provide the most accurate form of the human body. The manner in which Vesalius tended to his work could arguably be thought of as more significant than the work itself. His desire to strive for the truth is most evident through his ability to correct his own claims and to continually reshape his thoughts on the human body. Through his attention to detail, he was able to provide clear descriptions and unprecedented anatomical drawings that set a new standard for future medical books.

What did Andreas Vesalius discover?

Vesalius believed the skeletal system to be the framework of the human body. He also disproved the common belief that men had one rib fewer than women. He also defined a nerve as the mode of transmitting sensation and motion.

Vesalius and Renaissance

       The Renaissance is one of the most interesting and disputed periods of European history. Many scholars see it as a unique time with characteristics all its own. A second group views the Renaissance as the first two to three centuries of a larger era in European history usually called early modern Europe, which began in the late fifteenth century and ended on the night of the French Revolution (1789). Some local historians reject the concept of the Renaissance altogether. Andreas Vesalius was the best anatomist of his time. He was localy known.

Andreas Vesalius' Career

Before Vesalius in the early 16th century, knowledge of human anatomy was based essentially on guesswork. Medical students learned human anatomy not by studying bodies and dissecting them, but by reading the works of the Roman physician. As Vesalius proceeded with his dissections, he increasingly noted obvious conflicts between what he saw in the human body and what the romans described. Their errors, Vesalius reasoned, arose because the ancient anatomist relied only on animal dissections, which often did to human anatomy. Vesalius set down the principle that true, fundamental medical knowledge must come from human dissection, practiced by each individual physician.

Andreas Vesalius Biography

         Andreas Vesalius was born on December 31,1514 and died on October 15, 1564. His nationality is the Belgian area and is a Catholic man. Born in Brussels in what is today Belgium to a family established in medicine for several generations, the young Andreas showed an early interest in anatomy.