Andreas Vesalius
| Andreas Vesalius | |
 | |
Portrait extracted from the Fabrica | |
| Birth name | Andries van Wesel |
|---|---|
| Birth | 31 December 1514 Brussels , in Saint-Roman Empire |
| Deaths | 15 October 1564 (49 years) Zakynthos in Greece |
| Nationality | Belgium (Flemish) |
| Occupation (s) | Anatomist |
| Training | Doctor |
| Supplements | |
| The greatest anatomist the Renaissance | |
Vesalius Anglicized form of its Latin name Andreas Vesalius (he called its original name Andrew Wytinck said Wesel , Rhineland city of which his grandfather was born) was born on 31 December 1514 , in Brussels ( Brabant ) and dies in 1564 the island of Zante ( Zakynthos ) in Greece.
Andreas Vesalius was an anatomist , physician Brabant , but above all, as all humanists of his time, when we examine European its entire route, considered by many historians of science as the greatest anatomist of the Renaissance , even the largest in the history of medicine. His work, in addition they have brought into the anatomy of modernity, will end the dogmas of Galen blocking scientific progress for over a thousand years both in Europe and in the Islamic world. He is the author of one of the most innovative books on human anatomy , De humani corporis fabrica (On the functioning of the human body). There is also a great humanist of his time.
Summary |
Biography
Andreas Vesalius was born on 31 December 1514 in Brussels then part of the Austrian Habsburg empire, into a family of doctors. His house located just opposite the hill of executions took him to see many dead bodies and skeletons cleaned by the birds during his childhood. This fact had to play a big role in his vocation. His grandfather, Everard van Wesel, was the personal physician of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor , while his father, Andre van Wesel, Maximilian served as apothecary and was later the valet's successor Charles Quint. Andries encouraged his son to continue the family tradition, and included among brothers living together in Brussels to learn Greek and Latin in the tradition of the time.
In 1528 , he enrolled at the University of Leuven (Paedagogium Castrense) first to learn the arts and medicine in 1530 and when his father was appointed king's valet in 1532, he decided to pursue his studies at the University of Paris , the city where he moved in 1533. There he studied the theories of Galen under the direction of Jean Fernel and great Jacques Dubois ( Jacobus Sylvius ), one of the most famous doctors of the time, but also a fervent supporter of Galen. In fact Sylvius was the fiercest opponent when Vesalius published his works. It was at this time born the interest of Vesalius to anatomy, and was often seen examine bone cemetery of the Innocents.
The war between France and the Holy Roman Empire forces Vesalius into exile after three years. After a short service in the Imperial Army, he returned to Louvain , where he completed his studies under the direction of Jean Gonthier of Andernach (DE) and obtained his doctorate in 1537. His thesis, paraphrased in librum nonum Rhazae medici arabis Clariss ad regem Almansorum of affectum singularum partium curatione corporis, is a commentary on the ninth book of Rhazes. There are only a short time in Leuven before leaving the city because of a dispute with his teacher. Then, after a brief stay in Venice he went to the University of Padua (Universitas aristarum), the medical school's most famous of Europe. After two days of exams, the university offered him a lectureship in surgery (explicator chirurgi), proof of its capabilities. He also taught surgery and anatomy at the University of Bologna and the University of Pisa. Previously, these subjects were taught mainly by reading the classic texts of Galen in particular, followed by dissection of animals by a barber surgeon whose work was led by the teacher. No experience had been made to update the work of Galen, considered irrefutable references. Vesalius, for its part, innovates using dissection as a primary teaching tool, performing the work himself, while his students gathered around the table. Direct observation became the only reliable source of knowledge and this leads to a dramatic departure revolution with medieval practice.
It keeps for students meticulous drawings made during his work as six large illustrated anatomical tables. When he finds that some of them have been widely copied, he publishes in 1538 under the title Tabulae anatomic sex. He continued his work in 1539 with an updated manual anatomical Galen, Institutiones anatomic. When he arrives in Paris, one of his former professors published an attack against this version.
In 1538 he also published a letter on the blood sample , or bleeding. It was then a widely prescribed treatment for almost all diseases, but the choice of the sampling was debate. Greek classical procedure advocated by Galen, was to draw blood from a site near the body part affected by the disease. However, the Muslim practice in the Middle Ages was to withdraw a smaller amount of blood from a remote location. Vesalius defended the method of Galen in a brochure and its arguments were based on anatomical diagrams.
In 1539 , he persuaded the judge Mercantonio the corpses of the condemned, and will even delay the execution so that the bodies are fresh when it would need to dissect them. It performs many detailed anatomical drawings, the first series that is drawn with such precision. Many of these works have been commissioned from artists, and are much better than had been produced before.
Therefore, Vesalius soon found errors in the descriptions of Galen and understands that they apply to monkeys and not humans. Because the dissection of human bodies was forbidden in ancient Rome, Galen had dissected for them monkeys ape arguing that they were anatomically similar to humans. He will undertake the drafting of a treatise on anatomy to correct the errors of the Opera omnia of Galen. In 1540 , he confirmed his hypothesis by dissecting at Bologna the corpse of a monkey and a man and shows that the appendix as described by Galen exists in monkeys. Until Vesalius do in the remark, that fact was overlooked and the work of Galen has long served as the undisputed reference to the study of human anatomy. However, some people continued to follow Galen and Vesalius wanted to have attracted general attention to glaring errors.
Vesalius, discouraged by these controversies, however, continues to arouse in others, this time not only on the works of Galen, but also on those of Mondino de 'Liuzzi and even to Aristotle. All three had been clearly erroneous assumptions about the functions and structure of the heart. For instance, Vesalius noted that the heart had four chambers, two lobes of the liver and blood vessels originated in the heart, not the liver. There are other famous examples of Vesalius refuted Galen, in particular, his discovery that the lower jaw consisted of a single bone, not two (Galen was based on the dissection of the animal) and demonstration that the blood does not pass through the atrial septum.
In 1543, Vesalius makes a public dissection of the body of Jakob Karrer von Gebweiler, a famous killer from the city of Basel in Switzerland. With the help of the surgeon Franz Jeckelmann , he gathers the bones, and finally donated the skeleton to the University of Basel. This preparation ("The skeleton of Basel") is the only preparation of Vesalius on a skeleton is still preserved today, and is also the oldest anatomical preparation of the world. It is still subject to the anatomical museum of the University of Basel De Corporis Fabrica In 1543 , after four years of incessant work, he published his findings in Basel by Jean Oporin (printer, scholar and professor of Greek) in De humani corporis fabrica (the tissues of the body), commonly called the Fabrica, dedicated to Charles V. This monumental work on human anatomy , 7 volumes of 700 pages, illustrated with drawings including a pupil of Titian , Jan Van Calcar, is printed and rich in detail, but also innovative because it discloses at least 200 errors Galen. This work highlights the importance of dissection and what is called a view "anatomical body - like seeing the inner workings of man as an essentially corporeal structure filled with organs represented in three dimensions. This book offers a striking contrast with many of the anatomical models used previously, which had many elements from Galen and Aristotle, as well as elements of astrology. Although modern anatomical texts had been published by Mondino de 'Liuzzi and Berengario Jacopo da Carpi , a large part of their work has been tainted by their reverence for Galen and the Arab doctrines. Although the work of Vesalius was not the first to rely on autopsy findings, or even the first book of this period, the value of its production of boards very detailed and complex, and the fact that artists who made them had actually attended the dissection is an instant classic now. Illegal copies were released almost immediately, in Vesalius acknowledged the existence of printing in a note. Vesalius was only 30 when the first edition of Fabrica was published. Besides the first good description of the sphenoid bone , it shows that the sternum consists of three parts and the sacrum of five or six pieces, and accurately describes the vestibule of the ear within the temporal bone. He not only verified the observation of Etienne on the valves of the hepatic veins, but he also describes the vena azygos , and discovered the canal which passes in the fetus between the umbilical vein and vena cava has been known as name ductus venosus. He described the omentum , and its links to the stomach, spleen and colon , gave the first correct representation of the pylorus , and he noted the small size of the cecal appendix in humans, reported the first the existence of the mediastinum and pleura and produced a description of the anatomy of the brain even more advanced. Vesalius perfectly describes the heart valves , the diaphragm , the adductors , the sternum , and the interventricular septum that was to be according to Galen space with holes. However, the weight of tradition prevents them from totally eliminate the education of Veterans and especially Galen, Vesalius, which will lead to some inconsistencies between his writings and engravings, always with the presence of imaginary structures namely the network admirable and the rest mirabilis. He did not understand the structure of the lower recess, and he erred in counting the cranial nerves, pointing to the optic nerve as the first pair and confusing the third pair with the fifth and the fifth with the seventh. The other negative point we could attach to the manufacturer, is the fact that the anatomy of Vesalius is only descriptive so little used by surgeons. We have to wait a bit for that anatomy becomes tissue with Malpighi , topographical Winslow and Douglas , and pathologic Morgan. But with the manufacturer, the seed is planted and other physicians of the time Ambroise Pare acknowledges having drawn heavily on the work of Vesalius's work. In this work, Vesalius also becomes the first person to describe the mechanism of breathing, opening the way for the resuscitation . This veritable bomb in the history of anatomy appears the same year when Copernicus published his On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs , which was to revolutionize astronomy by asserting that the Earth does not occupy the center of the universe. Following the publication of the Fabrica, the outbursts of the Galenists curent, he made one last public demonstration in Padua in December 1543. Then, in a fit of anger or weariness, he burns all his scientific papers, his books and his work. He abandoned his professorship. Shortly after publication, Vesalius moved to the honorary post of physician to the imperial court of Charles Quint. He informed the Venetian Senate that he leaves his post in Padua, prompting Cosimo I de 'Medici , Grand Duke of Tuscany to invite them to develop the University of Pisa who was then in decline. In 1544 he moved to Bologna, Pisa and he agrees to become the surgeon of the Emperor Charles V and then Philip II of Spain. In his position at court, he must face the ridicule of other physicians who treat with contempt due to a barber. He married the daughter of a prominent Brussels and the rest of his life he became a great doctor, he follows the movements of the court, heals wounds of war or tournaments, conducts surgeries and autopsies and wrote personal letters to solve specific problems on medical issues. With Ambroise Pare He was even called to the bedside king of France Henri II was wounded in the eye with a lance at a tournament and who died a few days later. In 1546 he published his research on the influence of the root of China against the drop in a short text entitled Radici Chynae. It recommends the use of this plant, with as much force as he stood before his discoveries in anatomy. This raises a new series of attacks against his work, which is then subject to an application for an order from the emperor. In 1551, Charles V takes a commission to Salamanca to investigate the religious implications of his methods. The work of Vesalius is authorized by the board, but the attacks continue. Four years later, one of his main detractors publishes an article claiming that it was the human body itself that had changed since the time Galen had studied (and therefore the Lord was not mistaken). After the abdication of Charles, he remains at court with his son Philip II, who holds in great esteem and reward a lifetime pension and made him a count palatine. In 1555 he published a revised edition of De Corporis. In 1564 Vesalius made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He sailed with the Venetian fleet under the command of James Malatesta by road from Cyprus. Upon his arrival in Jerusalem , he received a message from the Venetian Senate asking again to accept the professorship at Padua, which became vacant following the death of his friend and pupil Gabriele Falloppio. During the return trip, after struggling for days against a headwind in the Ionian Sea , his ship is wrecked and Vesalius finally died of exhaustion on the coast of the island of Zante ( Zakynthos ) on 15 October 1564 where he was rejected by the sailors. He died in such a state of destitution that if a benefactor had not paid his funeral, his body was thrown to the animals. At the time of his death, he was barely fifty years old. For many years it was assumed that Vesalius's pilgrimage was a conviction imposed by the Inquisition. Today, this assumption is generally regarded as being without merit and is dismissed by modern biographers. It seems that this slander was broadcast by Languet Hubert , who had served Charles V and the Prince of Orange. He said in 1565 that during an autopsy on a woman from the aristocracy in Spain Vesalius would have found that the heart was still beating, which earned him a death sentence by the Inquisition. The story alleges that Philip II would have changed the sentence to forced pilgrimage to Jerusalem. History has again surfaced repeatedly over the years that followed, continuing until recently. - Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica 
Doctor of the emperor and later years of life
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