Vesalius Refounds Anatomy on Direct Dissection

What happened

Also in 1543, the anatomist Andreas Vesalius, then 28 and teaching at the University of Padua, published De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body), a seven-volume study of human anatomy illustrated with detailed engravings. Vesalius based the work on his own dissections of human cadavers, a practice he had made central to his teaching by personally performing dissections in front of students rather than delegating the cutting to an assistant while reading from ancient texts, as was then customary. In doing so he found that the anatomical writings of the ancient authority Galen, still treated as unquestionable, contained more than 200 errors, many stemming from the fact that Galen had dissected animals rather than humans.

How we know

Copies of the 1543 Fabrica survive with Vesalius's own illustrations, and the U.S. National Library of Medicine's account of the book, along with the World History Encyclopedia's entry on Vesalius, describe his dissection-based method and the specific correction of Galen's errors from that printed record.

Sources

• U.S. National Library of Medicine (Circulating Now). Andreas Vesalius and De Fabrica · Reputable sourcecirculatingnow.nlm.nih.gov · The domain "circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
• World History Encyclopedia. Andreas Vesalius · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)