The evolution of Vesalius’s perspective on Galen’s anatomy
Keywords:
anatomical illustration, anatomy, history of medicine, dissection, medieval, Renaissance, Galen, VesaliusAbstract
Early in his career, Vesalius was trained as an orthodox Galenist, but he gradually departed from traditional Galenic thought during his medical training and academic career. Seeking to critically examine Galen’s works, Vesalius initially turned to human dissection as a means of verification. In 1538, Vesalius published "Tabulæ Anatomicæ Sex," which included several of Galen’s mistakes. However, Vesalius began to recognize inconsistencies and errors in Galen’s anatomy, particularly in osteology, and realized that Galen was not infallible.
By at least 1540, Vesalius was aware of many errors in Galenic human anatomy, and by the time of "De humani corporis fabrica" (1543), he was convinced that Galen’s errors were largely due to his reliance on the dissections of animals. While Vesalius demonstrated some of the errors in Galen’s anatomy and undermined the misguided notion of Galen’s infallibility, he only partially recognized the many errors that arose from applying animal anatomy to humans. He continued to rely on Galenic physiology, thus perpetuating other errors.
Nevertheless, Vesalius emphasized the importance of observational studies based on dissection, which Galen had earlier championed. In doing so, Vesalius became a neo-Galenist in the sense that he epitomized Galen’s practice of anatomy as an observational science, even as he criticized the errors Galen made by extrapolating animal anatomy to humans. More important than Vesalius’s recognition (or lack thereof) of specific errors in the Galenic-Arabic canon was the impetus he gave to shifting anatomy from stagnant scholasticism to a vibrant observational science. This shift focused on human dissections and comparative anatomy, rather than relying solely on animal dissections or scholastic studies of ancient texts.
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