Although something of a parlour game, the question can reasonably be asked: ‘which, in history, is the most important medical book ever written?’ High on the list of answers, probably the outright winner, is De humani corporis fabrica libri septem famous for the woodcuts portraying accurate anatomical structures, the many historiated initials and the frontispiece, written by Andreas Vesalius (1514–64) and published in 1543. The bodies dissected in Padua for specimens portrayed in the Fabrica include the mistress of a monk, exhumed by students, and the oarsman of a papal trireme. Vesalius wrote the book in only 2 years. The identity of the artist responsible for the images engraved and printed on 73 plates has been much debated: the most likely candidate is Jan van Calcar (1499–1545); possibly his teacher Tiziano Vecelli (Titian: 1485–1576); probably, Domenico Campagnola (1500–64); perhaps, Vesalius himself; and, beyond reasonable doubt, all four. Many of the flayed subjects are depicted by their artist in soothing landscapes. When aligned side-by-side, the back-drop to the 14 muscle plates is one continuous panorama of the Euganean Hills a few miles to the south and west of Padua.
We know much of Vesalius and his work through several publications: for example, A bio-bibliography of Andreas Vesalius, Harvey Cushing (1869–1939), 1943; A prelude to modern science being a discussion of the history, sources and circumstances of the Tabulae Anatomicae sex of Vesalius, Charles Singer (1876–1960) and C. Rabin (nk), 1946; The illustrations from the works of Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, J.B. deC M Saunders (1903–91) and C.D. O’Malley (1907–70), 1950; Vesalius four centuries later(Logan Glendening lectures on the history and philosophy of medicine), John Farquar Fulton (1899–1960), 1950; and Andreas Vesalius of Brussels 1514–1564, C.D. O’Malley, 1965.
Brain 2014
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