Flemish physician of the Renaissance, who revolutionized the practice of medicine by careful description of the anatomical human body. Based on an anatomy he made herself, he wrote and illustrated the first extensive anatomy manual entitled "De Humani Corporis Fabrica" ("On the Construction of the Human Body"), reproduced with the new typographical presses of the Gutenberg era and led to the Education of Gutenberg and Education.
Andries Van Wesel was born on December 31, 1514 in Brussels, which then belonged to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, a family of doctors and pharmacists. Andreas Vesalius was his named name, a habit of scientists of his time. From this came the Hellenic, Andreas Vesalios.
Vesali attended classes at the University of Luven, where he studied "humanitarian letters" from 1529 to 1533. His ambition was to pursue a brilliant and successful career at the service of a powerful, if he was possible for the strongest ruler of the time of the Emperor of the time. The desire to fulfill this ambition and his decision to achieve it with hard work were features of Vesalius' personality.
From 1533-1536 he attended classes at the University of Paris, where he learned to survive animals under the supervision of two well-known anatomies, Jacobi Silvius and Guinterius Andernahs. He also had the opportunity to reconstitute human carcasses and dedicated much of his time to the study of human bones, which at that time was accessible to Parisian cemeteries.
When the war broke out between Charles E and Francis I of France in 1536, Vesali returned to his hometown to devote another year to the University of Luven, where the influence of Arab medicine was still dominated. Following the prevailing habit, he prepared in 1537 a paraphrase of the work of Arab 10th -century Arab doctor Razis, possibly meeting the requirements for obtaining a Medicine degree. He then attended courses at the University of Padui (today's Pantoova), a progressive educational institution with a strong delivery of anatomical work. Taking the same year, the doctorate was elected a lecturer of surgery, with the responsibility of performing anatomical demonstrations.
Because he knew that a deeply knowledge of human anatomy was important to surgery, he dedicated much of his time to performing anatomies in corpses, insisting on doing so instead of relying on untrained assistants. At first, Vesali had no reason to call into question the theories of Galen, the Greek doctor who had served in Emperor Mark Aurelio in Rome and whose anatomical books were still considered authentic for medical education at the time of Vesali.
In January 1540, abandoning the tradition based on Galen, Vesalios publicly demonstrated his method of performing himself, learning anatomical from the carcasses, and critically evaluate ancient texts. He did this by visiting the University of Volonyia (Bologna). Such methods soon convinced him that the anatomy of Galen had not been based on the disarray of the human body, which was strictly forbidden by the Roman religion. His anatomy, he argued, was an application to the human body of conclusions that were drawn from animals, mainly dogs, monkeys or pigs. This was the conclusion that he had the boldness to proclaim in his lessons when he was in a hurry to publish a complete man's manual of his anatomical man.
At the beginning of 1542 he traveled to Venice to oversee the preparation of plans to illustrate his text, probably in the workshop of the great Renaissance artist. The plans of his disclosures were engraved on wooden slabs, which he took, along with his manuscript, in the Basel of Switzerland, where in 1543 the main work of "De Humani Corporis Fabrica" was printed, usually known as Fabrica. In this work, which left the season, Vesali developed all his scientific, humanitarian and aesthetic gifts. Fabrica was the wider and more accurate description of the human body than any earlier work of its peers. It gave the anatomical a new language and with the elegance of printing and organizing the book a perfection until then unknown.
At the beginning of 1543, Vesalios departed for Magentia (Mainz) to offer his work to Emperor Charles I, who hired him as an official doctor of the Royal House. Thus, Vesali, without having become 28 years old, had achieved his goal. After resigning from his post in Padua and returned to his hometown in the spring of 1544 to marry Anna Van Hame, he took on new duties in the service of the emperor on his travels to Europe.
From 1553 to 1556, Vesalios spent most of his time in Brussels, where he built an impressive home, which matched his growing wealth, and provided his medical services to his blossom. His prestige grew up and another, when Charles E, resigned from the Spanish throne in 1556, gave him a lifelong pension and made him a crown.
Vesalios went to Spain in 1559 with his wife and daughter to take over the doctor's position in the court of Madrid, where Philip II, son of Charles II appointed him. In 1564, Vesalios asked for permission to go to worship the Holy Sepulcher. He traveled to Jerusalem, stopping to Venice and Cyprus, while his wife and daughter returned to Brussels. The last message to him was a letter from the Foundation of the Holy Sepulcher to Philip II, who announced that Vesalios had brought them a 500 Duchy from the Spanish courtyard.
The return journey will be fatal to the great scientist. At the coast of Zakynthos, Vesalios became ill. They landed on the island, where he left his last breath on October 15, 1564. There is also the version that his ship fell into a sea of the Ionian Sea and sank on the coast of Zakynthos. His funeral took place in Zakynthos and his burial somewhere in Corfu.
