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Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564)

2017; Springer Science+Business Media; Volume: 264; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/s00415-017-8459-2

1432-1459

Marco Cambiaghi,

History of Medicine Studies

Conflicts of interestThe corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.The current way of thinking in neuroanatomy, and also in neurology, owes much to a Renaissance physician who literally shook up the world of anatomy and broke centuries-old dogma that crippled the evolution of medicine.It was indeed during the first half of the 16 th century when Vesalius introduced the modern concept of studying and teaching anatomy, centering his anatomical descriptions on personal and direct observation.The brain and the nervous system were fascinating to Vesalius, whose functional unit, however, he did not totally grasp, in particular with regard to the role of the ventricles as compared with grey and white matter.Andreas Vesalius (the latin name of Andries Wytinck van Wesel) was born on December 31, 1514 in Rue de Minimes, in the neighbourhood of Sablon, an area just south of the ramparts of Brussels, Belgium, then part of the Holy Roman Empire.His father Andries, as at least the four generations preceding him, was at the service of the Roman royalty, so it was his mother Isabella Crabbe that tended to Andreas's early education [3][4][5].Close to the house where he lived, on Gallows Hill, the young Vesalius often had the opportunity to approach the dead bodies of executed criminals.This was probably one of the reasons that influenced his decision to study medicine.After elementary studies in Brussels, at 15 years old he matriculated at the University of Louvain on February 25, 1530.The Castle College was the same where his father studied before and his brother Franciscus after him [3].Here, he had the possibility to study not only Latin but also Greek and Hebrew, which later allowed him to access and compare original anatomical texts [3].Vesalius completed his studies within three years and in the summer of 1533 he moved at the University of Paris.Most of the texts, here, were based on the works of Galen of Pergamon (129/130 AD-210/216 AD), who represented the undisputed authority in anatomical teaching.However, due to the Roman law which prohibited corpse dissection (lex de sepulcris), Galen could perform his observations only in animals [2, 3].Among his teachers, Vesalius had Jacobus Sylvius (1478-1555) and Johann Guenther von Andernach (1505-1574), who adopted the traditional way of teaching anatomy during dissection: the lector (reader) seated on an elevated chair was the professor reading Galen's texts, the ostensor (demonstrator) indicated the anatomical structures mentioned by the reader, and finally the sector (dissector) was the barber-surgeon who performed the dissection at the anatomical table.Thanks to his enthusiasm Vesalius was often asked to act as the barber-surgeon, a great privilege for a 18-year old student.This helped him training in the art of dissection, learning directly and not just reading old texts [1,3].Being the son of the Emperor's apothecary, at the outbreak of the war in France in July 1536, Vesalius was forced to escape from Paris before graduating.