Timeline: Andreas Vesalius, 1514–1564

While Herophilus is considered the father of scientific anatomy, and Galen was considered an authority on anatomy for about 1,400 years, and Mundinus was the reviver of anatomy, Vesalius is considered the "organizer" (or "reorganizer") of anatomy – which really means that he's the one that made its study much more accurate than his anatomist predecessors.

Vesalius initially studied medicine in Paris, and in his spare time, could be found poking around examining bones in the Cemetery of the Innocents. He left Paris, and completed his studies in Padua, earning his medical degree there in 1537. He was immediately offered the job of Chair of Surgery and Anatomy at Padua. Unfortunately, this academic post wasn't particularly prestigious, because surgery and anatomy were considered less important than other branches of medicine.

Vesalius was unusual for his time because he performed dissections himself. His published charts showing the circulatory and nervous systems gained public attention, including the attention of a Paduan judge who, in 1539, decided to help Vesalius in his research by supplying him with the bodies of executed criminals.

In his dissections, Vesalius found that much of the anatomical information provided by the famous classical doctor, Galen, who worked mostly on animals, was incorrect. Based on his dissections, in 1543, Vesalius published De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body), which is considered the first comprehensive and systematic textbook of human anatomy.

Despite the fame anatomy gave him, shortly after the book was published, Vesalius left anatomical research to follow in his family's footsteps, by joining the service of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V (and later his son, Philip II) as court physician.

But the court appointment couldn't protect him from the controversy that his anatomy textbook brought him: Other physicians, rabid devotees of Galen, strongly objected to his "correction" of the master. Indeed, as told in an article on NewAdvent.org, "… the numerous followers of Galen began a bitter struggle against the daring investigator, and even the medical school of Padua turned against him. Jacobus Sylvius called him a madman (vesanus) and declared that an advance beyond the knowledge of Galen was impossible, and that Galen had not erred, but probably the human body had changed since then."

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