Word: vesalius
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...Medical Association's Medical Ethics Committee, said the event and exhibition were "degrading and sensational rather than educational." But can't education and sensationalism coexist? That's certainly the way it used to be. In 1543, the same year Copernicus published his revolutionary work, De Revolutionibus, Belgian anatomist Andreas Vesalius published De Fabrica, a massively popular work illustrated with scores of statuesque figures serenely posing on pedestals or frolicking in nature without their skin. Vesalius was among the first to bring new discoveries about the body to the general public, and just as Copernicus helped launch...
Like Hippocrates, Galen had become a medical icon, and it would take a bold idol smasher to undo him. History found the perfect candidate in Andreas Vesalius, a contentious young Flemish physician who, in his single-minded pursuit of the correct human anatomy, cared not a whit about Galen's untouchable authority. Gifted with intelligence, drive and the courage to stick with his convictions, he went his solitary way, dissecting cadaver after cadaver until he had made enough unbiased observations to write a book that would forever transform medicine's image of the human structure. Vesalius was 29 when...
...feisty spirit of Vesalius has pervaded the history of medical discovery--not the contentiousness, perhaps, but certainly the refusal to accept what is not verifiable by one's own observations and the willingness to stand alone when principle is involved. And always the capacity for hard work has been the glue that holds everything else together, the underlying characteristic that enables all of the other qualities to produce a successful conclusion...
Though their contributions were made in eras far apart, the Hippocratics, Galen and Vesalius all shared the same messianism that still characterizes today's outstanding medical achiever. Their discoveries were only the beginning of their contributions. Public demonstrations, the writing of treatises and books and the teaching of both colleagues and students became the vehicles for their individual crusades to better the state of medical care. Among them, like a constantly humanistic refrain playing softly in the background, the credo of the ancient Greek physicians prevailed. Nowhere is that principle more eloquently expressed than in the memorable words found...
Cohen is a superior scholar and his case studies make for stimulating reading. Particularly noteworthy are the chapters on 17th century figures including an especially pleasing section on Vesalius, Paracelsus and Harvey. The chapters on Darwin and Freud, and the saga of sea floor spreading, a revolution in earth science, are also splendidly wrought, commendable for their cogency and conciseness. Cohen's analysis focuses on revolutionary significance, but he simultaneously yields a wealth of stimulating narrative history...