Word: vesalius
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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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...