Vesalius
Vesalius
revolutionised anatomy. Dissecting in person, inventing or
borrowing new instruments at need, he inventing much of the
technique (for instance, the mounting of skeletons) which is still
used. The feature of his book De Fabrica Corporis was
its wonderful illustrations. In the Middle Ages there had arisen a
tradition of manuscript anatomical sheets. These were what we
should call mere diagrams, the body being shown in a squatting
posture with indications of the correspondence of the parts of this
" microcosm " with those of the " macrocosm " (the universe).
Bones, muscles, arteries, veins, nerves, and sometimes reproductive
organs, were put on separate diagrams. They were grossly
inaccurate, but the point here is rather that they were diagrams,
not naturalistic plates. These latter were the innovation of
Vesalius in anatomy and of the " German fathers " in botany. It was
an essential advance, but it must be noted that it was only a
preparatory one. At the present time, both kinds of illustration
are used, diagrams having returned for many
purposes.
In the
illustrations drawn for Vesalius there is no lack of life ; but
this is itself due to a touch of the abstract—to the vivid
sense of the body as a living, functioning whole which is impressed
on them. This Renaissance perception was not far from the
modern ideas of organism. It was also beginning to be develop to
two related ones : the growth of the individual
—embryology— and the comparison of man with other
animals—comparative anatomy.
