Western Culture Global Presents

The Top 100 Heroes of Western Culture
These individuals have most contributed to replacing ignorance with knowledge, savagery with civilization, disease with health, tyranny with liberty, poverty with abundance, and despair with happiness.



#68: Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564)

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) was a Belgian anatomist and physician. He assembled the first human skeleton from cadavers and was a pioneer in human dissection.

Based on his work, he wrote De Humani Corporis Fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body) which was the most accurate and comprehensive anatomical text to date and included accurate (and beautiful) illustrations. Vesalius's work discredited long held beliefs about human anatomy put forth by Galen over 1,000 years earlier.

Vesalius's precise observation, emphasis on the participation of students in dissection lectures, and anatomically correct textbooks helped to revolutionized medicine. Vesalius contributed to putting medical science on the road to the life-saving and life-enhancing discipline that it is today.



Go to #69: Voltaire


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