(born Dec. 1514, Brussels—died June 1564, island of Zacynthus, Republic of Venice) Flemish physician.
Born into a family of physicians, he studied medicine at the University of Paris. As a lecturer in surgery, he insisted on dissecting corpses himself, instead of relying on untrained assistants, to learn anatomy. Comparing his observations with ancient texts led him to question the theories of Galen, at that time still considered authoritative. Vesalius's own complete textbook of human anatomy, the momentous De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (1543; “Seven Books on the Structure of the Human Body”), commonly called the Fabrica, was the most extensive and accurate description of the human body that had ever been published.
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