Landmark publication on birth of modern science secured by NSW State Library
A landmark 16th century book that transformed our understanding of the human body has just been acquired by the State Library of NSW and will go on public display from TOMORROW [Friday 25 November].
Published in 1543, the rare first edition of De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (translation: Seven books on the structure of the human body) by Belgian physician and anatomist Andrea Vesalius, is one of the major works in the early history of modern medicine.
According to State Librarian John Vallance: “De fabrica included in print for the first time a ground-breaking series of technically precise drawings of the human body, often placed in stylish classical settings and landscapes.”
“This strikingly beautiful work is the result of collaboration between some of the finest artists of the age and an anatomist who was determined to check for himself through personal observation the validity of traditional ideas about the internal structure of the human body.
“It’s a highly significant addition to the State Library’s holdings of major printed works in the history of science and medicine. Visitors to the Library will be able to inspect it firsthand in our Kill or Cure? exhibition which looks at Western medicine’s often grisly history,” says Dr Vallance.
Vesalius’s work was sent to press when he was just 29 years old. It challenged long-held doctrines about human anatomy which went back to the famous Greek physician to the gladiators in first century Rome, Galen of Pergamon.
“For centuries, Galen’s writings dominated the field of anatomy, yet it is thought that most of his anatomical work was performed on animals,” says Senior Curator Elise Edmonds.
“Human dissection was not common in Graeco-Roman times because of ancient taboos around interfering with the body — apart from a period in Hellenistic Alexandria where human vivisection was practiced.”