Opinions on Vesalius

Vesalius is a very interesting man. He was the “talk of the hour” way before I was born. He was also a physician and anatomist. People always refer to him as the founder of modern anatomy. Some people may even think that he’s the reason I became so interested in the anatomy and flow of blood in mammals. Through his work with muscles, Vesalius believed that a criteria for muscles was their voluntary motion. On this theory, he decided that the heart was not a true muscle due to its obvious involuntary nature of its motion. How outrageous is that!! Now I know that the heart is a muscle since it is what pumps blood throughout the body. Vesalius also identified two chambers and two atria. The right atrium was considered a continuation of the inferior and superior venae cavae and the left atrium was considered a continuation of the pulmonary vein. Vesalius had a few wild theories, but in the end, most of his discoveries did help me. Without his finding of the vesicles, it made my search easier. “Neither is it by any means to be allowed that the heart only moves in the lines of its straight fibres, although the great Vesalius giving this notion countenance, quotes a bundle of osiers bound in a pyramidal heap in illustration; meaning, that as the apex is approached to the base, so are the sides made to bulge out in the fashion of arches, the cavities to dilate, the ventricles to acquire the form of a cupping-glass and so to suck in the blood.” (Chapter 1) Thanks to him, I was able to conclude that the heart pumps blood throughout all the of the body using the same blood. I know, you would expect me to despise him, but upon doing my work I had to follow his footsteps. I began to grow fond of him and I still believe he was a brilliant man.