Andreas Vesalius was born in Brussels in 1514. He was thought to have some form of dwarfism, but in his professorship in Italy at the turn of the Renaissance, he managed to shake up the very core of medicine, paving the way for how doctors today have come to understand the human body.

How did Vesalius get bodies?

They came from cemeteries, places of execution or hospitals. Not only did his students help him obtain the bodies, but also public and judicial authorities. At first, he used the corpses for his own learning purposes, and later to teach his students and to write De humani corporis fabrica, his principal work.

How many mistakes did Vesalius correct?

He published his book, On the Fabric of the Human Body, in 1543. He proved Galen wrong in over 200 different ways.