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Seminal Medical Text by Vesalius 1543

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Title: [De Humani Corporis, i.e.] Andreae Vesalii Bruxellensis, scholae medicorum Patauinæ professoris, De humani corporis fabrica libri septem
Author: Vesalius, Andreas
Description: [10 (of 12)], 659 [i.e. 663, but some lacking, see below], [37] pp. *6, A-Z6, a-l6, m8, n-z6, Aa-Ll6, Mm8. With numerous woodcuts in the text (by Jan Stephan van Calcar). (folio) 17x11, period full pigskin tooled in blind. First EditionFirst edition of what is often called the greatest of all medical works, being the cornerstone of modern anatomy. Garrison described Andreas Vesalius (1514-64) as the most commanding figure in European medicine after Galen and before Harvey. Whereas Galen had been forced to rely upon the dissection of animals for his anatomical studies, "the young Vesalius, with an iconoclastic zeal characteristic of the sixteenth century, and a forcible style all his own, endeavoured to do all that Galen had done and to do it better. The result was `The Structure of the Human Body,' published when he was twenty-nine; a complete anatomical and physiological study of every part of the human body, based on first-hand examination and his five years' experience as public prosector in the medical school at Padua... The history of anatomy is divided into two periods, pre-Vesalian and post-Vesalian..." - Printing and the Mind of Man 71; NLM 16th Cent. 4577; Garrison-Morton 377; Wellcome I, 6562. The various errors in pagination include the sequence 213-391 instead of the correct 313-491. Pages 313-[314] and 353-354 as numbered in the text are each printed on two folded leaves.
Heading: Place Published: Basil
Publisher: Ex Officina Ioannis Oporini
Date Published: 1543