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Image of the Week: De humani corporis fabrica

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No, the headline isn't lorem ipsum text; it's the title of a seminal work in human anatomy, published in 1543 by Andreas Vesalius. And the image above is an anatomical illustration from that work (the full title is De humani corporis fabrica libri septem). According to a description at Stanford's Lane Medical Library:

With De humani corporis fabrica, published when he was only twenty-nine years old, Vesalius revolutionized not only the science of anatomy but how it was taught. Throughout this encyclopedic work on the structure and workings of the human body, Vesalius provided a fuller and more detailed description of human anatomy than any of his predecessors. . .

If you'd like to see more illustrations from this nearly half-millennium-old book, the U.S. National Library of Medicine has an extensive collection available on the Web.

Previously: Historic scientific books now available on the Web

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