Andreas Vesalius

This piece, Vesalius describes how careless and casual the learning process in doctors has become overtime.

Vesalius states that when distinguishing the parts of the human body, detail is hardly even used in the learning process. You’d think that would be the primary focus yet Vesalius says, “they perform their duty so carelessly.” (pg. 26) The functions and “viscera” of the body are so vast, but to be a doctor all of that should be known and understood fully. He wonders how many even know all of the ins and outs found in the body.

There are lethal doctors who have people’s life in their hands that never even stood by at a dissection. The knowledge you gain from hands on experience is the most important knowledge you can acquire and it seems that over time the understanding of this value has been overlooked. We have taken advantage of those in the past who spent so much time learning by dissecting cadavers and bowed to their studies.

No matter how lazy people have become with regards to fully mastering anatomy, it is fully expected that if you are “enlisted under the banner of medicine” (pg. 26) it is necessary to have full knowledge of the human parts. When you are faced with an illness you will be put to the test, and the knowledge you obtain of these parts will be the keys to the cure.

Those that now are dedicated to studying medicine are starting to see how halfhearted and pathetic people work in the field of anatomy compared to long ago. Galen, an early doctor, believes “anatomy is the basis of medicine” (pg. 110). He did dissections on apes, pigs and sheep to help fully understand anatomy. Galen wrote in The Problem with Doctors, “doctors will pay lip service to Hippocrates, to be sure, and look up to him as to a man without a peer, but when it comes to taking the necessary steps to reach the same rank themselves—well, they do quite the opposite” (pg. 108). People now a days are not willing to go far and beyond to do the work necessary for thorough knowledge and success.