FABRIC OF THE BODY

Until Andrea Vesalius came along in the 1500s, knowledge of anatomy came mostly from Galen, who wrote in the 2nd century A.D. But where Galen passed down only words--and often grossly inaccurate ones--Vesalius produced a volume of more than 200 woodcuts of human skeletal structure, brain tissue, and more.

Image: The Granger Collection