By Paul Theerman, Associate Director, The Center for the History of Medicine and Public Health

Join us this Saturday, October 18, for our second annual Festival of Medical History and the Arts, Art, Anatomy, and the Body: Vesalius 500. Register here.

This year, we celebrate the 500th birthday of Andreas Vesalius, the path-breaking anatomist whose 1543 book, De humani corporis fabrica (The Fabric of the Human Body), opened up new worlds in the understanding and representation of the human body. The festival’s presentations will focus on the cultural understanding of the body throughout history. We will have rare books on display, including one of our copies of Vesalius’ Fabrica; the Drs. Barry and Bobbi Coller Rare Book Reading Room will be open for visitors; and we will offer four hands-on workshops, still open for registration (festival entrance is included in the price of the workshops).

For more information, including the full schedule and participant biographies, see Vesalius 500.

To whet your appetite, look at our earlier blog posts by those joining us at the festival:

• Guest curator Riva Lehrer on Vesalius 500
• Brandy Schillace on Naissance Macabre: Birth, Death, and Female Anatomy
• Kriota Willberg on Virtual Dissection
• Sander Gillman and Riva Lehrer on Postures of Childhood
• Ian Williams and MK Czerwiec Introduce Graphic Medicine
• Jeff Levine and Michael Nevins Revisit the Fabrica Frontispiece
• Chase Joynt On Presenting Resisterectomy
• Lisa Rosner on The Talented Dr. Knox and the Burke and Hare murders
• Bill Hayes on The Origins of “Sweat”

And don’t forget The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius or our Vesalius 500 Workshops, presented by Sam Dunlap, Marie Dauenheimer, and the staff of our Gladys Brooks Book & Paper Conservation Laboratory.

Many others will present, as well:

• Eva Åhrén on specimens in medical museums
• Steven Assael on observing bodies
• Alice Dreger on medical photography
• Dima Elissa and Nuha Nazy on 3-D printing and anatomy
• Ann Fox and Chun-Shan “Sandie” Yi on bodies in contemporary art
• Daniel Garrison on translating Vesalius’ masterpiece
• Heidi Latsky with Tiffany Geigel and Robert Simpson on The GIMP Project
• Michael Sappol on making bodies transparent

See you on Saturday!