“Original art by Vesalius, the founder of modern anatomy. Taken from Carl Sagan’s The Dragons of Eden. As student of social science, I find the concept of man studying himself awesome.”

Carl: A skeleton gazes at a skull, its hand draped lazily over the cranial vault. This image signifies more than just an anatomy lesson. Andreas Vesalius, the anatomist who drew it and many others, created a visual fault line that divided the ancient and the modern. Medieval European anatomists looked back to ancient authorities such as Galen for enlightenment. Anything they saw for themselves that did not seem to fit into the ancient systems must be their own errors, to be resolved by more careful reading of