In 1543, he published his anatomical works in seven volumes entitled De Humani Corporis Fabrica (The Fabric of the Human Body). The word Fabric in the title was a clue to its texture and purpose: this was the human body treated like physical material, not mystery; made of fabric, not spirit. It was part medical textbook, with nearly seven hundred illustrations, and part scientific treatise, with maps and diagrams that would lay the foundation for human anatomical studies for centuries to come.
