Wax was first applied to the medical scene in the 14th century. As the utility of the wax models became popularized through the 15th and 16th centuries, artists started to create preliminary wax models. Eventually, artists were performing dissections regularly, using their models in art schools more frequently than medical schools unless commissioned by anatomists, and were far more familiar with the physiological structure of the human body than anatomists, who were primarily focused on the viscera, blood vessels, and nerves. Leonardo da Vinci was noted to have dissected >100 bodies. He was the first to employ wax for neuroanatomical studies around 1508 AD.