Page 173 - My FlipBook

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 173

teachers of anatomy alwavs conformed, in their descriptions, to those of
Galen, so that the authorit\' of this master, held infallible, prevailed even
()\er the realit\ of facts.
Vesalius, for the first time, dared to un\eil and clearK jnit in evidence
the errors of Galen ; but this made him man\ enemies among the blind
followers and worshippers of that demigod of medicine. Europe re-
sounded with the invectives that were bestowed upon Vesalius. Among
others, there rose against him Eustachio at Rome, Dryander at Marburg,
S\lvius at Paris, and this last did not spare anv calumny that might
degrade his old pupil, who had become so celebrated. In spite of this,
the fame of Vesalius kept on growing more and more, so much so that
Charles V called him to Madrid, to the post of chief physician of his
Court, a place which he kept under Philip II, also after the abdication
of Charles V. The good fortune of Vesalius, unhappily, was not to
be of long duration. In 1564 a Spanish gentleman died, in spite of the
care bestowed upon him bv Vesalius, and the illustrious scientist requested
from the family, and with difficulty obtained, the permission to dissect
the body. At the moment in which the thoracic cavity was opened the
heart was seen, or thought to be seen, beating. The matter reached the
ears of the relations of the deceased, and thev accused Vesalius, before
the Inquisition, of murder and sacrilege; and he certainly would not have
escaped death except by the intervention of Philip II, who, to save him,
desired that he should go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, as an expia-
tion. On his return, the ship which carried Vesalius was wrecked, and
he was cast on a desert beach of the Isle of Zante, where, according to
the testimony of a Venetian traveller, he died of hunger, October 15, 1564.
Vesalius left to the world an immortal monument, his splendid treatise
on Anatomy,' published bv him when onlv twenty-eight years of age,
and of which, from 1543 to 1725, not less than fifteen editions were issued.
The appearance of this work marked the commencement of a new
era. The struggle between the supporters of Galen and those of Vesa-
lius rendered necessary, on both sides, active research concerning the
structure of the human body, so that anatomy, the principal basis of
scientific medicine, gradually became more and more perfect, and, as
a consequence of this, as well as of the importance which the direct
observation of facts acquired over the authority of the ancients, there
began in all branches of medicine a continual, ever-increasing progress,
which gave and still gives splendid results, such as would have been
impossible under the dominion of (jalenic dogmatism.
In the great work of Vesalius the anatomy of the teeth is unfortunately-
treated with much less accurac\- than that of the other parts of the bod}'.

* De humani corporis fabrica, libri septem.