158 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



years after the invention of printing ; but Vesalius and the anato- 

 mists who followed him put an end among thoughtful men to 

 this belief in the missing rib, and in doing this dealt a blow at 

 much else in the sacred theory. Naturally, all these considera- 

 tions brought the forces of ecclesiasticism against the innovators 

 in anatomy.* 



A new weapon was now forged : Vesalius was charged with 

 dissecting a living man, and, either from direct persecution, as 

 the great majority of authors assert, or from indirect influences, 

 as the recent apologists for Philip II admit, he became a wanderer : 

 on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, apparently undertaken to atone 

 for his sin, he was shipwrecked, and in the prime of his life and 

 strength he was lost to the world. 



And yet not lost. In this century the painter Hamann has 

 again given him to us. By the magic of Hamann's pencil Vesa- 

 lius again stands on earth, and we look once more into his cell. 

 Its windows and doors, bolted and barred within, betoken the 

 storm of bigotry which rages without ; the crucifix, toward which 

 he turns his eyes, symbolizes the spirit in which he labors ; the 

 corpse of the plague-stricken beneath his hand ceases to be repul- 

 sive ; his very soul seems to send forth rays from the canvas, which 

 strengthen us for the good fight in this age.f 



He was hunted to death by men who conscientiously supposed 

 that he was injuring religion : his poor, blind foes destroyed 

 one of religion's greatest apostles. What was his influence on 

 religion ? He substituted, for the repetition of worn-out theories, 

 a conscientious and reverent search into the works of the great 

 Power giving life to the universe ; he substituted for representa- 

 tions of the human structure pitiful and unreal representations 

 revealing truths most helpful to the whole human race.J 



The death of this champion seems to have virtually ended the 

 contest. Licenses to dissect soon began to be given by sundry 

 popes to universities, and renewed at intervals of from three to 

 four years, until the Reformation released science from this yoke. 



* As to the supposed change in the number of teeth, see the Gesta Philippi Augusti 

 Francorum Regis, . . . descripta a magistro Rigordo, 1219, edited by Father Francis Du- 

 chesne, in Historiae Francorum Scriptores, torn, v, Paris, 1 649, p. 24. For representations 

 of Adam created by the Almighty out of a pile of dust and of Eve created from a rib of 

 Adam, see the earlier illustrations in the Nuremberg Chronicle. 



f The original painting of Vesalius at work in his cell, by II amann, is now at Cornell 

 University. 



% For a curious example of weapons drawn from Galen and used against Vesalius, see 

 Lewes, Life of Goethe, p. 343, note. For proofs that I have not overestimated Vesalius, 

 see Portal, ubi supra. Portal speaks of him as "le genie le plus droit qu'eut V Europe"; 

 and again, " Vesale me par ait un des plus grands hommes qui ail existed For the use of the 

 charge that anatomists dissected living men against men of science before Vesalius's time 

 see Littr6's chapter on Anatomy. 



