534 Vesalius and Don Carlos 



has likewise been so garbled that no accurate account exists in the most au- 

 thoritative histories of today. Cardanus" wrote that Vesalius snatched the 

 Prince from the very jaws of death, ". . . servato illi sua arte a morte evidenti 

 Carolo unico eius filio, ita ut e faucibus orci vere rectus dici posset . . . ," but 

 this is scarcely true and others have credited Vesalius with an operation which 

 he never performed. The account in the famous work of Llorente" is full of 

 errors. Roth admits that the matter is confused. He relied for the most part 

 on secondary sources and had not seen the reports on which the following 

 account is based. These reports, mutually confirmatory of this important his- 

 torical episode, are those of the Licentiate Da^a Chacon (1503-1576?)" and 

 Dr. Santiago Diego Olivares (1510-1573)™ two of the Prince's attendants, and 

 appear among the unedited documents of Spain. Data's version* also appears 

 in his work on the theory and practice of surgery."^ The name of this gifted man 

 is an unfamiliar one to students of the history of medicine. Born at Valladolid 

 circa 1503, he occupied a prominent position as a surgeon at the courts as well 

 as in the camps and fleets of his country. He was attached to the immediate 

 person of Emperor Charles V and later served with distinction his children. 

 Philip of Spain and the Princess Juana of Portugal. He, like Cervantes, was 

 present with Don John of Austria in his Mediterranean campaign which was 

 to terminate in the dreadful slaughter at Lepanto (Oct. 7, 1571). He was a 

 colleague and friend of the immortal Vesalius whom he held in the highest 

 regard as "the greatest anatomist of the times" and with whom he both con- 

 sulted and operated. He held in more than one campaign that position in the 

 Spanish army which was simultaneously held by Ambroise Pare (1510-1590) 

 in the opposing forces of France. His w^ork is probably the first of its kind 

 written in the Spanish vernacular and is characterized by its scholarship, its 

 sagacity, its sound common sense, and its freedom from superstition. Resting 

 on personal experience rather than on tradition, but with nonetheless a wide 

 erudition, he demonstrated his true kinship to the Renaissance. His work is 

 worthy of ranking with that of Ambroise Pare. 



In 1562, Philip of Spain, in order to complete the education of his son Don 

 Carlos, then in his seventeenth year, sent him, together with Don John of Aus- 

 tria and Alexander Farnese, to Alcala where they w^ere placed under the tutor- 

 ship of the Archbishop. On Sunday, April 19th of that year, a month or so after 

 the termination of a quartan fever for which he had been treated, the young 

 prince, having had his midday meal, fell down a dark staircase "missing five 

 steps" and was thrown against a door at its foot. The boy remained for some 

 time unconscious. His personal physicians, Drs. Olivares and Vega, and later 



* Roth^' (p. 268, note 2) obliquely challenges the report of Da^a and supposes it to have 

 been filched from Olivares. He was evidently unaware of the existence of two reports, one 

 by Olivares and the other by Daca. He confesses, however, that he obtained his informa- 

 tion from secondary sources. Roth unjustly regards Da^a as unreliable apparently because 

 of certain derogatory remarks he made of Vesalius's surgical ability. Had he consulted the 

 original work he would have foimd that, on the contrary, Daija alwa)s speaks of Vesalius in 

 the highest terms. 



