RENAISSANCE lOI 



century, so that nothing was to be expected from them in the way of biologi- 

 cal development. Then a man came upon the scene who at once led anatomi- 

 cal research into a completely new direction, created an entirely original 

 method of procedure, and thus started a new era in the history of science. 



Andreas Vesalius was born in 15 14 or 15 15 at Brussels, of a family 

 which had taken its name from the district of Wesel in the Rhine Province and 

 which for several generations had been devoted to the medical profession. He 

 himself chose the same profession and prepared himself for it by a thorough 

 school-education. Though his studies were exclusively humanistic, for there 

 was no other kind of education given in the schools of those times, the young 

 Vesalius was able in his own way to satisfy his craving for biological knowl- 

 edge; he studied ancient anatomical works which he found in the family 

 library and himself dissected animals of various kinds which he managed to 

 procure. At the age of eighteen he went to Paris in order to study medicine 

 seriously. There, however, Sylvius, whom we have mentioned above, was the 

 ruling spirit, with his classical-philological method of education. Vesalius 

 had again to rely upon his own resources. And his force of will enabled him 

 to make a way for himself. He began to collect bones from the places of 

 execution and went on with his dissection of animals. Soon he acquired such 

 a reputation that he was called upon by physicians and students to perform 

 public dissecting operations on human bodies in place of the surgeon, and he 

 fulfilled his task so well that not only the internal organs of the corpse, bui; 

 also the muscles, nerves, blood-vessels, and bones were completely demon- 

 strated. After three years he left Paris, worked at his home for a brief period — 

 in the course of which he succeeded, inter alia, in putting together a complete 

 skeleton out of bones from the gallows — and then went to Italy. In Venice, 

 where there existed at that time a very keen interest in medicine, he increased 

 both his learning and his reputation, with the result that, immediately after 

 he had graduated, he was appointed professor at Padua, at the age of twenty- 

 two, after only four years of study. He could hardly have wished for a more 

 satisfactory field of activities. An enlightened government, an interested 

 audience, and a thoroughly educated public all equally favoured the attain- 

 ment of his ambitions. And, indeed, Vesalius surpassed all expectations. His 

 interest in his science was indefatigable and his enthusiasm for imparting 

 his knowledge inexhaustible. His demonstrations on dissection used to 

 bring together as many as five hundred listeners, and this in spite of what, 

 according to the ideas of his time, were unheard-of claims that he put upon 

 his audience, which he kept busy from morning to night for a space of three 

 weeks. Dissection lectures, which were always held in the winter so that 

 the material should not putrefy, began with a demonstration of the skeleton, 

 the bones of which were carefully gone over; then the muscles, blood-vessels, 

 and nerves of one corpse were prepared, and finally the internal organs of the 



