ANATOMICAL ILLUSTRATION 987 
given. The ethics of the rights of intellectual property were 
unrecognized. The earliest printed sketches were derived. from 
manuscript sources and, these, in turn, were based upon the tra- 
ditional anatomy, chiefly of Galen and his commentators. Now 
and then a touch of original observation was added to the tradi- 
tional figures but they were not perfected. _Dependenceon author- 
ity was still the deep-seated method of the intellectual life, 
and the rise of independent observation was slow. But, the better 
intellects were opposing it, and with all these limitations the light 
of the renaissance was breaking. Dependence on authority 
was giving way, and, finally, thanks to the work of his predecessors, 
Vesalius was able to establish a new method based on observation 
and reason. With the publication of his Fabrica in 1543, there 
was ushered in the era of good illustrations of anatomy. The 
prevailing mental habit of the time was now at least partly over- 
come and the era of independent observation was started. 
