ANATOMY. 



Irdgc which these sketches discover, and 

 does not hesitate in considering' Leonardo 

 as \he best anatomist of that time. 



About tin- middle of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury the great Vesalius appeared. He was 

 h;)rn at Brussels, and studied successive- 

 ly at the different universities of France 

 And Italy. Thus he acquired all the know- 

 ledge of antiquity. Not contented with 

 this, he took every opportunity of examin- 

 ing the human body, and followed the 

 army of the emperor Charles V. into 

 France for that purpose. Vesalius was 

 the first who maintained that dissection 

 was the proper way of learning anatomy, 

 in opposition to the study of the works of 

 Galen. His extensive researches into the 

 structure of man and animals led him to 

 detect the errors of Galen, which he freely 

 exposed, shewing from many parts of his 

 works, that this great man had described 

 the human body from the dissection of 

 brutes. This conduct, which should have 

 excited the admiration and esteem of his 

 contemporaries, served only to rouse in 

 their minds the base and sordid passions of 

 jealousy and envy. Galen had held an. 

 undisputed sway over the minds of men 

 for many centuries. His works were re- 

 garded as the only source of anatomical 

 knowledge, and his opinion on medical 

 subjects, like that of Aristotle in philoso- 

 phv, was resorted to in all disputes as final 

 and decisive proof. The first' man who 

 penetrated this intellectual mist, and 

 erected the standard of reason and truth, 

 in opposition to that of prejudice and au- 

 thority, might naturally expect to encoun- 

 ter the opposition of those who had been 

 contented to go on in the beaten track. 

 The anatomists, who had always held up 

 Galen in their lectures as the source of 

 all information, were indignant that his 

 faults should be discovered and laid open 

 by so young a man as Vesalius. The con- 

 troversies which arose from this cause 

 were favourable to the progress of anato- 

 my, as the several disputants were obliged 

 to confirm their own opinions, or invali- 

 date those of their opponents, by argu- 

 ments drawn from dissection. 



Vesalius published, at the age of 25, liis 

 grand work on the structure of the human 

 body, with numerous elegant figures, sup- 

 posed to have been drawn by the celebra- 

 ted Titian. This work contains such a 

 mass of new information, that it may just ]y 

 be considered as forming an xra in the 

 history of anatomy We cannot help being 

 surprised that so young a man could have 

 investigated the subject so deeply, at a 

 lime when dissection was esteemed sacri- 

 .-. and wus therefore carried on se- 



cretly, with great danger and difficulty. 

 The great reputation of Vesalius procured 

 for him the esteem and confidence of 

 Charles V. who made him his physician, 

 and kept him about his person in all his 

 expeditions. His zeal for science proved 

 the cause of his death : for having opene-d 

 a person too soon, the heart \vas seen to 

 palpitate. He was condemned to perform 

 a pilgrimage to Jerusalem ; and as he was 

 returning to take the place of anatomical 

 professor at Venice, he was shipwrecked 

 on the island of Zante, and perished of 

 hunger. It would be unjust to pass over 

 unnoticed the names of Fallopius and of 

 Eustachius, who were contemporary with 

 Vesalius, and contributed greatly to the 

 advancement of anatomy. The anatomical 

 plates drawn and engraved by the latter 

 are executed with an accuracy which can- 

 not fail to excite surprise, even in an ana- 

 tomist of the present day. 



From the time of Vesalius, the study of 

 anatomy gradually diffused itself over Eu- 

 rope ; insomuch, that for the last hundred 

 and fifty years it hasbeen daily: improving 

 by the labour of many professed anatomists 

 in almost every country of Europe. 



In the year 1628, our immortal country- 

 man, Harvey, published his discovery of 

 the circulation of the blood. It was by far 

 the most important step that has been 

 made in the knowledge of animal bodies in 

 any age. It not only reflected useful 

 lights upon what had been already found 

 out in anatomy, but also pointed out the 

 means of further investigation; and accord- 

 ingly we see that, from Harvey to the pre- 

 sent time, anatomy has been so much im- 

 proved, that we may reasonably question- 

 if the ancients have been further outdone 

 by the moderns in any other branch of 

 knowledge. From one day to another 

 there has been a constant succession of 

 discoveries, relating either to the structure 

 or functions of our body ; and new anato- 

 mical processes, both of investigation and 

 demonstration, have been daily in- 

 Many parts of the body, which were not 

 known in Harvey's time, have sinr< 

 been broughtto light ; and of those which 

 were known, the internal composition and 

 functions remained unexplained ; and in- 

 deed must have remained inexplicable, 

 without the knowledge of the circulation. 



The principal facts relating to this sub- 

 ject were known before the time of Har- 

 vey : it remained for him to reject thepe- 

 cious conjectures then maintained con- 

 cerningthe blood's motion, and to examine 

 the truth of those facts which were then 

 known, and by experiments to discover 

 those which remained to be detected 



