335 



VESALIUS, ANDREAS. 



VESPASIANUS, TITUS FLAVIUS. 



3 6 



opinions and statements of Galen and the other ancient writers ; the 

 completeness of the evidence with which he supported hie own de- 

 scriptions and arguments ; the number of discoveries of structures 

 which he announced, and the more accurate accounts which he gave of 

 nearly all that had before been known ; the extent of the work, and the 

 number and unusual excellence of the plates, were enough to mark 

 the commencement of a new era in the science of medicine. 



But instead of the honour which Vesalius has received, and while 

 anatomy is studied will never fail to receive from his successors, his 

 contemporaries, or at least the most distinguished of them, heaped on 

 him the most virulent reproaches; for the authority of Galen in the 

 schools was at that time supreme, and to question was to destroy the 

 credit of all the learning to which the teachers pretended. Sylvius 

 said that Vesalius ought henceforth to be called ' Vesanus,' and 

 declared perpetual hostility against him. Piccolomini more craftily 

 inantained that all the truth Vesalius had written was taken from the 

 Galen and Hippocrates whom he calumniated ; and Driander, Putaeus, 

 Eustachius, and Fallopius, though with less virulence, each in his way 

 assailed him. Their attacks appear to have greatly irritated Vesalius, 

 who seems to have been disposed to resist the authority of the 

 ancients, not less by his temper than by his conviction that they had 

 often been in error. In 1546 he wrote 'De radicis Chinee usu Epistola,' 

 Basel, folio 1546 ; a work in which he attacked Galen with much more 

 virulence than before, but which he rendered of great interest by 

 proving, by numerous examples, that Galen's descriptions must have 

 been drawn from the dissections of monkeys and other animals, and 

 very often from the works of his predecessors without any dissections 

 at all. 



In spite of the opposition of hia contemporaries, the fame of Vesa- 

 lius, both for skill in practice and for learning in the science of medi- 

 cine, greatly increased after the publication of these works ; and 

 anatomy soon suffered much more from the honour than from the 

 abuse which was lavished upon him. About 1544 the Emperor 

 Charles V. appointed him his chief physician ; and he was gradually 

 obliged to be so constant iu his attendance on the court of that prince, 

 and afterwards of Philip II. of Spain, that anatomy was entirely 

 neglected, except in the occasional opportunities which were afforded 

 by the examination of the bodies of those who died of strange 

 diseases. In 15C1, when he wrote his 'Anatomicarum Gabrielis Fal- 

 lopii Observationum Examen,' which was published at Venice in 1564, 

 he was at Madrid, where, he says, he could not even procure a skull 

 to examine in order to settle some point on which he was in doubt; 

 and both this work and the ' Exainen Apologia) Fr. Putsei pro Galeuo,' 

 which was published, under a feigned name, at the same time and 

 place, prove, Haller says, that since he left Pisa, in 1544, he had added 

 scarcely anything to his anatomical knowledge. His knowledge of 

 practical medicine and surgery however appears to have greatly 

 increased ; and many wonderful stories are recorded of the skill with 

 which he treated those about the court. 



In 1563, or the beginning of 1564, Vesalius left suddenly Madrid 

 and the court, and went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The circum- 

 stances which led to this strange step are very doubtful. The story 

 commonly received is, that having obtained leave from the friends of 

 a Spanish gentleman, who had apparently died under his care, to 

 examine the corpse, he proceeded to the dissection, and the heart, on 

 removing it from the body, quivered in his hand. The friends, hear- 

 ing of this, accused him, riot of murder only, but of impiety, before 

 the Inquisition ; and it was only by the intercession of Philip II. that 

 he was permitted to expiate his error by a pilgrimage. There is no 

 other evidence for this tale than that it was current not long after 

 Vesalius's death ; and, on the whole, it seems more probable that he 

 left Spain in consequence of being mixed up in some of the political 

 or court plots which were at that time very numerous, and of the 

 results of which, as he was of a melancholy disposition, he might 

 very well be in fear. Whatever led to his pilgrimage, its end was 

 most disastrous. While he was at Jerusalem, in 1564, Fallopius died, 

 and the Venetian senate invited him to the vacant professorship of 

 anatomy. On his voyage to Padua, his vessel was wrecked on the isle 

 of Zante, and there the great Vesalius died of starvation, according 

 to the a.ccounts of some, but as it seems more probable of the fatigue 

 and exposur which he had suffered. 



Besides the works already mentioned, the only others that can cer- 

 tainly be ascribed to Vesalius are some ' Consilia,' published in the 

 collections of Montanus, Garetius, Ingrassias, and Scholzius; and a 

 paraphrase and translation of some of Rhazes's works. The ' Chir'ur- 

 gia Magna in septem Libros dige^ta,' which Prosper Borgaruccius pub- 

 lished at Venice, in 1568, and ascribed to Vesalius, was probably not 

 written by him, but collected by the editor from, the works of Fal- 

 lopius and others. 



Vesalius left a half-brother Francis, who refused to study the law, 

 for which his parents had destined him, and commenced the pursuit 

 of anatomy, that he might defend the memory of his brother from 

 the attacks which were made on it, not less virulently for some time 

 after his death than they had been during his life. But an early death 

 prevented his design. 



' Bibliotheca Anatomica,' t. i., p. 180, contain, together with the Life 

 of Vesalius, analyses of his chief works. 



VESPASIA'NUS, TITUS FLAVI'US, was born near Reate, in the 

 Sabine country, on the 17th of November, A.D. 9. The Flavian gens 

 had never obtained distinction, though some of its members were 

 mentioned in the history of the later period of the republic and the 

 commencement of the empire. (Suetou., ' Vesp.,' i.) Vespasian was 

 educated by his paternal grandmother Tertulla, at her estate near 

 Cosa in Etruria, and when emperor he displayed his affection for the 

 place, and instituted rites in honour of his grandmother's memory. 

 He served in Thrace as military tribune ; and having held the magis- 

 tracies of sedile and quaostor, in the latter of which he had for hi.s 

 province Crete and Cyrenaica, he became praetor. He had great dif- 

 ficulty in obtaining the acdileship or the quaeetorship (the uncertainty 

 of the text of Suetonius leaves it doubtful to which of the two magis- 

 tracies this statement refers), but the practorship was conferred on hitn 

 at his first petition, probably through the influence of Caligula, who 

 honoured him with a seat at his table. For this favour Vespasian 

 thanked the emperor in the senate. He called for extraordinary games 

 at Caligula's mock triumph over the Germans, and proposed that the 

 bodies of conspirators against the emperor should be left unburied. 

 These statements fix his prsctorship at the third year of Caligula, 

 A.D. 39. 



At this time he married Flavia Domitilla, by whom he had two 

 sons, who afterwards became the emperors TITUS and DOJIITIANDS, and 

 a daughter, Domitilla. 



Vespasian distinguished himself as a soldier in the reign of Claudius, 

 first in Germany, where he obtained the station of legatus, by tho 

 influence of Claudius's freedman Narcissus (A.D. 41-42). Thence he 

 was transferred to Britain (A.D. 43), where he served as legatus in the 

 expedition under Aulus Plautius, and under Claudius himself, with 

 such distinction that the triumphal honours were granted to him, and 

 after receiving two priestly offices within a short titne, he was advanced 

 to the consulship, which he held as Consul Suffectus during the last 

 two months of the year A.D. 51. During the interval between this 

 time and his proconsulship he remained quiet through fear of Agi-ip- 

 pina, who was bitterly hostile to the friends of Narcissus. It was 

 therefore probably after her umrder (A.D. 59) that he governed Africa 

 as proconsul. He returned, after an upright and honourable adminis- 

 tration, in such pecuniary embarrassment that, after mortgaging all 

 his landed property to his brother, he was compelled to trade in 

 slaves in order to support his rank. From this circumstance he 

 obtained the nickname of Mulio. He accompanied Nero in his tour 

 through Greece (A.D. 67) ; but having offended the emperor by falling 

 asleep or leaving the room in the midst of Lis poetical performances, 

 he was banished from the court, and had retired to an obscuro 

 city, when Nero appointed him to command in the war against the 

 revolted Jews with an army of three legions. In less than two 

 years he had conquered the whftle of Judaea except Jerusalem, when 

 he was persuaded by his son Titus, and by Muciauus, the pro-consul 

 of Syria, to assert his claim to the imperial throne, which had been 

 already marked as his by repeated omens. (Sueton., 'Vesp.,' v.) 

 The interval during which Galba, Otho, and Vitellius were struggling 

 for tho purple was spent by Vespasian in secret preparations, so that 

 when he was proclaimed emperor at Alexandria, by Tiberius Alexan- 

 der, the prefect of Egypt, on the 1st of July, A.D. 69, his cause was 

 immediately espoused by the legions of Judaea and Syria, by three 

 legions in Mocsia, and by two in Pannonia. The legions of iMovia 

 and Pannonia were brought over by Antouius Primus, who, without 

 waiting for the commands of Vespasian, or for the aid of the Syrian 

 legions, marched at once into Italy. The councils of Vitellius were 

 betrayed by Caccina, the Consul Suffectus, and his army, though 

 superior in numbers to that of Antonius, was completely routed by 

 the latter in a nocturnal battle between Bedriacum and Cremona. 

 Antonius now advanced slowly towards Rome, receiviug by the way 

 the submission of the Italian cities, while Vitellius, in a state of the 

 utmost indecision, left his cause in the hands of the populace of 

 Rome, who compelled Vespasian's brother Sabinus, the prefect of the 

 city, to take refuge with his adherents in the Capitol, which they then 

 burnt. The arrival of Antonius at once subdued the mob ; Vitellius 

 was dragged from his hiding-place, and cruelly put to death on the 

 24th of December, and the authority of Vespasian was established iu 

 Rome. [VITELLTUS.] 



The emperor now proceeded to Rome, leaving the reduction of 

 Jerusalem to his son Titus. He arrived in the city at the end of the 

 summer of the year A.D. 70, the Senate having in the mean time 

 appointed him, with his son Titus, to the consulship, and conferred 

 upon him all the accustomed imperial honours. His government has 

 obtained tho highest praise. He restored the privileges of the Senate, 

 reformed the courts of justice, restored discipline to the army and 

 order to the finances. He repaired the devastations which Rome had 

 suffered in the recent civil wars, and adorned the city with many 

 new buildings. Among the buildings which he began or completed 

 were the restoration of the Capitol, the temples of Peace and of 

 Claudius, and, above all, the Amphitheatre, which has become cele- 

 brated under the name of the Coliseum. 



Temperate in his own habits, he exerted himself to restrain luxury 

 in his subjects, and himself discharged the duties of the censorship. 



