ANATOMY DURING THE EUROPEAN RENAISSANCE 85 



trol. In the winter time, he endured the cold without benefit of 

 fire; his method was to counteract this by means of violent exer- 

 cise. He had a reputation among his pupils of being miserly and 

 poverty stricken. 



In pliysical appearance, Sylvius was short, square-set and had 

 an abundant head of hair; his voice was harsh and unpleasant. 

 He remained unmarried and consequently had no one to care 

 for but himself. His debits, personality-wise, according to his as- 

 sociates were the following: he was intolerant, avaricious, dis- 

 agreeable, violent, rough, rude, vindictive and possessive of a 

 cjuick temper. He was jealous of the fame of others. His pupils 

 jeered him for these traits. On the credit side, were a quick in- 

 telligence, tenacious memory, eloquence, industry and teaching 

 ability. 



Baker ('09) believed that many authors in writing the his- 

 tory of Sylvius have been unjust. He was the first to dissect the 

 human cadaver in Paris. A great service was rendered by him 

 because he revived, popularized and gave anatomy renown. With- 

 out having been cast in the shadow of the anatomical light ema- 

 nated by his great pupil, Vesalius, he might have been regarded 

 as the chief anatomist of his age. Because of his bigoted idolization 

 of Galen, whose teachings were gospel, he came off second best 

 in his arguments with Vesalius whom he called insane, menda- 

 cious, vile and impudent. He did, however, improve on Galen's 

 terminology and distinguished between voluntary and involun- 

 tary muscles (Montagu, '53). 



Sylvius died at the age of seventy-seven years and was buried 

 unbefittingly in the Cemetery of Poor Scholars with an inscription 

 on a marker of his grave written by one of his former pupils 

 (Ball, '10): 



Sylvius lies here, who never gave anything for nothing: 



Being dead, he even grieves that you read these lines for nothing! 



Probably, more has been written about Michael Servetus 

 (1511-1553) than any other medical man of the Renaissance 

 period. Bainton ('32) gives a bibliographic list of 156 articles 

 and books which he was able to find up to 1932. This is due 



