n] Circulation of the Blood. 31 



Galenic doctrine which he felt in 1543. Columbus almost exactly 

 repeats Servetus' words. 



Moreover we have clear evidence that in the same book 

 De Re Anatomica he did claim as his own discovery, something 

 which we know he learnt from others. In that work he states 

 that he was the first to describe the third ossicle of the ear, 

 the stapes. But we know from Falloppius that the stapes 

 was first observed and described by John Philipp Ingrassias of 

 Palermo, or rather of Rachelburg, a Sicilian of eminence, who 

 ultimately succeeded Vesalios as physician to Philip II. 

 Ingrassias' discovery was made known in 1548 to Falloppius, who 

 inquiring of his friends at Rome about it was assured by them 

 that neither Columbus nor any one else had ever mentioned it. 



We have here evidence not only of a theft but of a bold 

 theft, of an unabashed attempt to assert ownership of the thing 

 thieved. He who sins once may be looked for to sin again ; and 

 we may with reason suspect that Columbus' asserted discovery 

 of the pulmonary circulation was not his own but Servetus'. 



Still the fact remains that this marked departure from the 

 Galenic doctrine was clearly enunciated by him, and that not, 

 as had been done by Servetus, in an out of the way manner as 

 a link in a theological argument, but conspicuously as part of a 

 description of the heart in an important anatomical treatise. 



Of a very different stamp to Columbus was Andreas 

 Caesalpinus. Born at Arezzo in 1519, he was for many years 

 Professor of Medicine at Pisa, namely from 1567 to 1592, when 

 he passed to Rome where he became Professor at the Sapienza 

 University, and physician to Pope Clement VIII., and where 

 at a ripe old age he died in 1603. 



If Columbus lacked general culture Caesalpinus was drowned 

 in it. Learned in all the learning of the ancients and an 

 enthusiastic Aristotelian, he also early laid hold of all the new 

 learning of the time. Naturalist as well as physician, he 

 taught at Pisa Botany as well as Medicine, being from 1555 

 to 1575 Professor of Botany with charge of the Botanic garden 

 founded there in 1543, the first of its kind, one remaining 

 until the present day. 



He made no marked contribution, of a clear and definite 



