VESALIUS. 67 



Louvain the youth went to Paris, where he studied 

 anatomy under a most distinguished physician, Sylvius. 

 It was the practice of that illustrious professor to read 

 to his class Galen on the " Use of Parts," omitting nearly 

 all the sections where exact knowledge of anatomical 

 detail was necessary. Sometimes an attempt was made 

 to illustrate the lecture by the dissection of a dog, but 

 such illustration more often exposed the professor's 

 ignorance than it added to the student's knowledge. 

 Indirectly, however, it did good, for whenever Sylvius, 

 after having tried in vain to demonstrate some muscle, 

 or nerve, or vein, left the room, his pupil Vesalius slipped 

 down to the table, dissected out the part with great neat- 

 ness, and triumphantly called the professor's attention to 

 it on his return. 



Besides studying under Sylvius, Vesalius had for his 

 teacher at Paris the famous Winter, of Andernach, who 

 was physician to Francis I. This learned man, in a work 

 published three years after this period, speaks of Vesalius 

 as a youth of great promise. At the age of nineteen 

 Vesalius returned to Louvain ; and here for the first time 

 he openly demonstrated from the human subject. In 

 this connection a somewhat ghastly story is told, which 

 serves to show the intensity of the enthusiasm with which 

 our anatomist was inspired. On a certain evening it 

 chanced that Vesalius, in company with a friend, had 

 rambled out of the gates of Louvain to a spot where the 



