VESA LI us. 



It was not until after Vesalius had been three years 

 professor that he began to distrust the infallibility of 

 Galen's anatomical teaching. Constant practical expe- 

 rience in dissection, both human and comparative, slowly 

 convinced him that great anatomist as the " divus 

 homo " had undoubtedly been his statements were not 

 only incomplete, but often wrong ; further, that Galen 

 very rarely wrote from actual inspection of the human 

 subject, but based his teaching on a belief that the struc- 

 ture of a monkey was exactly similar to that of a man. 

 With this conviction established, Vesalius proceeded to 

 note with great care all the discrepancies between the 

 text of Galen and the actual parts which it endeavoured 

 to describe, and in this way a volume of considerable 

 thickness was soon formed, consisting entirely of annota- 

 tions upon Galen. The generally received authorities 

 being thus found to be unreliable, it became necessary in 

 the next place to collect and arrange the fundamental 

 facts of anatomy upon a new and sounder basis. To 

 this task Vesalius, at the age of twenty-five, devoted 

 himself, and began his famous work on the " Fabric of 

 the Human Body." Owing possibly to the good fortune 

 of his family, and to the income which he derived from 

 his professorships, Andreas was able to secure for his 

 work the aid of some of the best artists of the day. To 

 Jean Calcar, one of the ablest of the pupils of Titian, 

 are due the splendid anatomical plates which illustrate 



