VESALIUS. 73 



In 1546, three years after the publication of his great 

 work, Andreas was summoned to Ratisbon to exercise 

 his skill upon the emperor, and from that date he was 

 ranked among the court physicians. In the same year, 

 1546, in a long letter, entitled " De usu Radicis Chinae," 

 he not only treats of the medicine by which the emperor's 

 health had been restored, but he vindicates his teaching 

 against his assailants, and again gives cumulative proof 

 of the fact that Galen had dissected only brutes. 



It was the practice of Vesalius, while he was professor 

 in Italy, to issue a public notice the day before each 

 demonstration, stating the time at which it would take 

 place, and inviting all who decried his errors to attend 

 and make their own dissections from his subject, and 

 confound him openly. It does not appear that any one 

 was rash enough ever to accept the challenge ; yet, 

 although the majority of the young men were on the 

 side of Vesalius, the older teachers continued to regard 

 him as a heretic, and in 1551 Sylvius published a bitterly 

 personal attack. It was nothing to him that the results 

 of actual dissection were against him he even went so 

 far as to assert that the men of his time were constructed 

 somewhat differently to those of the time of Galen ! 

 Thus, to the proof that Vesalius gave that the carpal 

 bones were not absolutely without marrow, as Galen had 

 asserted, Sylvius replied that the bones were harder and 

 more solid among the ancients, and were, in consequence, 



