78 FATHERS OF BIOLOGY. 



of it, and caused it to be published without delay. It 

 appeared at Venice in I564. 1 



The letter on the China root a plant we know nowa- 

 days as sarsaparilla by the use of which the emperor's 

 recovery was effected, has been already referred to. It 

 was addressed to the anatomist's friend, Joachim Roelants. 

 Very little space, however, is taken up with a description 

 of the medicine which gives title to the letter. Some- 

 thing certainly is said of the history and nature of the 

 plant, the preparation of the decoction and its effects ; 

 but the writer soon introduces the subject which was at 

 that time of very vital importance to him, namely, his 

 position with regard to the statements of Galen and his 

 followers. He collects together various assertions of the 

 Greek anatomist, on the bones, the muscles and liga- 

 ments, the relations of veins and arteries, the nerves, 

 the character of the peritoneum, the organs of the thorax, 

 the skull and its contents, etc., and shows from each and 

 all of these that reference had not been made to the 

 human subject, and that therefore the statements were 

 unreliable. 



To the work on the " Fabric of the Human Body " we 

 have already alluded, as well as to the causes which led 

 to its being written. More than half of this great treatise 



1 See Professor Morley's article on " Anatomy in Long Clothes," 

 in Eraser's Magazine, 1853, from which most of the facts in this 

 sketch have been taken. 



