OVERTHROW OF AUTHORITY IN SCIENCE 35 



(folio) illustrations. In this edition also the chapters are in- 

 troduced with an initial letter showing curious anatomical 

 figures in miniature, some of which are shown in Fig. 7. 



The Fabrica of Vesalius was a piece of careful, honest work, 

 the moral influence of which must not be overlooked. At any 

 moment in the world's history, work marked by sincerity ex-^ 

 ercises a wholesome influence, but at this particular stage 

 of intellectual development such work was an innovation, and 

 its significance for progress was wider and deeper than it 

 might have been under different circumstances. 



Opposition to Vesalius. The beneficent results of his 

 efforts were to unfold afterward, since, at the time, his utter- 

 ances were vigorously opposed from all sides. Not only did 

 the ecclesiastics contend that he was disseminating false and 

 harmful doctrine, but the medical men from whom he might 

 have expected sympathy and support violently opposed his 

 teachings. 



Many amusing arguments were brought forward to dis- 

 credit Vesalius, and to uphold the authority of Galen. 

 Vesalius showed that in the human body the lower jaw is 

 a single bone that it is not divided as it is in the dog and 

 other lower mammals, and, as Galen had taught, also in the 

 human subjects. He showed that the sternum, or breast 

 bone, has three parts instead of eight; he showed that the 

 thigh bones are straight and not curved, as they are in the dog. 

 Sylvius, his old teacher, was one of his bitterest opponents; 

 he declared that the human body had undergone changes in 

 structure since the time of Galen, and, with the object of de- 

 fending the ancient anatomist, " he asserted that the straight 

 thigh bones, which, as every one saw, were not curved in 

 accordance with the teaching of Galen, were the result of 

 the narrow trousers of his contemporaries, and that they 

 must have been curved in their natural condition, when un- 

 interfered with bv art! " 



