364 HUMAN ANATOMY 



the opportunity offered for the performance of an autopsy, the 

 deviation found in one or a few cases was not sufficient to shake 

 an authority as well founded as Galen's. For that, a material was 

 required like that on which Vesalius worked, and a mind like his 

 own to interpret it. 



Andreas Vesalius (1515 to 1564, his period is usually given, 

 although neither date is certain) and Gabriel Fallopius made a 

 new departure in anatomy. They replaced uncertain data, mostly 

 founded on chance observations and on animal dissections, by 

 systematically arranged observations, based on methodical inves- 

 tigations of human bodies. I name Fallopius with Vesalius, not 

 only because he immediately corrected many false ideas of the latter, 

 but because he was one of the most accurate observers whom we 

 find in anatomic literature, and therefore, in his short life (1523 

 to 1562) made so many discoveries in the realm of descriptive 

 anatomy that he was equaled by no one before or since, and finally 

 because we have received from him the first orderly attempt toward 

 a general anatomy. As third among the founders of scientific ana- 

 tomy, Eustachius of Rome, the contemporary of Vesalius, must be 

 mentioned. 



Even before the time of Vesalius, comparatively systematic autop- 

 sies on human bodies had been undertaken, especially in Italy, and 

 even in a scientific way, and with the agreement of the government. 

 This was the case in Bologna, Venice, Rome, Florence, Padua, and 

 other places. Padua possessed as early as 1446 an anatomic theatre. 

 Vesalius himself, born in Brussels, received the greater part of his 

 anatomic education at Paris and Louvain. Thus we see that the 

 final complete revolution was to some extent prepared for, as new 

 periods always have their dawn. 



From Johannes Miiller and his pupil Schwann we must date the 

 last period of the development of our knowledge. Men like Malpighi, 

 Morgagni, William Harvey, Albrecht von Haller, and K. E. von Baer, 

 have, indeed, carved lasting marks in the flourishing tree of our 

 science by their brilliant discoveries and well-founded systematic 

 compilation of contemporary anatomic studies, as well as by fruitful 

 comparisons of the same, with allied sciences, but none of these had 

 the same epoch-making influence as Miiller and Schwann. The found- 

 ing of the cell-doctrine by Schwann, 1839, which first made possible 

 a scientific general anatomy and histology, was the most influential. 

 At the same time, through the action of Miiller's genius, another 

 spirit was introduced into anatomic descriptions in general anatomy, 

 as well as in embryology and comparative anatomy, of which the 

 composition of Henle's text-book of systematic anatomy on the one 

 hand, and Gegenbaur's work on the other, give proof. At the same 

 time the text-books of histology and general anatomy, as well as those 



