CH. ix. VESA LI 'US AND GALEN. 65 



Work of Vesalius on Anatomy, 1542. While Co- 

 pernicus was proving to himself that Ptolemy's theory of the 

 heavens was not a true one, a Belgian, named Vesalius, was 

 beginning to suspect that Galen, though a good physician, 

 had described the structure of man's body very imperfectly, 

 because he had only been allowed to dissect animals. 



Andreas Vesalius was born at Brussels in 1514. When 

 he was quite a boy he had a passionate love for anatomy, 

 and, as he 'had some little fortune, he gave up all his time 

 to this study, and often ran great risks in order to get bodies 

 to dissect ; for in those days it was still considered wicked 

 to cut up dead bodies. In the year 1540 he became Pro- 

 fessor of Anatomy at the University of Padua, in Northern 

 Italy, and two years afterwards, when he was only twenty- 

 eight years of age, he published his ' Great Anatomy,' in 

 which Human Anatomy, or the structure of man's body, was 

 carefully studied and described the different parts being 

 illustrated by the most beautiful and accurate wood engrav- 

 ings, drawn by the best Italian artists. 



In this book Vesalius pointed out that Galen, having 

 learnt his anatomy from the bodies of animals, had described 

 incorrectly almost all the bones which are peculiar to man. 

 For example, in animals the middle part of the upper jaw, 

 which holds the front and eye-teeth, is a bone separate from 

 the sides of the jaw, and even in monkeys it remains sepa- 

 rate while they are young ; but man is born with the upper 

 jaw all joined into one solid piece. Now Galen had de- 

 scribed man's upper jaw as composed of separate bones, 

 and therefore it was clear that he had made his description 

 from the skull of an animal. In all instances like this, and 

 there are many, in which man differs from animals, Vesaiius 

 showed that it was necessary to examine the human skele- 

 ton, and not to trust merely to Galen's teaching. 



