28 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



Vesalius was born in Brussels on the last day of the year 

 1 5 14, of an ancestry of physicians and learned men, from 

 whom he inherited his leaning toward scientific pursuits. 

 Early in life he exhibited a passion for anatomy; he dissected 

 birds, rabbits, dogs, and other animals. Although having 

 a strong bent in this direction, he was not a man of single 

 talent. He was schooled in all the learning of his time, 

 and his earliest publication was a translation from the Greek 

 of the ninth book of Rhazes. After his early training at 

 Brussels and at the University of Louvain, in 1533, at the 

 age of 18, he went to Paris to study medicine, where, in 

 anatomy, he came under Sylvius and Giinther. 



His Force and Independence. — His impetuous nature was 

 shown in the amphitheatre of Sylvius, where, at the third 

 lecture, he pushed aside the clumsy surgeon barbers, and 

 himself exposed the parts as they should be. He could not 

 be satisfied with the exposition of the printed page; he must 

 see with his own eyes, must grasp through his own expe- 

 rience the facts of anatomical structure. This demand of 

 his nature shows not only how impatient he was with 

 sham, but also how much more he was in touch with reality 

 than were the men of his time. 



After three years at the French capital, owing to wars 

 in Belgium, he went back to Louvain without obtaining his 

 medical degree. After a short experience as surgeon on the 

 field of battle, he went to Padua, whither he was attracted 

 by reports of the opportunities for practical dissection that 

 he so much desired to undertake. There his talents were 

 recognized, and just after receiving his degree of Doctor of 

 Medicine in 1537, he was given a post in surgery, with the 

 care of anatomy, in the university. 



His Reform of the Teaching of Anatomy. — The sympa- 

 thetic and graphic description of this period of his career by 

 Sir Michael Foster is so good that I can not refrain from 



