OVERTHROW OF AUTHORITY IN SCIENCE 27 



to time dogs were brought into the amphitheater and their 

 structure exposed by unskilled barbers. 



Vesalius. — Vesalius now came upon the scene; and 

 through his efforts, before he was thirty years of age, the idol 

 of authority had been shattered, and, mainly through his 

 persistence, the method of so great moment to future ages 

 had been established. He was well fitted to do battle against 

 tradition — strong in body, in mind, and in ])urpose, gifted 

 and forceful; and, furthermore, his work was m.arked by 

 concentration and by the high moral quality of fidelity to 

 truth. 



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 Gunther. 



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 



