THE RENAISSAN 133 



his most lasting innovation was the application of 

 the chemical knowledge, gained by alchemists in their 

 search for gold, to medical problems. " Chemical 

 medicine " marked the follower of Paracelsus, and 

 for long distinguished him from an orthodox Galenic 

 school. Chemistry began to develop in new directions 

 when it was studied for the sake of discovering 

 substances to cure disease, as well as for the illusive 

 vision of metallic transmutation. 



In 1543, Andreas Vesalius, a Fleming by birth, 

 trained in the French school and afterwards professor 

 simultaneously at Padua, Bologna and Pisa, published 

 a book on human anatomy, founded, not on what 

 Galen taught, but on what he himself had seen in 

 dissection and was prepared to demonstrate in the 

 lecture-room. But he was denounced to the Inquisi- 

 tion, forced as a penance to undertake a pilgrimage 

 to the Holy Land, was wrecked and probably devoured 

 by wild beasts on the coast of Zante. 



Nevertheless, before the end of the sixteenth century, , 

 anatomy, first of all the sciences, was freed from the 

 William trammels of ancient authority. Physiology 

 Harvey. i a y longer in bondage, till William Harvey, 

 who had studied in Italy, was led " to give his mind 

 to vivisections," and thereby made clear the true 

 mechanism of the circulation of the blood " of 

 motion as it were in a circle." 



William Harvey's life and work deserve more than 

 a passing reference. He was born in 1578, the son of 

 a prosperous Kentish yeoman or small squire, and 

 died in 1657. After studying in Cambridge, he spent 

 five years abroad, chiefly in Padua. Returning to 



